The southeast Australian margin, like other high elevation passive margins, is characterised by a steep escarpment that separates a dissected coastal plain from a low relief inland plateau. Quantitative constraints on the generation of escarpments can be provided by apatite (U–Th)/He ages. Here we use a coast-perpendicular traverse across the coastal lowlands, escarpment and plateau to test the three prevailing models of SE Australian escarpment formation, namely retreat into a downwarped rift shoulder, escarpment retreat and down-wearing on high elevation rift shoulder with flexural rebound. Apatites from the coastal plain have He ages of between 87 and 112 Ma, suggesting that the coastal lowlands developed very rapidly after rifting and continental break-up at 85–100 Ma. The He age data are inconsistent with the erosion of a downwarped rift margin, and cannot be explained by a constant post-break-up rate of lateral escarpment retreat across the coastal plain or by constant down-wearing. The data require either rapid escarpment retreat or rapid in-place excavation of the escarpment soon after break-up, in response to rifting and the lowering of base levels on the margin of the new continent at break-up, followed by a period of landscape stability and low erosion. Combined with the existing apatite fission track record, the He data are consistent with erosion of 3–4 km within a maximum of 28 Myr of break-up, at a minimum vertical erosion rate of 130 m Myr⁻¹ along the coast. The rapid denudation period across the coastal plain in this region took less than 48 Myr (from the coast to the escarpment base), which corresponds to an average vertical erosion rate of 45 m Myr⁻¹. This is equivalent to a mean escarpment retreat rate of 5–10 km Myr⁻¹. Apatite He ages from the plateau (183–247 Ma) indicate that the highlands remained stable throughout continental break-up, experiencing average erosion rates of less than 10 m Myr⁻¹ since the late Palaeozoic/early Mesozoic.