21 August 2026

Cr Christine Kay

Mayor 

Ku-ring-gai Council 

818 Pacific Highway

GORDON NSW 2072

Email:  [email protected]

Dear Mayor Kay,

Executive Summary

Response to your Mayoral Minute

This executive summary provides an overview of the matters detailed in the attached letter, which sets out a fair report of matters raised by me in Parliament in the course of a comprehensive rebuttal to the Mayoral Minute issued by you concerning two recent Parliamentary speeches by me about Council infrastructure projects and governance.

Core Position

My speeches in the NSW Parliament raised legitimate concerns about the management of major Council infrastructure projects with cost overruns totalling $33 million, the request by Council for a 29% rate increase and the accountability of elected representatives. 

I contend that your Mayoral Minute failed to address the substantive issues I raised in Parliament and instead focused on personal criticism and procedural matters.

1. Infrastructure Project Mismanagement

In Parliament I argued that three major projects have experienced significant delays and $33 million cost overruns due to Council decisions in relation to:

• Norman Griffiths Oval
• St Ives High School Indoor Sports Centre
• Ku-ring-gai Synthetic Hockey Field Upgrade

I argued that these projects collectively demonstrate a pattern of poor project management and delayed decision-making.
 

2. Norman Griffiths Oval

A major focus of this letter is the Norman Griffiths Oval redevelopment.

I highlight that:

• Over $17 million more is projected to be spent on this project than the original estimate of $3 million
• Approximately $1 million has been spent since the construction contract was terminated in May 2025.
• There are ongoing site holding costs of approximately $60,000 per month.
• Dewatering costs alone reached $129,000 between May and July 2026.
• Council is reportedly liable for a $4 million award in favour of the terminated contractor.
• There remains uncertainty about when construction will recommence or be completed.

I argue these costs represent avoidable waste caused by Council indecision and reinforce my concerns raised in Parliament.

3. Accountability of Councillors

I note that neither you as the Mayor, nor the Council, has answered two questions posed in my first speech in Parliament:

1. Who is accountable for the significant cost overruns and delays?
2. Were any specific Councillors responsible for overseeing these projects?

The Mayoral minute and Council have also failed to address the 7 matters that I raised in my second speech to Parliament.   I contend that Council responses have focused on criticism of the projects rather than accountability for Council’s outcomes.

4. St Ives High School Sports Centre

I argue that Council's decision in 2020 not to join the Department of Education's existing construction contract resulted in: 

• Approximately $16.3 million in additional costs to ratepayers.
• Several years of project delay.

I demonstrate in the attached letter that Council had been engaging with the Department for years and was not constrained by the limited timeframe later cited by you in the MM and apparently endorsed by Councill.

My position is that:

• Technical, planning and funding issues were capable of resolution.
• Council had opportunities to proceed earlier.
• Council officers had warned delays would significantly increase costs.
• The ultimate cost escalation was foreseeable and avoidable.

5. Synthetic Hockey Field

I dispute your account of the project's history and argue that Council decisions significantly contributed to delays extending from 2016 to 2026.

I state that:

• Council in 2018 abandoned upgrade plans at Ku-ring-gai High School, first agreed under a heads of agreement it signed in 2016
• Council then supported a hockey relocation proposal to St Ives on Council land before withdrawing support.
• Government grants and volunteer effort were lost as a consequence.
• Hockey stakeholders were forced to restart the process.
• Ultimately, the upgrade turned full circle and was delivered at Ku-ring-gai High in late 2023 being the very site that Council had rejected in 2018. 

I demonstrate, in my attached letter, that Council bears substantial responsibility for a prolonged (10 year) delivery timeframe and hundreds of wasted hours by community volunteers.

6. Governance Concerns

I raised in my speeches to Parliament broader concerns about Council governance, including:

• The handling of conflicts of interest relating to Norman Griffiths Oval.
• The role of long-serving Councillors in project oversight.
• The management of criminal allegations involving Cr Spencer on Council operations.
• Whether Council has properly addressed these issues publicly.

