Outback Wrangler Matt Wright and wife fighting legal battle over helicopters at their home

Outback Wrangler Matt Wright and his wife Kaia are involved in a tense legal battle with Northern Territory planning officials over using part of his residential property as a helipad. 

Mr Wright, 43, who stars in Wild Croc Territory on Netflix alongside his model wife, who is also an Instagram influencer, are in the midst of a three-month dispute with the NT’s Development Consent Authority (DCA). 

The spat concerns helicopters being used at the couple’s Virginia property, just south of Darwin, which is zoned as a rural living area.

Documents from the Northern Territory Civil and Administrative Tribunal (NTCAT) obtained by NT News reveal the DCA became involved after two formal complaints were lodged about choppers taking off, flying and landing during four days in 2021.

The DCA issued an enforcement notice saying the couple were breaching zoning laws by using the property to operate aircraft.

Mr Wright operates a company called Helibrook, one of the NT’s largest helicopter businesses

‘The Applicants have admitted, and there is no dispute, that Matthew Wright uses an unspecified area of the property as a place used for the landing or takeoff of helicopters,’ the DCA wrote.

‘(It is the DCA’s) belief that the Applicants have contravened, are contravening and will contravene … the Planning Act.’

But the famous couple argued they have ‘existing use’ rights to operate helicopters at the sprawling address.

They claimed that because they bought the property in 2017, before rules around landing sites were tightened in 2019, and the primary use of the property had not changed from rural living they weren’t contravening the Planning Act.

The DCA argued that was ‘irrelevant’ and changes to the Planning Act needed to be followed regardless.

NTCAT president Mark O’Reilly was told on Friday legal teams from both sides were ready to present their cases and a two-hour hearing would follow in June or July. 

The Wrights are also seeking to have their legal costs covered should they win.

The DCA is also fighting this, saying the couple were given multiple opportunities to resolve the matter with the DCA before it went to the tribunal.

Mr Wright is separately fighting another legal battle associated with a fatal helicopter crash involving an aircraft piloted by a contractor and registered to his company Helibrook that went down during a crocodile egg collecting trip.

Mr Wright, known as the Outback Wrangler, has had a number of successful TV shows