The Napthine government is set to rush through retrospective laws to stop Victoria's coastline falling into private hands, reversing a decision to extend billionaire trucking magnate Lindsay Fox's Portsea property by 45 metres onto the beach.
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It follows a controversial Christmas Eve decision by the titles office, revealed in The Sunday Age, to give the billionaire an additional 2400 square metres of beach for his cliff-top property in Portsea.
Planning Minister Matthew Guy - who is incensed by the decision - said the government hoped to make legislative changes by the end of June to clarify the high-water mark.
''The government needs to intervene and clarify those titles. The changes might say the high-water mark at the time of purchase or at a particular time,'' he told The Age. ''We are not going to subject the people of Victoria to a loss of beach access simply because of a 1900s definition.''
Mr Guy said he needed to act quickly to ensure the titles office was not flooded with similar requests after the precedent set by its treatment of Mr Fox.
He said he would also look at zoning changes along the coast.
''This is obviously a pretty dramatic decision because it has impacts that will have a precedent and [result in] significant loss of public space. It's not about Lindsay Fox, it is about the precedent of any individual to claim a large portion of public land as their own.''
Mr Guy said the Solicitor-General's office refused to provide him with the legal advice that informed the titles office's decision, saying it was privileged.
''I imagine in the next 24 hours there will probably be a change of heart, because we are not going to tolerate this occurring again and having to go through the mess of a retrospective clean-up,'' a fired-up Mr Guy told Fairfax radio.
He described as ''curious'' the timing of the titles office's Christmas Eve decision - he found out about it only a few weeks ago.
In the past 17 years the Fox family has made three attempts to extend its title further onto Point King Beach, despite stiff community opposition.
Land titles office documents reveal that on Christmas Eve officials finally accepted the old legal principle of the ''doctrine of accretion'' in relation to Mr Fox's property. This principle lets owners of properties that abut a coastline to apply to have their title extended when sand builds up on a beach and the high-water mark recedes.
Mr Fox's neighbour, Kate Baillieu, said residents were shocked but not surprised by Mr Fox's ''land grab''. ''A lot of people have been coming up to me today and saying, 'how dare he'. The word 'greedy' was used a lot.''
The Department of Transport, Planning and Local Infrastructure, which is responsible for the titles office, would not comment.
Opposition scrutiny of government spokesman Martin Pakula said: ''The dysfunction and lack of focus at the core of this government now means that public beach is just being given away.''