Conclusion to the Executive Summary

The Mayoral Minute contains significant factual inaccuracies, omissions and misrepresentations which I detail in my letter. I maintain that my criticisms are evidence-based and motivated by concerns about the stewardship of public funds and the delivery by Local Government of public facilities. I call on you to:

• Publish this response and my attached letter with equal prominence to the original Mayoral Minute.
• Answer the unanswered questions which I identify about these projects.
• Consider issuing a public apology.
• Focus on improving accountability and project delivery.

My overall message is that the substantial cost overruns and delays in major Ku-ring-gai infrastructure projects are primarily the result of Council decisions and governance failures, and that the community deserves greater transparency and accountability from its elected representatives.

Yours sincerely

Alister Henskens SC MP 

CC: [email protected]

Cr Martin Smith (Deputy Mayor), Cr Kim Wheatley, Cr Cedric Spencer, Cr Matthew Devlin, Cr Jeff Pettett, Cr Indu Balachandran, Cr Barbara Ward, Cr Sam Ngai, Cr Alec Taylor

Cr Christine Kay

Mayor 

Ku-ring-gai Council 

818 Pacific Highway

GORDON NSW 2072

Email:  [email protected]

Dear Mayor Kay,

Response to your Mayoral Minute

Introduction

I refer to your three-paragraph letter to me with an electronic signature dated 16 July 2026 attaching and reporting on the Mayoral Minute (MM) and Resolution of Council on 16 June 2026.  I note that this simple letter took a month after the MM was presented to, and the resolution was adopted by Council, to be sent to me. 

I also note that you copied me in on your application for a Citizen’s Right of Reply to the Speaker of the NSW Legislative Assembly dated 17 June 2026. Both the request by you and the separate request by Cr Spencer for a Citizen’s Right of Reply to Parliament, were a diversion from addressing the important issues raised in my speeches to Parliament and both requests have now been rejected by the NSW Parliament. Accordingly, I have prioritised other constituent work rather than rush to deal with the matters raised in your MM that go back many years in order to provide the thorough response which I now provide.

Since your MM, I note that at an Extraordinary Meeting of the Council held to discuss the Norman Griffiths Project it emerged that close to $1 million has been spent since Council terminated the construction contract in May 2025. Ongoing costs associated with the site are approximately $60,000 per month and include the hire of site fencing, CCTV, cattle grid, dewatering and labour. Also, from May to 28 July this year $129,000 has been spent on dewatering costs alone. These are ongoing Council costs until the site is in a position for the public to use.

This is in addition to what has been reported to be a $4 million award against the Council in favour of the construction contractor after the construction contract was terminated by the Council.  Furthermore, at the time of writing this letter, it is not known when the project will be recommenced and when it is likely to be completed so that the $60,000 per month liability of the Council will be an indefinite ongoing liability. 

This further information, which has been available to Council for months, and which is now only newly in the public domain, about wasted funds, is but a small snapshot to ratepayers of the real cost of indecision by your Council. This is the point I made in my recent speeches to Parliament, that you took exception to. Why were these matters not included in your MM? Why were you so concerned to try and attack me in the media and in your MM for simply voicing the concerns of the broader community about the mismanagement of infrastructure projects by the Council that you lead?

Background

On 26 May 2026 at about 6:32 pm I delivered a Private Member’s Statement in Parliament about Infrastructure Failures in Ku-ring-gai. I am only permitted to speak for 5 minutes under Parliament’s standing orders for speeches of this kind, so the speech had to be succinct[i] . In my speech I raised the following matters:

1. That it was the first speech delivered by me in relation to your Council’s decisions in Parliament in almost 5 years.

2. I set out the history of three very old NSW Government grants for infrastructure projects in our area, involving grants to provide sports facilities usually funded entirely by Council, that had experienced time delays and cost blow outs caused by the Council.

