{"id":179813,"date":"2025-08-27T13:28:14","date_gmt":"2025-08-27T13:28:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/179813\/"},"modified":"2025-08-27T13:28:14","modified_gmt":"2025-08-27T13:28:14","slug":"calls-for-corruption-probe-into-completion-of-mayors-surfers-paradise-bowls-club-site-purchase","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/179813\/","title":{"rendered":"Calls for corruption probe into completion of mayor’s Surfers Paradise Bowls Club site purchase"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate has purchased the final part of the Surfers Paradise Bowls Club site in a $4.17 million deal.<\/p>\n

Cr Tate confirmed today that his consortium Crestden Pty Ltd bought the final 1,833 square metre parcel of land at 72 Remembrance Drive, Surfers Paradise, in June.<\/p>\n

Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) records list Cr Tate as the director and secretary of the company.<\/p>\n

\"a<\/p>\n

Tom Tate has been mayor of the Gold Coast since 2012. (ABC News: Heidi Sheehan)<\/p>\n

Cr Tate’s first dealings with the site date back to 2005 when the Surfers Paradise Bowls Club was in financial strife.<\/p>\n

Under a deal to help get the club out of debt, Crestden purchased the clubhouse for $1.4 million and rented it back to bowlers.<\/p>\n

Two years later the club was still in debt and Crestden bought the bowling greens with support of the club’s board for $770,000.<\/p>\n

The sale price was a fraction of the $7 million offer the club had received from a Brisbane superannuation fund in 2005.<\/p>\n

The remaining parcel of land on the site was owned by City of Gold Coast at the time, and has been in Crestden’s hands since June this year.<\/p>\n

\"Derelict<\/p>\n

The land was previously part of the Surfers Paradise Bowls Club, now wholly owned by Crestden. (ABC Gold Coast: Dominic Cansdale)<\/p>\n

‘A fair deal’<\/p>\n

In 2018 the state’s Crime and Corruption Commission (CCC) investigated Cr Tate for not fully disclosing his material personal interest in a proposed 56-storey development on the site<\/a> when it went before council in 2013.<\/p>\n

The following year the CCC cleared Cr Tate of the related corruption allegations<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A 2016 application for the purchase of the lot by Gold Coast’s council noted the nearby Surfers Plaza Resort had no on-site car park.<\/p>\n

All of the resort’s car spaces were located in the car park under the final parcel of the bowls club’s land.<\/p>\n

That parcel of land was purchased from council by Nerang East Pty Ltd for $1.9 million in August 2022, a firm owned by Michael Geoffrey Turner.<\/p>\n

A year earlier, Colliers had valued the standalone site at $6.46 million<\/a> in a report purchased by the City of Gold Coast.<\/p>\n

Property data showed the land was sold to Crestden on June 6, 2025 and settled a month later.<\/p>\n

\"Land<\/p>\n

The parcel of land, bought by Crestden in June, is in the heart of Surfers Paradise. (ABC Gold Coast: Dominic Cansdale)<\/p>\n

In a statement on Wednesday, Cr Tate said “that land ceased being council land when the Turners bought it on open market”.<\/p>\n

“From then on, any private transaction between two private parties has nothing to do with council or anyone else,”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

he said.<\/p>\n

At a press conference on Tuesday the mayor said he had let the market decide what the land was worth.<\/p>\n

“I purchased it privately from a private person,” he said.<\/p>\n

He said when the council put the lot out in 2022 for sale anyone could have bought it.<\/p>\n

“The land’s available for purchase [again, in June] and it was right timing, so I purchased it,” the mayor said.<\/p>\n

“To me it’s a fair deal so I’m happy to do it.”<\/p>\n

Calls for CCC investigation<\/p>\n

Former NSW Court of Appeal judge and chair of the Centre for Public Integrity, Anthony Whealy KC, said the matter should be referred to the CCC.<\/p>\n

“Over a long period of time Mayor Tate’s company has been able to secure a very valuable property for an amount of money which appears at face value to be very much less than what it’s actually worth,” Mr Whealy said.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

Anthony Whealy wants the latest matter also investigated by the state’s corruption watchdog. (ABC News: Liam Patrick)<\/p>\n

Former City of Gold Coast councillor Eddy Sarroff said the land purchase “didn’t pass the pub test”.<\/p>\n

“It’s a serious matter. I believe [the CCC] are the right authority to deal with this matter,” Mr Sarroff said.<\/p>\n

Mr Sarroff challenged Cr Tate in the 2024 local government elections and was the runner-up in the mayoral election, receiving 20.73 per cent of the vote.<\/p>\n

Cr Tate won his fourth term as mayor with 51.8 per cent of the vote.<\/p>\n

The CCC and the Office of the Independent Assessor both declined to comment on whether there were pending investigations into Cr Tate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate has purchased the final part of the Surfers Paradise Bowls Club site in…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":179814,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4740,101641,101643,22236,12176,101644,50,101642,101640],"class_list":{"0":"post-179813","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-australia","9":"tag-city-of-gold-coast","10":"tag-crestden-pty-ltd","11":"tag-gold-coast","12":"tag-mayor","13":"tag-nerang-east-pty-ltd","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-surfers-paradise-bowls-club","16":"tag-tom-tate"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115100969133119184","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179813\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}