The price tag for the Macquarie Point stadium project has gone up by nearly $100 million, according to new information provided to the Tasmanian Planning Commission by the Rockliff Government.
Buried in a technical report newly submitted to the Planning Commission, the government has admitted the cost for the stadium’s underground carpark will be $97 million. That massive figure is much higher than even the best guess made by the Commission in their first report on the stadium.
The Hobart stadium’s cost has already seen two budget blowouts and is now $230 million higher than Jeremy Rockliff promised. Now nearly $100 million will be added on top of that. The project’s design isn’t even finished and its budget is already out of control.
$100 million to build a car park is bad enough on its own. But it wouldn’t be the Rockliff Government if stadium news didn’t come with a shameless attempt to pull the wool over the eyes of Tasmanians.
In the information they have provided to the Planning Commission the government has argued the cost of the carpark doesn’t matter because it will be covered entirely by commercial arrangements. How ridiculous. Perhaps this argument would have been a bit more believable if it hadn’t already been tried previously.
Once upon a time the Liberals said that food and beverage facilities, audio-visual equipment, kitchens, and other parts of the stadium shouldn’t be considered as part of the project’s cost because they would be funded by commercial agreements. But that plan has been abandoned, and it is taxpayers now footing the bill for the lot. The same is likely to happen for the stadium’s ridiculously expensive underground carpark.
The idea that private investors will pay for this part of the stadium is nothing more then a PR exercise. After all, the government was unable to answer basic questions about whether it plans on selling or leasing the facility, and for how much, when questioned by the Planning Commission about it las week.
As the stadium price tag skyrockets past a billion dollars, Tasmanians continue to demand Liberal and Labor politicians drop this project and focus on investment in health and housing instead. While the major parties have their heads in the sand, the Greens are listening to Tasmanians’ concerns about the ill-conceived project. We will keep doing everything we can to stop the Hobart stadium going ahead.
