Clover Moore asked Chris Minns to cut Moore Park Golf Course months before decision announced
Documents obtained under freedom of information requests reveal the Premier and Sydney Lord Mayor spoke about slicing up Moore Park Golf Course before the decision was announced.
NSW
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City of Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore directly lobbied Premier Chris Minns to gut Moore Park Golf Course just three months before Mr Minns announced that the state government would seize as much as 20 hectares of the public course for a new park.
The Minns government has denied the decision was part of a “deal” with Ms Moore or Sydney MP Alex Greenwhich, but The Daily Telegraph can now reveal that Mr Minns and the Lord Mayor spoke about cutting Moore Park Golf Course in half during a meeting in July.
Documents obtained under a freedom of information request reveal that Ms Moore lobbied Mr Minns on the issue ahead of the July 18 meeting.
In a letter, she referred to the council’s 2021 proposal to turn cut the course down to nine holes and use up to 20 hectares for public parkland.
“I ask that you carefully consider the City’s proposal to provide more equitable access to Moore Park, including reconfiguring Moore Park Golf Course from 18 holes to 9,” she wrote to Mr Minns on July 17.
A month after her meeting, Ms Moore wrote to the Premier to follow up on what was discussed.
“At our meeting, you asked for more information about the membership of Moore Park Golf Course,” she said.
Ms Moore said there was “no publicly available” data on who uses the course, but referred the Premier to a 2019 Australian Sports Commission report into golf’s “participation trends”.
That report was compiled from data collected from 2016 to 2018. The report estimated almost 986,500 people over 15 played golf annually, with 80 per cent of those male.
The Australian Sports Commission’s most recent data shows that 1.076 million Australians over 15 participate in golf yearly.
In a participation report released earlier this year, Golf Australia said that between 2020-21 and 2021-22, the sport increased its participation rate by eight per cent.
Moore Park hosted more than half a million people in the last 12 months, with about 80 per cent playing 18 holes.
Mr Minns announced in October that the government would convert half of the course into a new “central park” to support booming housing growth around Green Square. By 2040, 80,000 people are expected to be living within 2km of Moore Park.
Mr Minns faced scrutiny over whether Ms Moore had been lobbying him to seize
land from the golf course the day after he made the announcement.
“I don’t think I’ve spoken to her directly about it at all,” he told Ben Fordham on 2GB – before his office was forced to issue a clarification, saying that the issue had previously been raised by the Sydney Lord Mayor.
Asked in October whether the government’s announcement was part of a “deal” with the Lord Mayor or Sydney MP Alex Greenwich, a spokeswoman said: “absolutely not”.
Planning Minister Paul Scully said Ms Moore has “had many conversations with all governments over a long period of time” to press her case for cutting the golf course from 18 holes to nine.
Mr Scully said the Lord Mayor raised the issue with him “very early on” after he was sworn in.
Meanwhile, up-and-coming golfers have warned that cutting Moore Park Golf Course down to nine holes would out the future of the game under threat.
Golfer Stephanie Kyriacou, who tied for fifth in the Women’s Australian Open over the weekend, was first introduced to the game as a three year old at Moore Park. She played at public courses for most of her junior career.
Jared Kendler, who is helping lead the Save Moore Park Golf Course campaign, said public courses are a gateway for junior golfers to get into the sport.
He rejects the notion golf is just for the elites.
“You’ve got people like Clover Moore, who continue to try and paint golf as elite, that’s fine, but that’s a separate issue to look at,” Mr Kendler said.
“But, when I go to Moore Park, there’s a large amount of teenagers I chat to, who have a set of clubs from Vinnies, a garage sale, or hand-me-downs, who are playing there because they can afford it.”
Kathryn Dries’ daughter Hilary is the third generation of golfers playing at Moore Park and said she wouldn’t sign her up as a member if the government gets its way.
She believes people would follow, given the uncertainty of the remaining nine holes being under threat in the future and the club’s culture fading away.
“There’s so much more vacant land that could be used, it’s really just a cheap shot at golf,” she said.
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