Robert Frost’s famous line — “Good fences make good neighbours” — is often treated as rural gospel. Mark the boundary, keep the peace, and move on. But a dispute now heading through the NSW Supreme Court shows how quickly a fence can become something far bigger than timber, wire and posts.
In a case attracting national attention, disability pensioner and hobby farmer Kathy Pope has commenced proceedings against Gina Rinehart personally, arising from a long-running conflict over more than 12 kilometres of boundary fencing on the NSW Northern Tablelands.
On one side is a small landholder, self-represented and alleging years of stock losses and escalating stress. On the other is Australia’s wealthiest person, backed by corporate resources and legal teams. The media has framed it as “David versus Goliath”, but the legal questions are timeless: what was promised, what was relied on, and what is a court prepared to enforce when things unravel in the bush?
A boundary fence becomes a battleground
The dispute traces back to 2018, when Hancock Prospecting interests purchased the vast Sundown Valley cattle station, which surrounds Ms Pope’s property, “Allawah”. Ms Pope had bought her 157-hectare farm in 2016 for $220,000, two years before Ms Rinehart arrived in the district.
According to Ms Pope, the fence separating the properties was in poor condition and animal movement across the boundary was a constant problem. She alleges that soon after Ms Rinehart’s arrival, the neighbours reached a verbal agreement: Ms Pope would pay for the fencing materials, while the Hancock side would supply the labour, machinery and practical assistance to complete the works.
From 2020 to early 2021, Ms Pope says she sourced around 12 kilometres of fencing materials, financed by a $100,000 loan from the NSW Rural Assistance Authority and $20,000 from her own savings. In her estimation, that figure would have covered roughly half the fencing cost at the time.
By 2022, Ms Pope says work had commenced and about 800 metres of “exclusion fencing” had been constructed within a few weeks. She also claims Hancock Prospecting contributed about $25,000 towards the materials.
Then the work stopped.
The following year, Ms Pope says she attended a site meeting where she was told there was no binding agreement requiring Hancock Prospecting to undertake fencing works.
That moment is the spark that turns a practical rural project into a legal dispute.
The legal fault lines: contract, reliance and dividing fences
Fencing disputes are common. Supreme Court litigation about fencing is not.
The first legal question is whether there was a binding agreement at all. Australian law does not require contracts to be in writing. Verbal contracts can be enforceable. But they are notoriously difficult to prove, especially when the arrangement involves substantial works, long timeframes, and shifting personnel on large properties.
The second question is whether Ms Pope can rely on equitable principles even if the court finds there was no enforceable contract. The most obvious candidate is promissory estoppel — the doctrine that may prevent a party from backing away from a promise where another person reasonably relied on it and suffered detriment as a result.
On Ms Pope’s version of events, reliance is front and centre: she borrowed and spent around $120,000 on materials on the footing that the work would be finished. If that reliance is proven, the court may consider whether it would be unconscionable for the other side to walk away without consequence.
However, the defence position reported by The Age is that the matter is simply a dividing fences dispute between Ms Pope’s hobby farm and a Hancock pastoral entity, “Pastoral Properties (SV) Pty Ltd”, and that the allegations are rejected.
That framing matters. NSW dividing fences legislation is designed to resolve practical questions: what is a “sufficient” fence, what standard is required, and how costs should be shared. It is not necessarily designed to compensate someone for broader loss flowing from a failed informal arrangement.
In other words, the legal fight may come down to this: is this about enforcing a promise, or is it about apportioning fencing costs under a statutory regime?
The human element: when “bush code” meets courtroom rules
What makes this case compelling is not only the law, but the imbalance of power and resources. Ms Pope says she has been self-represented and was unable to secure lawyers or litigation funding. She says her attempts to contact Ms Rinehart were shut down, with her communications characterised as pestering and redirected to lawyers.
The hearing is listed before Justice David Hammerschlag on 5 February. Whatever the outcome, the case is a reminder that property disputes rarely stay “small” once trust breaks down.
Because in rural Australia, a fence is not just a boundary. It is security, safety, stock control, and sometimes a handshake made real. When that handshake is disputed years later, the court can only decide on what can be proven — not what either party feels should have happened.
And that is why, in law as in life, good fences still matter.
Source: Lucy Macken, “Gina Rinehart taken to court by disability pensioner neighbour in David versus Goliath fence dispute”, The Age, 30 January 2026.