Media release – Nick Duigan, Minister for Sports and Events, 19 November 2024

Kingston to be the home of new AFL High Performance Centre

The Kingston Twin Ovals has been chosen as the site for the AFL High Performance Centre and Training Facility, marking a significant milestone for Tasmania’s AFL dream.

Minister for Sports and Events, Nick Duigan, said significant due diligence had shown Kingston offered the best location in terms of delivery, cost and community outcome.

“This is a foundational step toward establishing Tasmania’s first dedicated AFL and AFLW teams,” Minister Duigan said.

“This facility will support elite player development, enabling Tasmanian athletes to compete at the highest levels while inspiring future generations.

“It will help create a legacy for local football and elevate Tasmania on the national sports stage.”

Minister Duigan said the Kingston site means practical completion can be completed on or before the 31 October 2027, which is the date agreed to by the AFL.

“Our Government is delivering transformational projects right across Tasmania,” Minister Duigan said.

“The High Performance Centre is one part making Tasmania’s very own AFL team a reality, something that Tasmanians have wanted for decades, and the Tasmanian Liberal Government has made that possible.

“As part of our 2030 Strong Plan for Tasmania’s Future, we are delivering game changing infrastructure for our state, generating hundreds of millions in economic activity, and creating jobs.”

The Tasmanian Government’s 2024-25 State Budget commits $60 million towards the centre with an additional $10 million contribution from the AFL.

Media release – Clarence City Council, 19 November 2024

Clarence City Council extremely disappointed in the Government’s handling of HPC decision and process

Clarence City Council is extremely disappointed that after nearly a year of heightened community debate and hundreds of thousands of dollars spent, the decision has been made by the State Government not to build the AFL/AFLW High Performance Centre in our municipality.

Throughout this process it was continually stated publicly, as was told to council, that Rosny was the preferred site for the High Performance Centre.

Council was told Rosny was the only site that satisfied the AFL’s selection criteria, including that the HPC needed to be close to a population centre and transport corridors.

If these criteria were negotiable, other sites in the Clarence municipality which were dismissed by the State and AFL representatives could have been further explored.

If there was any doubt about the viability of the Rosny sites this should have been communicated to council at the earliest opportunity to inform our decision making – particularly in relation to the elector poll which cost Clarence ratepayers nearly $150,000. Instead, we received inadequate communication from senior members within the Department of State Growth. No concerns regarding cost or timing of the delivery of the project were ever raised with council.

Council participated in the site selection process in good faith and went to significant lengths to ensure we could satisfy the extensive criteria put forward by the AFL and the State Government.

Council set clear non-negotiables, including that the project must work with our proposed City Heart Plan, that ratepayer money would not be used for the capital works directly related to the development and that adequate time be given for public consultation.

Council was also clear that we would not sell the land for a dollar, or any other amount – that the land must remain in Council ownership for the community.

Council sought to ensure the final development included significant opportunities for community amenity and that the community’s interests were enshrined in a draft Heads of Agreement that we first presented to Government in February. To date we have not received a formal response to this document.

It is a matter of public record that council members and staff have experienced unacceptable levels of abuse during this process from some members of the community, in part, because of the information vacuum that has surrounded this project, through no fault of council.

It is a matter of deep regret that the division this project has created could have been entirely avoided.

Quotes attributable Clarence City Council Mayor Brendan Blomeley regarding the Government’s decision to move the development of the AFL/AFLW High Performance Centre to Kingborough.

“Council is disappointed by today’s announcement that the HPC will go to Kingborough.

“The negotiation and consultation practices undertaken by the Government in respect to the High Performance Centre have been extremely disappointing, bordering on unconscionable.

“This process has had no proper structure and has been poorly handled by the Department of State Growth, and the Minister.

“We submitted a draft Heads of Agreement to the Tasmanian Government back in February, have had no substantive response. Instead, we received a list of questions in August asking how we can make the development cheaper for the Government, and by extension the Club, and were given less than two weeks to respond.

“We were concerned that the Government wanted a free ride from day one. They approached councils looking for land to be handed over, not willing to make use of their own land or purchase private land.

“It became clear as time passed that the State is trying to push costs back onto council and its community, and this was evident through the questions we were asked instead of a response to our draft Heads of Agreement.

“For council and our community, we had a number of our non-negotiables. Most importantly, we weren’t prepared to sell or transfer the Rosny Parklands to the Tasmanian Government. We also considered it important that the community receive a return on its land, via a lease payment.

“The Government and Club has seemingly sacrificed the better location because they failed to accurately estimate the cost.

“This has been an awful experience for council, our staff, and our community.

“The division of our community caused by a severe lack of information coming out of the Government has been horrible to see.

“Across council there is a significant level of frustration with how the process has been handled. “It’s not the way we like to do business.

Rosalie Woodruff MP, Greens Leader, 19 November 2024

Rosny Parklands saved

The Tasmanian Greens welcome news that the AFL/AFLW High Performance Centre will not go ahead on the Rosny Parklands or Charles Hand Park sites in Clarence.

This is a win for the Clarence community, who roundly rejected the building of the High Performance Centre across Rosny Parklands and Charles Hand Park in an elector poll. These vital greenspaces can continue to be used by the community.

This decision would not have happened without the incredible work from the Save Rosny Parklands group and community members. They worked tirelessly to save these parklands for communities into the future, and we thank and congratulate them.

We hope the Clarence City Council will renew its planned City Heart Plan, which envisioned Rosny Parklands and Charles Hand Park as the centre of an open green-space network for the community. The medium density housing, the arts and culture precinct, sports courts and edible gardens planned for the parks can now go ahead.

With the High Performance Centre to be built at Kingston, the Liberal Government must ensure that this community – and communities everywhere – are better consulted going forward on the use of public spaces.