3. I detailed the $33 million combined cost and time over runs on two projects and time delays on another project.

4. I noted that Council was applying for a 29% rate increase, while the continuing cost and delays on one project was having adverse impacts on my electorate generally, including football players and the West Pymble Bicentennial Club.

5. I asked what accountability was being taken by the elected or employed members of the Council, especially Councillors who have continuously served on Council during this period, for the $33 million excess ratepayer money over the initial cost estimates; and

6. I asked were any specific Councillors responsible for overseeing these projects.

I note that the last two matters (in paragraphs 5 and 6) have not been addressed in your MM, statements in the press and discussion in the Council meeting that debated your MM.   Indeed, I am not aware that Council as a whole, or you, have at any time addressed these important questions.  Please correct me if I am in error.

On 27 May 2026 at 11:51am (the next morning after my speech to Parliament) my office received an email from Cindy Yin of the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) making allegations going back to 2021 and March 2023 concerning matters to do with Cr Spencer and a Council resolution by you. In the past 5 and 3 years respectively, these matters had never previously been raised directly with me by either Cr Spencer, yourself or anyone else. 

On 29 May 2026 (after communications from myself and my office with the journalist) the SMH published an article which contained a small sample of the matters originally alleged against me in their email of 27 May 2026. As I explained to Parliament the journalist did not include in the article many of the false matters that were put to me. The SMH article contained statements on the record by Cr Spencer and yourself.  Your statements to the SMH did not address the questions in paragraphs 5 and 6 above.

On 2 June 2026, I took the opportunity to make a further Private Member’s Statement in Parliament to deal with some public interest matters which were not reported in the SMH article.  In that speech I raised:

1. That long-serving Councillors such as Crs Spencer, Pettett and yourself should be explaining to the community your oversight and role in these Council projects.

2. How were Crs Spencer and Pettett allowed to vote on the recent Council resolution when they had previously declared a conflict of interest with regards to the Norman Griffiths Oval project.

3. Whether Councillors realise that delay only increases the cost of infrastructure projects (at that time I was not privy to the fencing and other costs detailed in the recent Extraordinary Council Meeting)

4. Whether Council could be fully focused on the community interest when since November 2024, one Councillor was the alleged victim of a threat to kill him made by Cr Spencer and has had to attend Council meetings and some community functions with Cr Spencer.

5. That Cr Spencer lied to the SMH journalist about me putting pressure on him when I detailed that since 11 January 2022, I have had virtually no contact with him.

6. That Council needs to explain why it has delivered infrastructure projects so badly in the past; and 

7. That Council needs to explain how they are going to do better in the future starting with Norman Griffiths Oval.

At the Council meeting on 16 June 2026, none of the above 7 matters were dealt with either in your MM, or in the discussion that debated your MM. Indeed, I am not aware that the Council as a whole, or you at any time, have addressed any of these important matters. Please correct me if I am in error.

Your MM is a disappointing document as is your request for a Citizen’s Right of Reply. 

Not in my Electorate of Wahroonga

Your MM suggests that my speeches in Parliament were somehow illegitimate because some of the projects discussed “were not even in [my] electorate.”  This is an embarrassing criticism. Over fifty percent of the residents in my electorate live in your Council area. Your statement involves a profound misunderstanding of how sporting infrastructure operates in your Council area in general and the particular infrastructure in question. Council has received detailed reports about the shortage of sports facilities within the Northern Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils (NSROC) area, which includes Ku-ring-gai and Hornsby Council areas. As Mayor, you should know that these projects provide facilities of benefit to my constituents who live in, and near your Council area. Constituents such as members of the Ku-ring-gai Kangaroo Basketball Club and the Gordon North Sydney Hockey Club had urged me to advocate for improvements to the poor local facilities for their sports. 

