New legislation on the management of coastal erosion has once again stirred debate over the amount of control landowners should be given to protect their properties.
With three-quarters of Australians living on the coast, the issue is being discussed at all levels of government.
In New South Wales, the State Government is putting together new legislation which could - for the first time - give landowners the right to erect emergency barriers to shield their properties.
The legislation is aimed at preventing court cases similar to one that played out recently in Byron Bay on the NSW north coast, where landowner John Vaughan took the council to court for the right to defend his land.
Over the past decade Mr Vaughan has been fighting to defend his property from the encroaching sea, but he says his biggest battle has been against the local council in the courts.
"I have already moved the house back once after a major event in 1999, and hopefully we won't have to do that again," he said.
"[The council] stopped me by an interim injunction of rebuilding approved works which council had put in place in 2001.
"There was very nice landscaping and field rock walls on the front yard which adjoins the ocean, and there were some beautiful 20 or 30-feet-high ... pandanus trees, all of which, once they were undercut, fell down onto the beach during a storm event."
Mr Vaughan said the trees crumbled into the ocean because of the lack of protection and because of his inability to put in short-term works that would have saved them.
But under the legislation being considered by the NSW Government, he would not have needed council approval to protect his land.
"It makes clear what you can and can't [do] during times of emergency, and any clarity in that would have avoided the serious waste of money that happened in the court incident with Byron Council last year," he said.