Activist High Court hands over Paddington Bowls Club to Aborigines

Australian Associated Press

Wed 3 Sep 2025

An Aboriginal land council will take control of an inner-city bowling club abandoned a decade ago after a narrowly won high court battle.

Lawn bowls last rolled down the greens of the inner-Sydney Paddington Bowling Club in 2015 but the crown land site’s future had been in limbo until Wednesday after state and local land councils took their fight to the high court.

In a 3-2 split decision, the high court ruled the rent paid on the site by the club’s owner since 2015 was not enough to stop an Aboriginal land claim.

Under NSW law, crown land is not claimable if it is lawfully used or occupied.

“Properly construed, land is only ‘used’ … if, when the claim is made, the land is physically deployed for a purpose,” the court said in a judgment summary.

The decision quelled fears that the way Aboriginal land rights are determined in NSW would be drastically changed and affect 40 years of work that had gone into the movement to date.

“Do not underestimate anything,” the NSW Aboriginal Land Council chairman, Raymond Kelly, said.

“This is not just a small win on a land rights claim. This is a win for common sense and justice for Aboriginal people.

“It holds the line in NSW and sends a message right across the country.”

Kelly said he looked forward to seeing how the ruling would speed up the 30,000 undetermined land claims across NSW.

The judgment gave the Paddington site a new start by returning it to the traditional land owners, local state MP Alex Greenwich said.

“This site has been disrespected by the current leaseholders and left derelict for far too long,” he said.

The 50-year lease was signed by the bowling club in 2010 for the exclusive purposes of “community and sporting club facilities, tourist facilities and services, access”.

The lessee lost a bid to build a 120-place childcare centre on the bowling club site in 2014. The 7,800 square metres was then transferred into the hands of a second company that continued to pay rent to the state government after the club’s demise. But the company otherwise sat on its hands while it worked out what could be done with the site.

The lease – $52,000 a year increased annually with inflation – later went into the hands of another company, based in Hobart.

A land claim by the NSW Aboriginal Land Council was made in 2016 and approved by the state minister in 2021. But that decision was quashed by the NSW Court of Appeal in 2024, which determined merely renting the land amounted to use.

That reasoning was backed by high court justices Michelle Gordon and Simon Steward, who noted “substantial” rent had been paid for the land, and compliance issues had been raised and rectified since 2010.

But justice Jayne Jagot, backed by chief justice Stephen Gageler and justice James Edelman, found no one was using the land.

“To the contrary, [the lessee] was merely maintaining the lease to avoid forfeiting it while it worked out what, if any, future use could be made of lot 5, with a view to the future transfer of the lease,” Jagot said.

The La Perouse Local Aboriginal Land Council is expected to take ownership of the land. It said it planned to work with members to determine the land’s future use.

Another 30,000 active land claims across NSW and many more across Australia will ultimately divest genuine owners and lessees of their property and livelihoods.

Who in their right mind would invest one cent in Australia? Under the present native title regime ruled by political activists of the High Court the country is finished.