Messy dispute erupts after Aboriginal group is given prime piece of real estate in one of the country’s most sought after suburbs in Sydney

A prime piece of Sydney real estate given to an Aboriginal group years ago is still the subject of a dispute as the battle heads to the High Court. 

The Paddington Bowling Club, located 4km south-east of the Sydney CBD, closed in 2015 and was reclaimed as Crown Land in 2021, which the government then swiftly handed to the La Perouse Aboriginal Land Council.

But the 7,788sqm site – including a clubhouse, bowling greens and adjacent tennis courts – was at that point being leased by a company called Quarry Street then run by Jan Cameron; the founder of outdoor clothing brand Kathmandu.

Tasmanian-based Ms Cameron made $247million when she sold her 51 per cent share of Kathmandu to a US investment firm in 2006 and retired from the company, which made her Australia’s fourth richest woman.

The businesswoman and philanthropist is no longer involved with Quarry Street as she is involved in her own legal row after being fined for using a Caribbean tax haven to hide $14million worth of shares in a company that makes baby formula. 

Ms Cameron is appealing and said her company that bought the shares, the Elsie Cameron Foundation, ‘doesn’t pay tax anyway… people who think this is a tax dodge are completely wrong’.

Ms Cameron was contacted for further comment.

Quarry Street, now run by Hobart lawyer Ben Swain, challenged the handing  of the Paddington Bowling Club land to the Indigenous group in the Land and Environment Court.

That court sided supported the handover, but Quarry Street was successfully challenge that ruling in the NSW Court of Appeal.

The La Perouse Aboriginal Land Council was just this week granted special leave to counter with their own appeal of that decision, setting the stage for a showdown in the High Court, The Sydney Morning  Herald reported.

A row over whether a private company or an Aboriginal group will get control over the site is set to be settled in the High Court later this year

The land rights of Aboriginal groups has been in the news lately. 

An Indigenous corporation which opposed a $1billion goldmine being built in outback NSW unsuccessfully tried to have every creek, lake and river in the same area registered as an Aboriginal heritage site.

Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek recently blocked the proposed site of a tailings dam for the goldmine in Blayney, in the state’s central west.

She issued an Indigenous heritage protection order rejecting the planned site of the dam at the mine in mid-August.

The Wiradjuri Traditional Owners Central West Aboriginal Corporation asked the minister to protect the headwaters and the springs of the Belubula River as a site central to creation stories.

That’s despite the NSW Independent Planning Commission originally approving the mine 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, one of the directors of the Wiradjuri Traditional Owners Central West Aboriginal Corporation, tried to have all waterways in Blayney registered as Aboriginal sites by the state’s Office of Environment & Heritage, The Australian reported.

‘This (application) is over ALL NATURAL waterways in the Blayney Shire Council Region including all waterways that no longer flow, 100 metres ­either side of waterways, Rivers, Creeks, swamps and lakes,’ she said in her application which was ultimately denied.