Norman Griffiths Oval is within my electorate, and for the first 8 years of my time in Parliament the hockey field was in my electorate, requiring me to have many discussions with the Hockey Association about the project. Prior to the completion of the St Ives High School project, all of my constituents who lived in your Council area had to travel outside of your Council area to either the Brickpit at Thornleigh or Crows Nest in order to play Basketball NSW approved competition basketball.

Alleged Fixation and Proposed Cooperation

Your MM makes the assertion that I am “fixated on the management and decision-making of” your Council. I assure you that I am not. I have always tried to limit my involvement in Council matters to issues that intersect with State Government matters, or issues which are raised by my constituents about your Council, which usually result in a written request by me for assistance or information addressed to the General Manager. I have made two speeches in Parliament about your Council decisions in 5 years and have had limited, but appropriate, contact with Councillors since early 2022 preferring to deal through the General Manager when dealing with constituent issues.  Most people would not consider this to be a “fixation”. 

The second speech on 2 June 2026 was a response to some false allegations which were put to me by the SMH the day after my first speech on 26 May 2026.  I have never previously had Councillors go behind my back to the media about matters at all, let alone false issues, that have not been raised with me first. I note your request in the MM and your letter for us to work cooperatively on matters of importance to our community.  Do you think that the contact with the media by one or more Councillors after my first speech was done in a spirit of cooperation with me as the local State Member of Parliament? 

Contrary to what seems to be implied by your MM and letter, it is not working “against” or “undermining” your Council to be raising in Parliament, or otherwise, issues about the performance of the Council which the community constantly raises with me. Raising these issues is a core part of representative democracy.

I reject the suggestion by you that my speeches have had an impact on the reputation of Council. I did note in my Parliamentary speech that the continuation of one of your Councillors in office, while facing serious criminal charges [ii], may have an impact on the operation and reputation of the Council.  Has there been transparency with, or a corresponding MM about, managing his role in Council in light of those charges or other mechanism to deal with management of this issue since Cr Spencer’s charges became public last year?  If so, I am unaware of it.

Norman Griffiths Football Oval

I note that your MM does not take issue with the many observations that I made in my Parliamentary speeches about the Norman Griffiths Oval project or to try to defend the appalling financial waste of $17million which was recently further exposed at the Extraordinary Council Meeting.  In your MM you assert that Council’s reserves and not the Special Rate Variation is funding the extra cost. This is political sophistry.  If the Council had progressed the project quickly and with proper oversight, Council would be $17 million better off financially and this money could be used for other infrastructure projects. It is one Council budget and one pool of ratepayers (not Councillors) money.

You seem to suggest in your MM that I should only address my concerns about Norman Griffiths Oval at Council conducted Public Forums where speaking times are more limited than in Parliament.  That seems to suggest that as a lawfully elected member of the NSW Parliament, I should use Council meetings, rather than the Parliament, to raise matters of public importance to my electorate. This is an unfortunate assertion contemptuous of our Parliamentary democracy.  Councils are the creation of an Act of the NSW Parliament and not the other way around.

St Ives High Basketball Courts

In your MM and the proposed Citizen’s Right of Reply, you do not deny that if Council had joined the Department of Education (DoE) construction contract in 2019, it would have saved the ratepayers of Ku-ring-gai about $16.3 million, or that this amount accounts for some of the large rate increase by Council.  That is because the Report to your Council dated 10 December 2019 stated that the pricing in 2019, for Council’s part of the project if it joined the Construction Contract with the builder engaged by the DoE was for a price “within the realm of Council’s own preliminary cost estimates” and that “The cost (to Council) would be significantly higher for two separate build stages as each trade would need to complete their works, leave/decant the site and then return for stage 2.” Council elected to have two separate build stages despite being warned by its own staff of the probable substantial increased cost to ratepayers.

Your MM concedes all of this and only argues that there were reasons why Council did not join with the DoE which my speech omitted, and that Council had only 2 months to commit to an agreement with the DoE. 

