Jeremy Rockliff should finally abandon his deeply misguided plan for a stadium at Macquarie Point, following the release of a scathing report by the Tasmanian Planning Commission.
This report completely undermines the government’s pathetic attempts to market the stadium as a good thing for the state. It shows it’s a complete economic loser, costing well over a billion dollars, adding massively to the state’s debt, and putting our credit rating at risk.
We have known all along the stadium would result in a huge hit to the state’s finances, and this report lays that out in stark detail. Not only that it finds a litany of other major issues – many of which are insurmountable.
Along with the massive cost to the economy, the Planning Commission has highlighted huge problems with traffic, pedestrian movement, negative impacts on the Cenotaph, Aboriginal and built heritage, flooding, inconsistency with the government’s own precinct plan and even the ability to safely evacuate crowds in an emergency. The list goes on and on… and on.
While the government does now have time to respond to this draft report, many of the significant issues it highlights are unavoidable and cannot be fixed. The only sensible thing to do is to ditch the project all together.
We know Jeremy Rockliff has staked his reputation on delivering this project, but surely even he can now see what a dud his stadium will be. The Premier should finally admit his major mistake and start a process to negotiate a deal with the AFL that doesn’t include the stadium.
