The New South Wales Government has moved to permanently secure golf at the Cammeray Golf Course in Cammeray Park, a nine-hole public facility on the North Shore where the sport has been played for more than 120 years. The decision has triggered an angry response from North Sydney Council, which says it was given just 14 days to respond to a plan that was developed without its input and that could set a troubling precedent for local government control over Crown land.
Minister for Lands, Property and Sport Steve Kamper announced the government's intention to work with Golf NSW to lock in the course's future beyond its current lease expiry in May 2026. The state confirmed it wants to provide certainty for the nine-hole par-3 public course, where golf has been played for 120 years. Kamper framed the decision as a matter of community recreation and wellbeing, saying the government wanted to secure the course's future for generations to come.
Cammeray Park forms the largest single parcel of recreational land in the North Sydney local government area, hosting tennis courts, croquet lawns, a skate plaza, sports fields, and community events alongside the golf course. For North Sydney Council, that breadth of uses is precisely why it believes the site's future should not be settled without a proper community process.
North Sydney Mayor Zoe Baker says she has written to the Minister on no fewer than eight occasions since late 2022 seeking a meeting to outline Council's position. Not once was the opportunity granted. In contrast, Golf NSW has met with the Minister on five occasions since 2023. Council was issued a press statement just one day after being informed of the government's decision, with only 14 days given to respond.
Mayor Baker argued that handing control to Golf NSW would effectively privatise green space, and she emphasised that Council's Open Space and Recreation Strategy does not propose an end to golf but stresses the need for flexibility as urban pressures grow. "With land values in North Sydney among the highest in the country, ratepayers simply cannot afford to purchase new open space," she said. "This means Council must carefully manage and review all existing public land to ensure it meets the evolving needs of the whole community."
In December 2025, Council had already resolved to extend the existing lease until 30 September 2029 to allow sufficient time for meaningful community and stakeholder engagement on the site's future. The government's move to deal directly with Golf NSW appears to cut across that resolution entirely.
The dispute cannot be read in isolation. Across Sydney, the Minns Labor Government has simultaneously been doing the opposite at another course: Moore Park Golf Course sits on 45 hectares of public land, with the current operating agreement expiring in June 2026, after which the government intends to repurpose up to 20 hectares into a new central park. The NSW Government has committed $50 million to establish that park and reconfigure the golf course at Moore Park South over the next three years. The contrast is hard to ignore: one course is being preserved for golf at the state's insistence, while another is being carved up, also at the state's insistence. Neither decision appears to have originated from a coherent policy framework applied consistently across Sydney's public land.
Golf NSW's chief executive Stuart Fraser has backed the government's Cammeray announcement without reservation. Fraser welcomed the announcement, describing the course as a unique and affordable public facility catering to players ranging from beginners to elite athletes. That case has genuine merit. Unlike many private clubs, a public par-3 facility provides accessible entry-level golf to a broad demographic, including juniors and older residents for whom a full-length course is impractical.
Yet Mayor Baker's concerns about process are difficult to dismiss on their merits. The minister's own media release stated the NSW Government was "in discussions with North Sydney Council", a claim Baker flatly rejected, pointing out that Golf NSW had been granted ministerial access she had been denied. If that account is accurate, it represents a significant failure of intergovernmental communication, not merely a political dispute between levels of government.
The wider question is one of governance. The outcome of this dispute will have lasting implications for public land management and recreation planning across metropolitan Sydney, where balancing sporting tradition with changing community and environmental needs is increasingly complex. The state government holds powers over Crown land that can override local preferences, but wielding those powers without genuine consultation invites exactly the kind of legal challenges and community backlash now brewing in North Sydney.
Reasonable people will disagree about whether golf or broader open space is the best use of Cammeray Park for future generations. What is harder to defend is a process that gives a local council a fortnight to respond to a decision affecting its largest recreational asset, after years of unanswered correspondence. Transparency and procedural fairness are not obstacles to good land management. They are prerequisites for it. The government would do well to slow down, open the door to North Sydney Council, and let the community have a genuine say before locking in any outcome at Golf NSW's behest.