The time under Parliament’s standing orders for speeches did not allow me to include every matter that could be said about these projects in the detail that I can in this letter. But I do not agree with your explanation for why Council did not join with the DoE and proceed under one building contract in 2020. Your explanation involves a gross misrepresentation of the facts regarding Council’s engagement with the project. Council was not rushed in 2 months for a decision as you contend. Council was engaging with the DoE in relation to the project since before 2016 and well before the State Government grant in January 2019 of $3.5 million. Council had resolved to and did sign in May 2016, an in-principle agreement with the DoE to work together in relation to both the basketball and hockey projects.  I note that in a letter dated 27 February 2018 from the DoE to the Council’s General Manager, the DoE addresses that they had (unsuccessfully) been endeavouring to work with the Council since mid-2016 on both the St Ives High 4 court proposal, and the Ku-ring-gai High School hockey field upgrade as well as other matters. 

In a North Shore Times article of 19 April 2018, the St Ives High project and other outdoor basketball courts were discussed with quotes from the then Mayor. However, according to the notes of my staff member in November 2018, we were informed by the DoE in a meeting that they were still having difficulties dealing with Council on the St Ives High project because no one person in Council was responsible for the project and that the Council continually turned small issues into deal breakers.  At the time I passed this information onto the, then, Mayor. 

Council applied for a grant in relation to its component of the St Ives High project in 2018 and was awarded a NSW Government grant of $3.5 million on 29 January 2019. The Mayor told the North Shore Times on 31 January 2019 that the project would cost Council around $15 million, which is consistent with the advice I received from the DoE of $13.7 million (with Council’s delays it actually cost $30 million). The then Member for Davidson, Jonathan O’Dea, wrote to the Mayor on 21 February 2019 requesting that the project be discussed at the Council’s strategic meeting later that week and progressed.   

The DoE after losing patience with Council’s delay, decided to proceed with its part of the St Ives project for 2 basketball courts but entered into a contract with the Builder in 2019 which was written in a manner that it could be novated to add the Council’s 2 court part of the project to it. Construction of the DoE’s stage of the project commenced in 2019 with groundwork estimated to be completed by the end of 2019. I was told by the DoE in February 2020 that it was feasible to add the Council to the DoE Construction Contract as late as 30 June 2020. Council had many years, not two months as you wrongly suggest in your MM, to deal with all matters relevant to it’s part of the project as the above history demonstrates.

The reasons that Council received a grant from the State Government was because Ku-ring-gai was the only Council in Sydney that did not have an indoor sports facility where basketball and other indoor sports could be played. NSROC had identified a deficiency of over 20 indoor basketball courts in our area of Sydney to meet current demand, with Ku-ring-gai the only Council in the whole of the Northern Beaches and Northern suburbs of Sydney without any public indoor sports facilities. 

In December 2019, I addressed a Council public meeting with many members of the community, including the CEO of Basketball NSW, to urge Council to save money and time by joining with the DoE’s Construction Contract and build its agreed 2 courts at the same time as the DoE 2 courts.  I found only some of the Councillors actually attended the public information meeting and I was disappointed by the level of attention of those Councillors that did attend. Subsequently, Council voted in February 2020 to reject the opportunity to join the DoE contract therefore causing ultimately an extra $16.7million cost to ratepayers.  

Your MM wrongly states that multiple issues were not able to be resolved in “2 months”. This statement is not correct because all issues had been resolved by the time of my detailed email dated 17 February 2020 that I sent to you and the other Councillors. The history shows that Council had already been delaying the project for years by November 2018. Council could still have committed to the project by the middle of 2020. In my 17 February 2020 email to all Councillors, I warned them (including you) with a prediction that a failure to proceed with construction under the DoE contract would add a further cost to the Council and its ratepayers of more than $5 million. I was correct as the overrun amounted to a calamitous extra $16.7 million cost to ratepayers.

