Council backs ‘last possible’ bid to halt tree felling for golf course
Dozens of North Adelaide Golf Course protesters filled Adelaide Town Hall’s gallery last night as councillors voted to support a last-ditch attempt to stop the felling of 585 trees in Possum Park.
Adelaide City councillors have unanimously supported two motions at last night’s meeting to push for a federal environmental law compliance investigation and pause North Adelaide Golf Course proceedings.
Councillors Patrick Maher and Keiran Snape put forward a last-minute motion to have the $45 million golf course development scrutinised by the federal Climate Change and Environment Department, claiming it breached national environment protection laws.
Councillor Henry Davis also put forward a motion without notice to seek urgent legal advice into whether council could push Federal Environment Minister Murray Watt into intervening to stop the felling of trees in North Adelaide.
Davis said the move would allow federal departments “the opportunity to have an express view on this and halt the process before it continues ever further”.
Lord Mayor Jane Lomax-Smith will write a letter to the Federal Environment Minister by the end of Thursday, May 14, seeking an investigation into a “potential breach” of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act by the state government.
Lomax-Smith said the state government had “fundamentally underestimated the public’s attachment to our national heritage” and criticised the North Adelaide Golf Course legislation that was passed in 2025.
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“It sets a very troubling precedent for how the third tier of government, the closest to the people, will be treated by the state government into the future,” she said.
“Perhaps the most extraordinary part of the act for us is that it explicitly states that if the Adelaide City Council fails to decline in the direction of the minister, the minister may take any action necessary, as if the minister were the Adelaide City Council.
"I suspect that when we look back from the vantage point of 2036 — our city’s bicentenary — citizens will recognise this decade as the period in which the greatest damage was done to our most precious civic asset, our park lands."
As of Wednesday morning, a petition to protect Possum Park had amassed 39,002 signatures. Snape was among dozens of protesters at the War Memorial Drive entrance this week, saying an injured Rainbow Lorikeet had to be euthanised by veterinarians on Tuesday.
“I personally have witnessed, as of yesterday, two huge century old trees chopped down. The immediate silence of the birds in the area was deafening,” Snape said.
“While this [motion] does not guarantee the department and minister will take up the case and call halt to proceedings while the government is investigated, this motion is I think the last possible thing that council can do.
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“But we must not leave any stone unturned in our efforts to stop this destruction and slaughter. Our community expect no less, and those animals displaced and killed in Possum Park deserve nothing less.”
Unlike other developments that require planning approval to remove significant trees –trees with a trunk of two metres or more – the golf course upgrade was given the green light under legislation passed last year.
The North Adelaide Golf Course Act – introduced to fast-track the site upgrade in time for LIV Golf 2028 – granted planning and building consent to the project before the plans had been released
The state government has continued to back redevelopment plans, with Premier Peter Malinauskas saying three trees would be planted for every mature-aged tree that gets chopped in Possum Park.
Environment Minister Emily Bourke said she would be “more than happy” to raise the council’s issues with Federal Minister Watt.
“But I think he would say that this is the opportunity that we’re putting more trees back into that space,” Bourke said.
“It’s not the facility that we would expect in our park lands. Now as a state we get to invest in it, we get to put more trees back into it, we get to have the facility that we know as a state government we can achieve.
“It was actually the Adelaide City Council that initially had plans to invest and redevelop the golf course. So, we have an opportunity now as a state to be able to achieve that outcome, to invest in our park lands, to invest in our golf course, and upgrade the golf course.”
Protesters will continue their battle by taking to the steps of Parliament House on North Terrace on Wednesday evening, led by Adelaide Park Lands Association president Mat Monti.
Monti said protesters “will not stop fighting” to save Possum Park and it would be “worth the fight” if just one of the 585 trees was saved.
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