State tells council to give shooters the boot

Hamish Heard
Geelong shooters fear a looming council vote will leave them without a home.
Geelong Gun Club president Steve Haberman, a former world champion clay target shooter and dual Olympian, said the 100-year-old club was bracing to be kicked off its Eastern Park plot.
A council source, who did not want to be identified, said State Government was pressuring council not to renew the club’s lease after it expired five years ago.
The source said councillors discussed the issue at a briefing session this week and expected to vote on it in the next month.
“It was part of a briefing paper and it might come (before council) Tuesday night or it might be deferred,” the source said.
Councillors were divided over whether to let the club stay.
“I’m not sure how it (the vote) will go,” the source said.
Council is the caretaker of the club’s site but it sits on State Government land.
Mr Haberman said the Government had been baying for the club’s removal from Geelong for years.
He believed that Spring Street did not want the blame for the club’s removal and was shifting responsibility for the decision to council.
Mr Haberman said the club was happy to move to a different site but authorities had not put forward a viable option.
“They’ve talked about moving us to the Little River club and they’ve even tried to get us to become a part of the Werribee club,” he said.
“But the problem is that Werribee isn’t Geelong.”
Mr Haberman said the club’s meets attracted up to 300 shooters from outside the region to Geelong every month.
“That flows into the community as possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars a year,” he said.
“People talk about the need for a velodrome because it’s an Olympic sport and Geelong is Victoria’s biggest provincial city. Well, clay target shooting’s an Olympic sport, too, and they’re trying to remove it from the city.”
Mr Haberman said the club’s cloure would also leave other clubs homeless, including Bellarine Light Game and Sport Fishing Club, Bellarine 4WD Club and Geelong Field and Game.