A response to the matters that you raise in your MM, that you incorrectly state were unresolved include:

• You state that funding was not available, however, there was already an indication that a T Corp low interest State Government loan would be available to the Council to fund Council’s project cost in addition to the $3.5 million State Government grant.  The use of a T Corp loan was the very mechanism that Council used many years later to proceed with the project at a significantly increased cost.  When Council signed the Funding Agreement with the NSW Government in February 2019 to receive the $3.5 million grant for the project, Council gave an unconditional promise to contribute $11.464 million to the project in addition to the grant but took no steps prior, to February 2020, to obtain funding.  I had to make inquiries of T Corp on Council’s behalf.
• You say in the MM that “legal and construction contract arrangements had not been determined’ but Council was being offered the opportunity to novate an existing contract and obtain the benefit of the existing work by the DoE in tendering and documenting the construction contract for the project.
• Any planning issues were of the Council’s own making because of its delay, but in any event were capable of resolution in time to proceed with the DoE’s contract in 2020.  Despite Council resolving on 26 February 2019 to use approximately $900,000 to apply for a DA, the Council did not do any work preparing a DA application within a year of that resolution.  At no time until 5 July 2021 (more than three years after the state government grant and two years after construction had commenced on the DoE’s part of the project in 2019) did Council even lodge a development application for its part of the project. Expert advice in 2019 to Council, by a company working on private school infrastructure projects in our area, was that an expedited DA approval was available to the Council under the Education SEPP as utilised by many private schools in our area. In the report by Council staff to Council dated 10 December 2019 Council staff noted that “Review of a preliminary assessment prepared by EPM Projects …appears to substantiate that the development of Council’s portion would be permitted under the ESEPP.”  When other issues were raised, EPM did a further report to address them and contended that the project could still proceed under the ESEPP. This is inconsistent with your MM which states that “Council had received independent advice that the appropriate planning pathway to obtain consent for the project was via a development application.”  Instead of using the Education SEPP, which could have obtained a DA approval for the construction of 4 basketball courts in 28 days at a small cost to the Council (as had been done in the recent past by Baker College with its 5 Basketball Court project and at Knox Grammar School with regards to a performing arts facility), your Council instead elected to proceed with a much longer and expensive ($1million) DA process, not utilising the Education SEPP that ruled out any participation in the cost savings available by becoming a party to the DoE’s Construction Contract. This had clear time and cost implications.  Rather than commencing DA application work in February 2019 or relying on an Education SEPP which would have taken 28 days to obtain a DA approval, Council delayed doing anything and then chose in December 2019 a pathway which resulted in DA approval being delayed until March 2022. I was advised by the DoE in writing that shortly after the DA approval in April 2022, Council then agreed to a new Funding Agreement Variation with the DoE whereby Council bore all of the additional construction cost because of the delay for its part of the project.  I was told in writing by the DoE that Council’s portion of the project, by that time, had increased from an $11.5 million estimate in 2019 to $19.6 million in April 2022.
• You say in the MM that the initial proposal for Council use was for a term of only 20 years and the delay by Council was able to “prudently” secure a 50-year term. However, the version of the Use Agreement that was circulated by Council’s Director Andrew Watson to Councillors in an email of 14 February 2020 (which I received at the time by an email forwarded by you) contained a total term of 40 years after the exercise of options granted to Council. In any event, the 10-year extra term would have been granted in 2019 if Council had asked for it. As late as 14 February 2020 I was advised by the DoE in writing that the Council had not provided any advice on that or earlier drafts of the Use Agreement or notified any outstanding issues. After it was said to me that the Council would require a longer term, the Department indicated to me that they would positively deal with any reasonable request by Council for a longer term beyond 40 years, but that none had been made.  In any event, a 10-year extension of time hardly justified more than doubling the construction cost of the project with $17 million extra in construction by reason of the delay; and
• You say that the Department of Local Government had still to give approvals, but by 17 February 2020 it had given written approval for Council to proceed with the Project, after Council had delayed in applying for approval. I informed you and the other Councillors of this in my email to them dated 17 February 2020. 

