Construction to resume at Riverlea in ‘bittersweet’ result<\/a><\/p>\nPart of the Riverlea development was brought to a halt after Indigenous remains were found at the $3 billion housing estate last year. Now the SA government has given developers the go ahead, with conditions, in what one senior Kaurna woman has described as “bittersweet”.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That approval came with similar conditions, including a requirement to establish a Kaurna Memorial Resting Place.<\/p>\n
A year on from that Aboriginal heritage decision, the remains excavated at Riverlea are still in storage ahead of reburial, Mr Maher confirmed on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Mr Carter said the Malinauskas government “has no respect for our history and \u2026 pay us lip service while they’re rubber-stamping development”.<\/p>\n
“You would not like us \u2026 if we went to West Terrace Cemetery and started digging things up that we didn’t like on there,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Why would you even suggest a golf course at Adelaide when the Grange [Golf Club] \u2026 has been dealing with this quite well?”<\/p>\n
A history of disturbance<\/p>\n
Mr Maher said given the history of Adelaide’s settlement, he could “completely understand” why Mr Carter opposed any Aboriginal remains being disturbed.<\/p>\n
“The consequence of the capital city of this state being here is that Kaurna people have suffered more as a result of colonisation than many other people in terms of the disturbance of the land,” he said.<\/p>\n
“We haven’t done it particularly well in decades and centuries gone by.”<\/p>\n
Mr Maher, who is also the deputy premier, said it was not known whether Aboriginal remains will be discovered at the golf course and “that’s why these conditions are in place”.<\/p>\n
![\"Aboriginal](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/af3e193ff49e71a88596003a1cb9f80e\")
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Mr Maher says the government seeks to “respect beliefs and handle heritage as respectfully and thoughtfully as possible”. (ABC News)<\/p>\n
Pressed on why the government was proceeding with the North Adelaide redevelopment given these concerns, Mr Maher argued it was impractical to prevent any and all impacts to Aboriginal heritage underground.<\/p>\n
“To absolutely guarantee there’s no prospect of damaging any Aboriginal sites, objects or heritage, you would make sure that there was never any ground disturbance anywhere in this country,” he said.<\/p>\n
“What we seek to do with these sorts of determinations is balance the quite rightful need to treat Kaurna heritage respectfully with where we are now in Australia.”<\/p>\n
Asked about Mr Carter’s accusation that the Malinauskas government does not care about Indigenous heritage, Mr Maher said he was not going to conduct “a running dialogue through the media”.<\/p>\n
“Certainly, I’ve had a lot of discussion with Kaurna elders \u2014 not just during this project but over many years \u2014 and we seek to respect beliefs and handle heritage as respectfully and thoughtfully as possible,” he said.<\/p>\n
Asked whether there was division within the Kaurna community over the LIV Golf plans, Mr Maher said “I don’t think there is any group of people who have exactly the same idea all the time”.<\/p>\n
‘It has caused some anxiety and stress’<\/p>\n
Among those in the Kaurna community with a different perspective is Tim Agius.<\/p>\n
Mr Agius, a member and former chair of KYAC, said the government’s decision to make the par three course a protected area was “great news for the Kaurna community”.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/0dac38794a5fed12de3cff236080716f\")
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Former Kaurna Yerta Aboriginal Corporation chair Tim Agius welcomes the protection of the par three course. (ABC News: Brant Cumming)<\/p>\n
“It certainly is good to hear that our ancestors won’t be disturbed in that particular area,” he said.<\/p>\n
“It has caused some anxiety and stress and unhappiness with our mob, but this is good news to finally hear that those ancestors that have been in that significant area will not be disturbed.”<\/p>\n
Asked if he had received any assurances about what would happen if remains were discovered at the 18-hole courses further north, Mr Agius said: “I’m pretty confident that the state government would stick to the current protocol that has been happening for the last 30-odd years.”<\/p>\n
“What normally happens is \u2026 where remains have been discovered, they have been reburied as close as possible nearby to where they were discovered and in unmarked graves.”<\/p>\n
The designs for the North Adelaide golf course, being drawn up by Greg Norman Golf Course Design, are yet to be released.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/958057e649c37c5f6df13686c952b010\")
<\/p>\n
The North Adelaide par three course (pictured) is protected from redevelopment due to its cultural and spiritual significance. (ABC News)<\/p>\n
Premier Peter Malinauskas has vowed to release the plans before the March 2026 state election.<\/p>\n
LIV Golf Adelaide has been hosted at the Grange Golf Club since its inception in 2023 and will host again in 2026, before the event moves to Kooyonga Golf Club in 2027 and North Adelaide in 2028.<\/a><\/p>\nAdelaide has hosting rights for the Saudi-backed tour until 2031.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Malinauskas government’s decision to proceed with its $50 million North Adelaide golf course redevelopment under “strict” Aboriginal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":224368,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[136104,136108,64,63,755,9262,24416,136105,109894,14239,3504,126134,136107,136106,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-224367","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-aboriginal-heritage","9":"tag-aboriginal-remains","10":"tag-au","11":"tag-australia","12":"tag-golf","13":"tag-golf-course","14":"tag-greg-norman","15":"tag-ian-carter","16":"tag-kyam-maher","17":"tag-liv-golf","18":"tag-north-adelaide","19":"tag-north-adelaide-golf-course","20":"tag-north-adelaide-par-three","21":"tag-par-three","22":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224367\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}