Interesting how this gentleman thinks he can just ignore the law. Its like he's living in his own little world. Won't end well for him me thinks. ‘Inciting violence’: Islamic charity defies courts
Of course you can ignore planning laws, tax law, road rules etc UNTIL you get caught. Then it's dependent upon the will of the regulator whether to enforce it.
My next door neighbour decided to do some development himself. He's on a large heavily sloping battleaxe block, somewhat similar to mine. With a lot of trees. Until recently. He already had a four door garage in the back corner. He started cutting down most of the trees, then built up all the area with 1.5 m of earth, within 1m of our mutual fence, without retaining walls or consideration of water runoff or privacy. I enquired at the local council, and found that it had not been approved. Even cutting down significant trees requires approval. So work had to stop completely until he submitted development plans to the council. The DA is in the process of being approved, but it will at least (apparently) include retaining walls close to my fence.
We have done a few DA's for Mosques or prayer rooms. The level of reaction from the public almost reaches the level of hatred of someone daring to put in an application for units in Bulimba, West End or Ascot...... Have had councils work hard to try and find a way through or suggest multiple incremental DA's so that it doesn't trigger impact assessment (and therefore public notification) because they know what they will need to respond to if it subject to advertising. I am atheist (unless you count pastafarianism) and generally not a fan of religious intrusions into other people's lives, nor a fan of exemptions from taxation etc. BUT interestingly, albeit a small sample, dealing with the islamic groups has been more pleasurable compared with a couple of church groups we have. Much more humble, easy to work etc. Only done a couple of church groups but the deacons in one and the elders in the other were very demanding and generally not nice people to work with, which is not what I was expecting.