The true reason, as you know, for Council not proceeding in partnership with the DoE was a lack of will and delay by the Council, notwithstanding the advice by Council staff in 2019 that delay would add significant cost to the ratepayers of the Council if it resolved on 18 February 2020, as it did, to not commit to joining in the construction contract with the DoE.

Your real objection to my speech is not that I have undermined any past decisions by Council (as you told the SMH), but that I have drawn public attention to what I warned Council would be the detrimental financial and time consequence of not proceeding in 2019 in partnership with the State Government with construction of the St Ives High project.  It is my belief that the community is entitled to know that the current situation at Norman Griffiths Oval of delay by Council, and large additional cost to ratepayers, is a case of recent history repeating itself.

You note in the MM that the facility is highly successful and utilised by the community.  This could have been available in 2021, and not five years later in 2026, if Council had resolved differently in 2019 and it would have been at a significantly reduced cost to ratepayers.

The cost increases and delay as demonstrated above were created by Council and not by the DoE as you suggest in your MM. The DoE constructed the Council funded component of the project for community use once Council belatedly decided to proceed many years after 2019.

Synthetic Hockey Field Upgrade

Your MM in relation to the synthetic Hockey Field is also incomplete and incorrect. In my speech to Parliament on 26 May 2026, I said that Council was responsible for the long delay in the hockey project being finalised. I made no complaints about cost over runs on this project.

Originally under the in-principle agreement between the Council and the DoE in the middle of 2016, a new synthetic hockey field was proposed to replace the existing field at Ku-ring-gai High School for community use.  By the time of the letter dated 27 February 2018 from the DoE to the Council’s General Manager, it states that “Council had determined not to proceed with a joint use proposal” at the Ku-ring-gai High School site.  The part of your MM that states that “the DoE was seeking for it to be relocated” is contrary to the documentation prior to February 2018 and this contemporaneous correspondence with the Council. From 2016 the DoE had proposed a continuation of the existing joint use at the High School with a jointly funded upgrade to the surface. Council rejected that proposal, and Council was advised by the DoE in the letter of 27 February 2018 that “the existing hockey field surface is aged, and the Department needs to consider closing the facility if a long-term solution cannot be determined by the Council and the hockey association.” It was a case of the DoE offering to assist the Council to deliver one of its core functions of providing community sport facilities, not the Council assisting the Department, as your MM seeks to twist the facts. 

In 2018, Council decided to abandon community hockey being played at Ku-ring-gai High School in the near future and relocate a new hockey field on Council land. Council then supported the 2018 application by the Hockey Association for a State Government grant to locate a new synthetic hockey field on Council land at Barra Brui Oval in St Ives.

After the $2.25 million State Government grant was awarded in January 2019, The Hockey Association secured a $500,000 Federal grant for a club house, Council allocated $1.1 million to a new hockey field and the hockey community contributed funds of $250,000. Council went through a public consultation process for Barra Brui Oval which took a long time and then Council elected to not proceed with that site. That process used $100,000 of the Council funds. Both the State and Federal Government grants were lost, and Council did not honour their commitment to continue with financial support. Many hundreds of hours of hockey volunteer time was also lost by this process. There was also further time taken to assess other possible Council sites for the hockey grant which did not result in a suitable alternate Council site being made available. 

Ultimately, the Hockey Association was left with no other option but to return to the 2016 proposal rejected by Council and to remain at Ku-ring-gai High School. The Hockey Association applied for another State Government grant and was awarded $2.72 million in June 2022 under the Multi Sport Community Facility Fund and the Association committed $500,000 of its own funds.  Then more than 2 years was spent in further negotiations between the Association, Council and the DoE.  Council also required new car parking for the continuation of hockey at the site and had to be convinced to provide funding with regard to new parking.  The remaining $1million of Council funds originally pledged in 2018 was used exclusively for a car park upgrade and not on hockey facilities. Pitch development works finally commenced in mid-2023 and were finalised by December 2023.  It then took more than 2 years for Council and DoE to upgrade the car park to finally complete the project in 2026. 

