Noongar Charitable Trust trustees sued over property

A controversial $12m purchase of a former dancing horse theme park by WA’s Noongar Charitable Trust is at the centre of a Supreme Court fight.

Noongar elders Mingli McGlade, right, and Ben Taylor. Picture: Colin Murty

A controversial $12m purchase of a former dancing horse theme park by Western Australia’s Noongar Charitable Trust is at the centre of a Supreme Court fight, with a breakaway group now suing the charity’s trustees for a share of the property.

The Aboriginal Housing Recovery Centre Ltd has filed a writ against Equity Trustees in their capacity as trustee for the Noongar Charitable Trust, arguing they are entitled to an interest in the El Caballo Blanco site, east of Perth, after Equity Trustees pulled a joint project to develop the site.

The Noongar Charitable Trust is closely linked to the South West Aboriginal Land and Sea Council, WA’s most powerful land council. The purchase of El Caballo Blanco has raised concerns for the council’s board, given the property – which was acquired for $12m and subject to another $1.5m of improvements – has since been valued at between $7.2m and $8.2m.

AHRCL is a registered charity led by Wayne Nannup, who was chief executive of the South West Aboriginal Land and Sea Council at the time of the El Caballo Blanco purchase. The charity’s two other directors are former Fremantle Dockers footballer Des Headland and Indigenous businessman Bruce Loo.

The Australian this week revealed that an inquiry was under way into a deal that resulted in two other properties purchased by Equity Trustees on behalf of the Noongar Charitable Trust for $5m ending up under the ownership of AHRCL.

The former land council board was apparently aware of at least some of the transactions.

The current board has asked for an inquiry into the deals by the new Charitable Trusts Commission and the WA Ombudsman has agreed. According to the writ filed by AHRCL, the group and Equity Trustees had started a “joint endeavour” in late 2019 to develop El Caballo into a “multipurpose complex with accommodation to support vulnerable Noongar people”.

AHRCL, the writ says, made financial and non-financial contributions to the land as part of that endeavour, although Equity Trustees has since withdrawn from the project and has started trying to sell the land. “The plaintiff’s claim is for a declaration that it holds an equitable estate or interest in the Land to the extent of the contributions it made to an endeavour that has now failed,” the AHRCL writ says.

AHRCL has also lodged a caveat over the property claiming an interest “as equitable co-owner or equitable chargee”. A statutory declaration signed by Mr Nannup as part of that caveat says AHRCL contributed more than $425,000 of expenditure and almost $740,000 of liabilities on the El Caballo venture, as well as time and labour.

El Caballo Blanco hosted dancing Andalusian horseshows from 1974 until its closure in 1995. The site also includes a lifestyle village that EY found was losing $171,000 a year.