Thomas Kwok

Expertise

Thomas is a specialist in planning, environment, administrative and government law with over 15 years’ experience helping both private and public sector clients achieve ambitious goals. Thomas’ expertise is particularly sought where clients are faced with complex legal problems requiring clear thinking and a confident pathway forward. With significant experience in the private sector and as a senior executive lawyer in the NSW Government, including as General Counsel of a government authority, Thomas deploys his expertise and experience to find practical and robust solutions for clients when it matters most.

In 2024, Thomas was recognised as Planning and Environment Partner of the Year in the Lawyers Weekly Partner of the Year Awards.

Experience

Thomas’s experience includes:

• advising on the legality of a unique suite of consent conditions, providing the client with a clear pathway to grant consent for a prominent development in the resources and energy sector
• unlocking significant value for a client in the education sector by confirming the permissibility of a unique and complex, multi-faceted precinct development
• leading the drafting of major legislative amendments to the Mining Act 1992 and the Petroleum (Onshore) Act 1991
• advising on permissibility and regulatory issues in relation to aged care and seniors living for a prominent institutional developer
• advising on a range of complex rezoning, planning and development issues for a high net worth emerging developer
• leading on prominent and successful major litigation to defend the validity of a development consent granted for the demolition phase of a social infrastructure redevelopment
• preparing a successful prosecution relating to the dumping of waste in waters, under a provision of the Protection of the Environment Operations Act 1997 which had not been previously tested
• being brought in for his specialist expertise in the drafting of legislation and government instruments, to review and overhaul the EPA’s draft Coastal Integrated Forestry Operations Approval and Protocols, and to provide a final to ensure robust internal consistency of drafting and usability ‘in the field’
• drafting various instruments and agreements for Government clients, including unique transitional agreements relating to the legislative overhaul of the coal mine subsidence regime, and key constitutional and procedural documents for agencies, such as instruments of delegation.