All of this was a long, drawn-out process which would not have been required if Council had decided in 2018 to stay at Ku-ring-gai High and spend the 6 months that it actually took to replace the surface there or see through its initial proposal to locate the new synthetic field at Barra Brui Oval.  Although the grant was to the Hockey Association and not the Council as your MM states as some sort of justification, that does not take away from the substantial delays throughout the process by reason of Council’s involvement. I have had numerous meetings with the leadership of the Hockey Association over the years to try and give State Government support so that hockey could continue to be safely played in our area as the existing surface at the High School was becoming dangerous to my constituents who played there. Council has at many stages been an impediment to that objective.  My speech to Parliament records that Council was responsible for the delay (from 2016 until 2026), in finally delivering the project as demonstrated above.

Contact with Councillors

Your MM does not set out all that I said in Parliament in my second speech about the frequency of contact with Councillors and selectively focuses on only part of the speech on this subject matter. I said in the speech that I could not have put pressure on Cr Spencer as he alleged to the SMH, as I have had limited contact with him since early 2022 and none at all after he sent a text message to me in October 2024 containing a threat. 

Your MM makes no reference to that part of my speech. I agree that I have had constructive interaction with Councillors, other than Cr Spencer, about Council matters on occasion since 2022 which is consistent with the contact that I explained in my speech to Parliament. I checked my text messages and emails before making my speech about the frequency of my communications. As I have stated above, the overwhelmingly most frequent mechanism for my contact with Council has been through the General Manager in writing when I am raising matters on behalf of constituents with the Council. 

Conclusion

I appreciate the opportunity to state the true facts in relation to these matters and to correct the many errors in your MM. 

As your MM is a public document, I look forward to you publishing my response with equal prominence to the MM and your consideration of a public apology to me given the many inaccuracies and incomplete information contained in your MM.

I am always willing to work in the community’s best interests with Council and its Councillors, and I am pleased that you say that you are too.

Yours sincerely,

Alister Henskens SC MP

CC: [email protected]

Cr Martin Smith (Deputy Mayor), Cr Kim Wheatley, Cr Cedric Spencer, Cr Matthew Devlin, Cr Jeff Pettett, Cr Indu Balachandran, Cr Barbara Ward, Cr Sam Ngai, Cr Alec Taylor

[i] I reject your MM contention that I could “dwell at length” about three projects in a 5-minute speech.

[ii] By way of update, I note that according to the publicly available orders of the Local Court at Hornsby on 17 August 2026,it would appear that, Cr Cedric Spencer availed himself of a defence under s 20BQ(1)(c) of the Crimes Act 1914 (Cth) and it was found that he is suffering from a mental illness and/or intellectual disability of such a nature that the Court determined that it would be more appropriate to deal with his charges under that defence rather than find him responsible for his actions under the criminal law, which I detailed in Parliament, was a criminal charge for his use of a carriage service to threaten to kill another Councillor of your Council. 

It is on the basis of that defence, that the Court orders record that his charge was dismissed on the condition that he attend medical practitioners for treatment in accordance with a proposed treatment plan, that he comply with all reasonable directions for his various mental and medical conditions, that he continue with his psychological treatment, continue to take medication and remain abstinent from alcohol. 

The effect of the order under s 20BQ(1)(c) of the Crimes Act 1914 (Cth) is not a permanent dismissal of the charge against him because the order made operates as a stay by reason of s 20BQ(2) of the Crimes Act 2014 (Cth). 

Cr Spencer sought and obtained an order preventing members of the public from observing and listening to his case in a public Court and a suppression order preventing members of the public from inspecting the Court file for documents or reports that he relied upon in his s 20BQ(1)(c) defence by a psychiatrist and others in relation to the psychiatric, psychological, neuropsychological, cognitive, medication, treatment or alcohol history of Cr Spencer.