Gosford: Darkinjung wins land claim appeal for sheltered workshop at 143 Henry Parry Dr
The future of a sheltered workshop is in doubt after the Darkinjung Local Aboriginal Land Council successfully appealed a land title claim for a key site in Gosford.
Central Coast
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The State Government will have to hand over a key block of land in the heart of Gosford — and pay court costs — after the local aboriginal land council successfully proved the disability support charity based on the site for more than 30 years had been there unlawfully.
Darkinjung Local Aboriginal Land Council lodged a claim for three blocks of Crown land, known collectively as 143 Henry Parry Drive, under land rights legislation in 2009.
The claim was knocked back by the State Government in 2020 on the basis the land was not “claimable Crown lands” because it was needed, or likely to be needed, “for an essential public purpose” in supporting employment for disabled people.
Darkinjung appealed the decision in the Land and Environment Court, which upheld the ruling.
“The primary judge found that decisions of the executive government of the day in 1969 and 1971 to lease and reserve the land for the purpose of charitable organisations, together with the subsequent use of the land for that purpose, established that the land was needed for an essential public purpose when the claims were made in 2009,” a Supreme Court of Appeal judgment has found.
The council further appealed the Land and Environment Court’s ruling on “questions of law” and that the judge’s decision involved “misdirection and misapplication” of the statutory test of what amounted to an essential purpose.
The Supreme Court of Appeal heard in 2009, when the claim was first made, the Commonwealth had taken responsibility for supported employment services for people with a disability, not the states.
The Darkinjung land council also proved the tenant on the site Terama Industries, which ran a sheltered workshop for people with a disability, had been there unlawfully for more than 30 years.
The court heard in 1969 the then Lands Minister leased the site to an organisation known as Aid Retarded Persons (ARP) NSW to build a sheltered workshop.
The following year, after the workshop had been built, a reserve was created over the land safeguarding it for “charitable organisations”.
The court heard ARP paid the first of 15 annual instalments to secure a lease, in perpetuity, for the site but there was no record of the organisation ever paying again.
In February 1987 ARP went bust and a court-appointed liquidator transferred the sheltered workshop and stock to Terama Industries, which was incorporated as a separate entity from the Gosford branch of ARP.
However the land was never transferred.
“The Crown Lands Department did not find out about either the existence of Terama or its occupation and use of the land until it began assessing the land claims in 2018, nine years after they had been made,” the Supreme Court Appeal judgment found.
“The primary judge did determine that the land was needed for the essential public purpose in 1969-1971, but did not do so at the date of the claims on 2 June 2009.
“The evidence only established that Terama had occupied and used the land, although such occupation and use was unlawful as Terama had never been appointed as a trustee or a reserve trust manager of the reserve or been granted any lease, licence or other permission authorising it to occupy or use the land.”
The Supreme Court ordered the state government to hand over the site to Darkinjung within 90 days of its ruling on December 19 and pay the land council’s court costs.
Calls to Terama Industries and Darkinjung went unreturned.
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