Residents and community organisations (Palm Beach & Whale Beach and Careel Bay Residents Associations) opposing a packaged liquor licence granted to Dan Murphy's at Careel Head Road, Avalon Beach, are pursuing a formal appeal before the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal (NCAT), arguing that the Independent Liquor & Gaming Authority (ILGA) approved the licence on a basis the Liquor Act 2007 does not recognise.
ILGA's own decision, published in April, acknowledges that the licence is likely to increase alcohol-related harm in the area, citing higher-than-average domestic assault rates, liquor outlet density and alcohol-related hospitalisation rates across the area. The decision also records that 34 residents formally objected, along with NSW Health and the council.
Despite this, ILGA approved the application on the basis that it would provide the community with "increased convenience and choice" — a consideration the co-applicants say the Liquor Act does not direct the Authority to weigh in its public interest test.
“ILGA identified the very harms the Act exists to guard against, and then approved the licence anyway, on a footing the Act simply doesn’t recognise,” said Ian Spencer, spokesperson for the co-applicants.
“Convenience and choice for whom, at what cost to the people who live beside it? That’s the question this appeal is about.”
The co-applicants are also challenging the decision on the grounds that the premises is inappropriately located beside a childcare centre, that the area is already oversupplied with liquor outlets — eight already operate in the suburb — and that the harm-minimisation conditions attached to the licence fail to address either issue.
Before the substantive appeal can proceed, the co-applicants have had to contest a preliminary challenge to their standing to bring it at all. The Authority did not disclose a 100-metre notification radius rule until 17 July, two days before the first hearing and after the original appeal period had closed.
An independent door-knock by residents subsequently identified many residents within the radius who had never been notified of the application — some of whom have since sworn statutory declarations or made statements to the contrary directly contradicting the licence holder's own sworn evidence that they were personally served.
Separately, the co-applicants have identified that the licence applicant relied on two conflicting maps of the 100-metre notification radius, neither of which was properly measured against the site's cadastral boundary.
Independent boundary-based mapping undertaken by the co-applicants shows the true notification area to be materially larger than either map used by the applicant. This matters as it indicates a significant number of residents were not notified about the liquor licence application. The legislation requires residents to be notified.
These matters were put before NCAT at an interlocutory hearing on standing on 7 September 2026. The co-applicants say the delay in raising them was not of their own making, that the underlying case is a strong one, and that any prejudice in the matter falls on the community — not the Authority or the licensee — if the appeal is not permitted to proceed to a full hearing on the evidence.
A decision is expected from NCAT within 2-3 weeks.
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