Mr BAYLEY (Clark) – Honourable Deputy Speaker, I rise to support this motion and I thank the member for bringing it on. Budget week is an incredibly good time to have this conversation. I am sure the stadium will be a central theme through contributions of many people in this Chamber, and the other place for that matter, on the budget because austerity is going to be a hallmark of this budget. The cuts, the efficiency dividends, the pauses to recruitment and the direct cuts to the public service, the community houses that don’t get funded, the community gardens and playgroups that are going to be closed, the housing issue that isn’t addressed, and the children who are dreaming, not about an AFL team, but about their next meal – because of the revelations today that hunger is a key issue in children.
This is an important conversation for us to have, because while the government wants to try to anchor their argument for building a pathway to prosperity through this stadium, it is clear that that is not the way forward. Not only is this stadium a massive white elephant – we have had that warning time and time again, whether it be Prof Nicholas Gruen, or the Tasmanian Planning Commission itself – no-one with any credibility, not even the proponent itself, is predicting that this stadium is going to deliver a cost‑benefit ratio that delivers for Tasmanians. It is 50 per cent – 50 cents in the dollar – at best, and with radically escalating costs, that return is going to get reduced even further.
The other reason we can’t accept this argument from the Treasurer that the stadium is central to our prosperity, and to growing the economy is because Treasury itself is advising us that this is not the way forward. Treasury’s Pre‑election Financial Outlook is the only document Treasury produces that doesn’t have the fingerprints of the Treasurer over it and it can be brutally honest. It says:
The state budget has a structural problem. Economic growth correlates weekly with general government sector revenue growth in Tasmania. Accordingly, this structural problem will not be resolved through future economic growth. Explicit policy choices are required.
In relation to some of those policy choices, the Treasury says this:
This rate of growth in debt is not sustainable and the size of the problem will only increase, if not addressed. Immediate, sustained action is needed.
What is the action that the government take? What is the action that the government takes in the face of Nicholas Gruen’s advice? In the face of the Tasmanian Planning Commission’s advice? In the face of the Treasury’s own advice, around immediate action? It’s going to add to that debt burden. It’s going to add $1.8 billion at least, to that debt burden. Not only do we have to borrow $800‑odd million, to build this stadium – $490 million borrowed directly by the Macquarie Point Development Corporation; $375 million borrowed by the government – to invest in this, we also have to borrow to pay the interest on this stadium.
When the government says, ‘Don’t worry about this, this is just borrowing, this is not operational costs,’ we have to understand, that borrowing the money needed to build this stadium is going to add tens and tens of millions of dollars to the operating costs of the budget, simply to service the debt. That is why this is completely unsustainable. That is why Treasury is warning against going into this kind of debt, and that is why the notion that this is a pathway to prosperity is absolutely preposterous.
The reality is, this budget is going to be a stadium austerity budget and Mr George highlights where that austerity is going to be felt the hardest. It’s in health: we have the poorest health outcomes in any of the states. It’s in housing: record levels of people waiting, applying to be housed on the public housing register, waiting ever longer. It’s in education: some of the lowest literacy rates and schools struggling to support their children. It’s in mental health: a critical area of need for additional resources. That’s why the impacts are significant.
Of course, the impacts of this stadium don’t stop there, and they are not just financial. The Tasmanian Planning Commission has warned, it has been abundantly clear, that the impacts will not stop at the money that it’s going to cost us. It will impact the city itself. It’s going to impact on one of our most cherished heritage precincts, down at Sullivans Cove, which is central to our identity as a city and as a state. It’s going to impact on stakeholders that would otherwise be cherished.
Who else would shaft the RSL so profoundly, except the AFL and this government? This stadium, despite protestation from the RSL, despite evidence after evidence, and render after render, showing its significant impact on the values of the Cenotaph, this government, supported by the AFL, cheered on by the Labor Party, has bulldozed on irrespectively. Who else would ignore the returned servicemen?
Of course, there is the opportunity cost. It’s great to have an opportunity to talk about the opportunity cost, because the Treasurer is being utterly disingenuous, when he talks about this site as simply being an industrial wasteland and a car park. Of course it is. It’s had a significant amount of money invested in it, at the moment to improve its quality, to deal with toxicity and the like.
This government itself, spent many years and many millions of dollars working up a development master plan for that site and came up with a vision that was broadly supported by the community. The centrepiece of that vision, the Truth and Reconciliation park was broadly supported by Palawa people. It had housing, it had a commercial precinct, and it had a fundamental improvement in terms of science and Antarctic research. What happened to that vision? It was thrown out the door in exchange for a stadium, a new precinct plan written by the proponent itself. The very people who are going to build this stadium, got to write the rules against which it should be assessed.
Sitting suspended from 1.00 p.m. to 2.30 p.m.
Continued from above.
[2.30 p.m.]
Mr BAYLEY (Clark) – Prior to lunch we were talking about the cost and I had moved on to the opportunity cost of this site. I highlighted the fact that one of the things that has been completely jettisoned with this pivot towards the stadium is the previously well‑worked‑up plan for this site, the escarpment, the precinct, the gateway, the promenade, the Goods Shed, the underground and, of course, the Truth and Reconciliation Park, and that’s another key stakeholder of not only this government, but the AFL, who have managed to offside the RSL and the Aboriginal people. So, when we talk about the costs of the stadium, let’s not forget that this government contracted a developer to build a development at Macquarie Point and ended up paying them out $1.6 million of taxpayers’ money to not build it. If you want to talk about additional costs, there’s one there.
Obviously, that is not the only additional cost. The Tasmanian Planning Commission identifies a whole raft of other additional uncosted issues. Things like the ongoing site works, the Northern Access Road, the car park, event buses, $4.45 million to the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra (TSO) in compensation and, $17.6 million for path widening on Davey, Collins and Hunter Streets. There are uncosted elements to this proposal that Treasury itself has identified in the PFO as a budget risk. I read from them that they have identified that the full cost of the project won’t be known until it’s contracted, that there’s a tight construction market, that there’s a bespoke nature of the roof design and the costs of related projects to support the project. These costs were not included in the revised estimates report, and they are represented as an unfunded budget risk.
To correct the Treasurer in the few minutes I have, the $240 million from federal money ‑ I have the agreement here, it does not even mention a stadium. It’s for urban renewal at Macquarie Point and it’s for housing and a wharf. They are the preconditions, so the notion of paying that back is ridiculous. Also, the notion of the AFL’s money, that is the whole premise of the member for Franklin’s motion here, and that is what I walked out of the meeting with the AFL about. I believe they heard very strongly that where they thought this stadium was once upon a time critical for the financial success of the Devils, it is now a net negative. It is now an albatross around the neck of the Devils, and it will be a branding risk to the AFL over the longer term. This is clearly an unsustainable project going forward.
Time expired.
