A prime Sydney property handed over to an Aboriginal group years ago is still the subject of a complicated dispute as the battle heads to the High Court.
Paddington Bowling Club, located 4km south-east of Sydney’s CBD, closed in 2015 and was reclaimed as Crown land in 2021, which the government then quickly handed over to the La Perouse Aboriginal Land Council.
But the 80,000-square-foot site, which included a clubhouse, bowling greens and adjacent tennis courts, was at the time leased by a company called Quarry Street, run by the founder of outdoor clothing brand Kathmandu.
Tasmanian resident Jan Cameron made $247 million in 2006 when she sold her 51 percent stake in Kathmandu to an American investment firm and stepped down from the company, briefly making her Australia’s fourth-richest woman.
The businesswoman and philanthropist is no longer involved with Quarry Street, as she is embroiled in her own legal dispute after being fined for using a Caribbean tax haven to hide $14 million worth of shares in a company that makes baby formula.
Ms Cameron has appealed and has previously said that her company, which bought the shares, the Elsie Cameron Foundation, “doesn’t pay tax anyway… people who think this is tax avoidance are completely wrong”. Ms Cameron has been contacted for further comment.
Quarry Street, now led by Hobart lawyer Ben Swain, challenged the return of the Paddington Bowling Club to the Indigenous group in the Land and Environment Court.
He sided with the traditional owners, but Quarry Street later succeeded in overturning that decision in the New South Wales Court of Appeal.
This week, the La Perouse Aboriginal Land Council was granted special leave to appeal that decision, setting the stage for a showdown in the High Court. The Sydney Morning Herald reported.
Paddington Bowling Club is located just 4km from Sydney city centre and would be a highly sought-after location for developers.
The dispute over whether a private company or an Aboriginal group will gain control of the site will be resolved in the High Court later this year.
The development follows an Indigenous corporation opposing a billion-dollar gold mine being built in the New South Wales outback by unsuccessfully attempting to have every stream, lake and river in the same area registered as an Aboriginal heritage site.
Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek recently blocked the proposed site for a gold mine tailings dam at Blayney in the state’s central west.
In mid-August, it issued an indigenous heritage protection order rejecting the planned dam site at the mine.
The Wiradjuri Central West Aboriginal Traditional Owners Corporation called on the Minister to protect the headwaters and springs of the Belubula River as a central site for creation stories.
This is despite the mine originally being approved by the NSW Independent Planning Commission in March 2023, a process that involved consultation with the Orange Local Aboriginal Land Council, the elected body for local Indigenous leaders.
In 2021, Lisa Paton, a director of the Wiradjuri Traditional Owners’ Central West Aboriginal Corporation, attempted to have the state’s Office of Environment and Heritage register all of Blayney’s waterways as Aboriginal sites. The Australian reported.
‘This (application) is for ALL NATURAL watercourses in the Blayney County Council Region, including all watercourses that are no longer flowing, 100 metres on either side of watercourses, rivers, streams, marshes and lakes,’ he said in his application which was ultimately denied.
