Tasmanian Labor welcomes scrutiny by the powerful Public Accounts Committee (PAC) into the State Liberal Government’s proposed stadium at Macquarie Point in Hobart.
Chaired by Independent MLC Ruth Forrest, PAC will examine the processes and decision making that led the state government to commit to building a $750 million taxpayer-funded stadium.
There is considerable, widespread, disquiet throughout the Tasmanian community about the proposed stadium.
It’s not a priority for the state and a large number of Tasmania’s Federal Liberal MPs agree, including Senators Dunium, Chandler and Askew and Braddon and Bass MPs Gavin Pearce and Bridget Archer who have all voiced their disapproval of the project.
The Premier has been pushed around by the AFL and has not stood up to them.
The Premier should never have agreed to the demand of the AFL that a new stadium be built as we have two perfectly good AFL-quality stadiums in the state already.
The AFL has strung the Premier and the Tasmanian community along now for months, consistently moving the goal posts, most notably by making the bid contingent on a new stadium.
We should have had the licence by now.
Tasmania should already be in the process of building our Tassie team. We should have already appointed a CEO, a board and started our push for members.
The requirements placed on Tasmania by the AFL to get its own team exceed what is fair and reasonable and go far beyond what any other club has ever been asked to do.
Instead we have this attempt by the AFL to fleece Tasmanian taxpayers and it is holding up our licence being granted.
