The sorry and confusing tale of Myuna Bay's sport and recreation camp continues to drag on.
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Today, the Newcastle Herald reports that the Office of Sport is refusing to release details of its deal with Origin Energy to close the centre and build another camp on the shores of Lake Macquarie.
The centre closed abruptly in 2019 over fears the Eraring power station ash dam could fail and inundate the camp in the event of a 5.7-magnitude earthquake.
It appeared a "strange scenario" at the time, as Lake Macquarie mayor Kay Fraser and two other councillors wrote in an opinion piece for the Herald in December last year.
At the very least the community and the council deserve to know where the money went.
The centre closed without a publicly available plan in place to replace it.
It appears as though Origin paid the Office of Sport at least $47 million in 2022 after agreeing to provide a 99-year lease on another waterfront site and fund a new recreation centre. The $47 million figure is freely available in the Office of Sport's published annual financial statements.
Five years after the two parties apparently struck a deed of agreement, the government's Hunter Central Coast Regional Planning Panel has approved the camp's demolition yet no waterfront site and no plans for a new centre have materialised.
It stands to reason that the council and the community would like to know what is in the agreement.
The saga is another failure of government transparency. Deals done behind closed doors lead to conspiracy theories and a breakdown in trust.
At the very least the community and the council deserve to know where the money went.
Has it been set aside for a new centre, as was promised? If so, where will the new centre be located and how long will it take to build it? Why has it taken so long to formulate a new plan?
Lake Macquarie City Council had its own freedom-of-information request for the deed of agreement knocked back in January.
The Office of Sport said in rejecting the Newcastle Herald's request for the document that there was an "overriding public interest against disclosure".
The office argued the document contained commercial-in-confidence information that, if disclosed, would "place Origin Energy at a substantial commercial disadvantage".
It is hard to imagine how Origin's business interests outweigh the public's right to know what has happened to $47 million of taxpayers' money.
Sadly, the community has grown accustomed to governments avoiding scrutiny behind "commercial-in-confidence".
Lake Macquarie MP Greg Piper says he is "sick of the conspiracy theories" surrounding the camp's closure and is confident the land will not be sold to developers.
But he is also frustrated at the government's lack of transparency on plans for a new centre.
At this rate it could be at least seven or eight years between the old centre closing and a new one opening.
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