{"id":773902,"date":"2026-07-02T08:43:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-02T08:43:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/773902\/"},"modified":"2026-07-02T08:43:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T08:43:12","slug":"four-golf-course-trees-have-come-down-court-hears-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/773902\/","title":{"rendered":"Four golf course trees have come down, court hears – News"},"content":{"rendered":"

The legal team for a public servant suing the government over golf course plans has asked the court for more time to prepare for a fast-approaching trial.<\/p>\n

Today, a federal court judge did not reschedule the trial slated for August, but told the lawyer for Edwin Kemp Attrill that he may apply for a delay if he believes there could be \u201canticipated prejudice\u201d.<\/p>\n

It comes after both parties were in favour of fast-tracking the trial last week<\/a>, Kemp Attrill saying then it was \u201cincredible progress\u201d.<\/p>\n

Kemp Attrill\u2019s lawyer argued \u201cthere are few of us and lots of them\u201d, in reference to the state government\u2019s legal team when foreshadowing a delay, citing resource constraints.<\/p>\n

Kemp Attrill and traditional owner Janette Milera commenced proceedings earlier this month<\/a>\u00a0to test the North Adelaide Golf Course Act against national environment and heritage legislation.<\/p>\n

The Act was introduced by the Malinauskas government last year, which gave the redevelopment a green light to bypass planning laws, except for the Aboriginal Heritage Act.<\/p>\n

Kemp Attrill has raised about $52,000 through a GoFundMe for his legal costs at the time of writing, after previously saying he was risking bankruptcy<\/a> by taking on the case. His lawyers are acting pro bono.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s case management hearing ahead of the August trial also included debate on access to government documents and managing trees in wet weather.<\/p>\n

It comes after four trees were removed on Wednesday afternoon from the golf course site because they had fallen over in the wind.<\/p>\n

Deputy Premier Kyam Maher told reporters after today\u2019s hearing that it was \u201cquite sensible\u201d that the court allowed for these trees to be removed.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf trees fall over, cause safety concerns on power lines or cross roads, or cause other safety concerns to people, it just makes sense that they\u2019re able to be removed,\u201d Maher said.<\/p>\n

Maher said no trees were removed unless it was for public safety reasons.<\/p>\n

Kemp Attrill said today three of the four trees he was aware of had been removed in \u201cvery understandable circumstances\u201d but one \u201cwe have serious questions about\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"\"A tree that fell on Wednesday afternoon in the wet weather blocked a North Adelaide street, and had to be removed by SES. Picture: supplied.<\/p>\n

The government must give two business days\u2019 notice to Kemp Attrill and the court if it wishes to remove a tree that is beyond 3.5 metres tall; Kemp Attrill\u2019s lawyer unsuccessfully asked for this notice period to be extended to five days.<\/p>\n

Kemp Attrill said his main takeaway from today\u2019s hearing was that documents discovered for the sake of the court case should be publicly available.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe think those files should be made public, and that\u2019s, for us, what\u2019s really important,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Maher today said the government would \u201cprotect their interests\u201d if there were requests for documents that were commercially confidential, such as the deal between the state government and the formerly Saudi-backed LIV Golf<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere will be things that put us at a competitive disadvantage if they\u2019re revealed,\u201d Maher said.<\/p>\n

Maher could not be drawn on whether the government would attempt to suppress other documents as the case progressed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will reiterate that the government will abide, as we always do, by court orders and court processes, but we, as we always do, reserve our right to protect the interests of government and South Australians,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The government said no further trees were planned for removal in the coming weeks, but works on the site were continuing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The legal team for a public servant suing the government over golf course plans has asked the court…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":773903,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,85],"class_list":["post-773902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773902","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=773902"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773902\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/773903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=773902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=773902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=773902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}