Your Parks, their secrets

by Shane Sody with John Bridgland

Neither the State Government nor the City Council are prepared to let you know how they deal, in secret, with your Adelaide Park Lands.

A Freedom of Information request to the City Council, about the proposed golf course “re-development” in your Park Lands has produced hundreds of blacked-out pages.

These redacted documents conceal most of the City Council’s back-room operations, that were carried out earlier this year, to help clear the way for what is expected to be:

Earlier this year, Council staff, and elected Councillors had publicly hoped that co-operation with the State Government on golf course “re-development” plans might have led to some compromises; avoiding the worst-case outcomes of massive tree and biodiversity loss.

But these hopes were misplaced, because after getting a wide range of information from Council staff, the State Government then cut the Council from any future role in managing this part of your Park Lands. The Lord Mayor, Jane Lomax Smith told ABC-TV’s “7.30” program that the Council had been “blindsided”:

“This is not a particularly collaborative way to do business," the Lord Mayor told 7.30. "We haven't in any way obstructed, we haven't produced red tape. We haven't found barriers. "We were really blindsided by this."

The takeover was authorised in late June 2025, when the State Government rushed through Parliament a radical “hostile takeover” of the area outlined below; more than 90 hectares of your Park Lands, avoiding the need for any public consultation, simultaneously clearing away any and all legal obstacles, to greenlight the Premier’s aim of establishing a commercial golf business.

There are 9,000-odd trees in this takeover area: Possum Park / Pirltawardli (Park 1) and John E. Brown Park (Park 27A). Expert advice from an international golf course designer is that to widen and lengthen all fairways to achieve a “championship” golf course, more than half of these trees would be removed.

Even as the takeover legislation was briefly before State Parliament, Park Lands researcher and author John Bridgland made a Freedom of Information request for records of the Council’s earlier dealings with State Government officials.

It took more than four months for the City Council to provide anything to Mr Bridgland. In the end, hundreds of pages were provided, but blacked out.

Nevertheless the documents reveal that Council staff provided the Government with information to assist in planning a “re-developed” golf course, and the removal of many trees. Included in the pile of blacked-out responses are emails which show that Council staff provided the Premier’s office with information critical to the future of your Park 1, such as:

  • “Detailed mapping of trees”

  • “Documentation on what is a significant or regulated tree and appropriate actions on each of them”

  • “Stormwater Infrastructure map”;

  • “Quality of water analysis”;

  • “Historical irrigation and water data”;

  • “Historical soil testing on greens”;

  • “Vegetation Management Plan”;

  • “Any lessons learned from previous round of designs”;

  • “Heritage overlay information”;

  • “Contamination mapping details”;

  • “Flood modelling plan”;

  • “Horticultural plantings –any areas that are sensitive relating to the National register”;

  • “Details on existing spatial plans & constraints for buildings on the site”;

  • A proposal to “…form a technical sub group to review concept design, documentation and tech details;” and

  • a “Topographical survey” of Park 1.

John Bridgland has described the Government’s process as a “disingenuous” liaison with the City Council. He writes:

“The FOI spill records (such as they are) reveal a panic of procedures and investigations to assist the Department of the Premier and Cabinet as to how the government’s vision could be brought to life.

The most revealing aspect of that is how the Premier had also put pressure on his Department’s staff, because Premier and Cabinet (DPC) had no possession of the critical material they needed to assist golf course designer, US-based Greg Norman Design, to rapidly draw up a new golf course master plan that he had committed to deliver. It meant that DPC had to go, cap in hand, to the Council to get a list of the key data to progress the Premier’s grand project.”

In regard to his FOI request for documents, John writes:

“I was told that the initial scoping of relevant documents identified 700 potential pages. In the end, I received about 30 per cent of that in readable, relevant form (albeit often cryptic form).

The remainder comprised either copies of documents already publicly available (irrelevant), or blacked-out pages – fully censored documents. … I was mainly interested in documentation regarding the 17 meetings held for councillors in confidence, which included one with the Premier on 24 February. The spill revealed nothing of the content of those meetings. Zero.

Aboriginal heritage report also withheld

Mr Bridgland advises that among other documents missing from his FOI report, is an 80-page archaeology report on Aboriginal heritage sites in Adelaide’s Park Lands. The report was delivered by consultant Alex Moss on 4 June 2025, but remains secret.

The timing of the report - only 13 days before the Government began in Parliament its “hostile takeover” of Park Lands for golf “re-development” - is not likely to be a coincidence.

Although the Moss Aboriginal heritage report’s contents were entirely redacted in the Council reply to his FOI request, Mr Bridgland assumes the report would have assisted Government plans for the Park Lands takeover and re-development, authorised by the passage immediately afterwards, of the North Adelaide Public Golf Course Act 2025.

What are you saying about the Government’s plans?

More than 3,800 people have signed our petition:

There is also an opinion poll, with just one simple question, about the State Government’s golf course legislation. Of the 480 responses received so far, more than 91% are “strongly opposed”.

It takes just two minutes to take the survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/68BB867

John Bridgland is a journalist and a ratepayer of the City of Adelaide. He advises that he is not, and never has been, a member of any political party.

He is the author of two free online books exploring the administrative and political history of the management the Adelaide park lands since 1998, available at: www.adelaideparklandssecrets.com