MINUTES from a meeting about funding for the Frankston Basketball Stadium redevelopment are at the centre of a brewing stoush between Frankston Council and Frankston MP Paul Edbrooke.
The Frankston Basketball Stadium is set to receive a $60 million redevelopment, which will be completed with matching $15 million contributions from the state and federal governments. The finished project will feature ten basketball courts and a 1000 square metre hall for the Bayside Gymnastics Club.
Last Tuesday, 5 March, Edbrooke aired claims about Frankston mayor Nathan Conroy and Frankston Council officers under the protection of parliamentary privilege. Edbrooke alleged that Conroy misled him and then-Dunkley MP Peta Murphy at a 2023 meeting by telling them that gymnastics had been removed from the scope of the Frankston Basketball Stadium project.
“On 5 June 2023, a Frankston councillor stated several times on the record that council were removing the $6 million gymnastics component from a $55 million project,” Edbrooke said. “Later the councillor denied these statements – telling us that the federal and state members were wrong, all our records were wrong, our staff were wrong, and former barrister Peta Murphy MP’s minutes were wrong.”
Minutes from the June 2023 meeting recorded by Murphy, seen by The Times, read that Conroy said gymnastics had been removed from the project. Edbrooke alleged that minutes later distributed to Frankston councillors omitted mention of the gymnastics claim. The Frankston MP says he has referred the matter to IBAC for investigation.
Conroy addressed Edbrooke’s comments in a statement last Friday. He said there had been “misunderstanding” during the 2023 meeting but that council “have never considered this to have been done with any malicious intent by any party involved.”
Conroy said council “have sought to clarify this with Mr Edbrooke on multiple occasions via text messages, written statements, and subsequent in-person meetings.” “At the conclusion of both the [2022] federal and state elections, council was delighted to receive $15 million in funding commitments from both state and federal governments towards the redevelopment of the stadium,” Conroy said. “It was not until later that year on 7 December 2022 that council received written notification from Mr Edbrooke that “the Victorian Government’s support was for basketball only and separate to any other sport or sporting project that council may have identified as a priority advocacy project”. Since then, council has worked on the project scope to ensure all needs can be met.
“The 5 June 2023 meeting that Mr Edbrooke is highlighting was a regular catch-up for council and local MPs to discuss the election commitment funding for several projects. Given the interest of Mr Edbrooke, council focused the discussion of the stadium redevelopment on the basketball only components. However, in minutes provided by the MPs following the meeting they recorded that council had removed the project’s gymnastics components. This was never the case and council officers have attempted to clarify these details many times to qualify that the redevelopment would include basketball and gymnastics, but the state government funding would contribute to the basketball component only. To ensure councillors were kept up to date on these discussions informal meeting notes prepared by council officers were shared with them.”
In September last year, The Times revealed that Frankston Council had considered removing gymnastics from the Frankston Basketball Stadium project. Ultimately, councillors voted to spend an extra $15 million on the upgrade and retain the proposed gymnastics facility – the final proposed cost is now $60 million with council contributing $30 million. At council’s September meeting, Conroy thanked the Bayside Gymnastics Club for its advocacy (“Basketball stadium cost increases” The Times 18/9/2023).
Conroy was the Liberal candidate at the Dunkley by-election earlier this month. He was defeated by Labor candidate Jodie Belyea, and has now returned to the role of mayor. The by-election was triggered by Peta Murphy’s death in December. Throughout the campaign, Edbrooke actively campaigned against Conroy.
Conroy says that last week’s events should not hold up the Frankston Basketball Stadium project. “Funding from council is confirmed, negotiations are progressing well with the federal government and are currently underway with the state government. We remain hopeful this matter will be resolved promptly without further delay to the delivery of this important local project,” he said.
This is not the first time that the planned redevelopment of the Frankston Basketball Stadium has caused headaches for Frankston Council. A planned redevelopment fell through in 2017 when lease negotiations between Frankston & District Basketball Association and Frankston Council collapsed. $5.2 million of federal government money allocated to the Frankston Basketball Stadium project was later diverted to the Jubilee Park redevelopment.
In late 2018, an investigation into serious misconduct allegations at the Frankston & District Basketball Association was completed but was not made public (“Investigation into basketball board remains private”, The Times, 18/2/19).
