0°C | Saturday October 11, 2025 
The New South Wales Aboriginal Land Council has won a Land and Environment Court dispute over the Waverton Bowling Club site under the control of North Sydney Council. The win is believed to be the first successful native title claim in the lower north shore of Sydney.
The Land Council successfully appealed against an earlier state government ministerial decision that said, in part, “I am satisfied that when the Claims were made the land was not claimable Crown land. The relevant land [was] lawfully used and occupied by North Sydney Council, known as the former Waverton Bowling Club and needed for the essential public purpose of public recreation.”
The argument against this was that the club had ceased trading in 2019 and the site had not been used for the purposes of its specific licence for community and sporting club facilities subsequently. Although North Sydney Council had conducted maintenance and upkeep such as lawn mowing, “Council’s use and occupation of the Claimed Land was either not evident in fact, in that there is no evidence of the Council undertaking any relevant use or occupation other than sporadic mowing of the Claimed Land and no other maintenance, and to the extent that there was evidence that the Council did anything that would comprise a use of the Claimed Land such use was, on the evidence, a nominal use in fact.”
Duggan J ruled that: I am unable to be satisfied on the evidence that the Claimed Land was or was likely to be needed for the essential public purpose of open space for public recreation,” adding “there was no evidence from Council’s own recreational needs studies (or other planning documents) that identified a specific demand or need in the specific Waverton locality” and that the evidence “evinces the lack of any momentum of any particular land use proposal in the pool of available uses.”
The appeal was upheld and the site must be transferred to the Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council within 6 months.