Senior state Liberal MP Alister Henskens has been accused of undue influence after text messages revealed he advised a Sydney mayor to sack the council’s long-serving general manager.
In August 2021, Ku-ring-gai councillor Cedric Spencer messaged Wahroonga MP Alister Henskens that he would challenge incumbent Jennifer Anderson in September.
“Let’s see if I’m successful. I’ll fire McKee immediately,” Spencer wrote, in reference to Ku-ring-gai Council’s general manager of 15 years, John McKee.
The night Spencer beat Anderson at the council meeting, September 21, 2021, Wahroonga MP Alister Henskens exchanged messages with Spencer. Spencer is a member of the Liberal Party but sits on the council as an independent.
“Congratulations Mr Mayor,” the first text from Henskens read. “Get rid of John McKay [misspelling of McKee] while you can,” he added.
Spencer said he was “planning that as we speak”, to which Henskens responded: “Excellent. And Watson next.” That was a reference to Andrew Watson, the director of strategy and environment at Ku-ring-gai.
Spencer told the Herald he had been “under a tremendous amount of pressure” from Henskens – the former minister for sport, former shadow attorney-general, and former manager of opposition business – to sack McKee.
He said Henskens was agitated at McKee “dragging his feet” on several council projects which had received government funding.
“Henskens exerts a lot of political pressure on Liberal councillors. It’s very unhealthy,” Spencer said. “MPs have a lot of influence.”
About one month into Spencer’s mayoralty, McKee banned him from speaking to or phoning council staff following alleged threats, behaviour which Spencer has since denied. Spencer was replaced by Jeff Pettett as the mayor in January 2022. In a separate instance, Spencer was charged over alleged threats he made towards a fellow councillor during a heated phone call in November 2024.
Henskens did not deny the texts existed, and in a statement said: “I reject that my text was an instruction and in proper context should not be interpreted that way.”
He added: “Spencer therefore had a predetermined plan not suggested by me to seek the removal of the general manager prior to my September text, and I reminded him on the day he became mayor in my text of the opportunity to now do what he was planning to do if he became mayor.”
The messages reveal that Spencer told Henskens he had finalised plans to fire McKee at the coming extraordinary meeting in October 2021.
The attempt to oust the general manager was unsuccessful. Half of the 10 councillors boycotted at least eight consecutive meetings. Without a quorum, the vote did not go ahead. The local government watchdog was also poised to intervene just weeks before the December elections.
In a November 2021 speech to parliament, Henskens criticised the council for having a “high degree of dysfunction and poor decision-making”, and for “fail[ing] to use $6 million in NSW government grants to upgrade local soccer and basketball facilities, with work not commenced within three years of the funds being awarded.”
One example was a synthetic turf project at West Pymble for local soccer clubs. In July 2017, Henskens announced $500,000 in grants from Liquor and Gaming NSW’s Club Grants infrastructure funding scheme to install a synthetic playing field at Norman Griffiths Oval – a decade-long project since plagued with delays, cost blowouts, and probity concerns.
Henskens said at the time the new field would “particularly benefit the local football competition”.
Despite a statutory caretaker period restricting major decisions four weeks before the December local government elections, McKee and Spencer signed the design and construction contract with builders TurfOne for Norman Griffiths Oval on November 11, 2021.
Almost two years later, Henskens also allegedly sent a text message congratulating councillors the morning after a successful second attempt to dismiss McKee in September 2023. Then-mayor Sam Ngai wrote a letter to McKee thanking him for his service. McKee joined the council in 1998, was appointed as GM in 2006, and held the role for 17 years until his dismissal in 2023.
Henskens said on Thursday that a significant number of councillors, including Spencer, had told him privately before the September 2021 text exchange that they were unhappy with McKee’s performance.
In response, McKee said performance reviews during his tenure were “without exception, above expectations on each occasion”.
On Tuesday, Henskens spoke about the troubled synthetic turf project in parliament, urging the council to prioritise its completion. He also defended his lack of involvement in the bungled project.
“Despite attempts by anonymous people on social media to blame me for the appalling situation, my only involvement in the project was standing for a photo in 2017, listening to the views of the community and encouraging the council to get on with the project after the state government gave the grant,” he said.
In his statement, Henskens rejected Spencer’s claim that he helped secure funding for Norman Griffiths Oval, and said he first learnt about the application for $500,000 after it had been granted.
Henskens added: “I strongly reject his allegation of any improper conduct of me or that the text related to the Norman Griffiths Oval.”
However, Spencer said Henskens “conveniently ignored” how “his grants started the mess”.
“Council’s delivery issues may have made it worse, but without those underfunded commitments there would have been no mess to begin with.”
Ku-ring-gai Council Mayor Christine Kay said she was “disappointed that a local state MP has chosen to undermine the carefully considered decisions of the elected council regarding major community projects”.
Henskens twice danced with party leadership – once after former premier Dominic Perrottet lost the 2023 state election, and the second time when Mark Speakman resigned as opposition leader in November.
An Office of Local Government spokesperson did not respond directly when asked whether the text exchanges were a direct breach of the Local Government Act, but said, “council recruitment decisions should be fair, transparent and based on merit”.
