Mr BAYLEY (Clark) – Honourable Speaker, I want to start by reading in a quote about the stadium from Minister Abetz in response to a very good question from Mr Willie about the source of stadium funding. The minister said:
This is a project that is currently about 50 per cent designed. There will be other matters that need to be dealt with along the way and that is one of them, that, at the very beginning when the business case was made out for the stadium, it was very clear what the capital impact or contribution would be, and then the balance would be by way of public-private partnerships and/or borrowings. That has always been made clear.
I will pause and highlight the fact that it is pretty extraordinary for this parliament to be asked to vote to approve a stadium that is only half-designed. However, I want to focus on the comment from the minister about the stadium’s business case. I will read again what the minister said:
At the very beginning, when the business case was made out for the stadium, it was very clear what the capital impact or contribution would be, and then the balance would be by way of public-private partnerships and/or borrowings.
He repeated a very similar statement on ABC Radio this afternoon. The problem is that that is not true. I have page 65 of the business case here, a page that has become rather infamous thanks to Mr Abetz. This is the page where the actual funding model for the stadium is laid out. On this page, there is a table titled ‘Cash Flow, Capital Funding’, then underneath it, it lists the funding sources. Despite what the minister said at least twice today, the public-private partnership is not included in the business case funding model. Borrowings are listed here in the business case, yes. In fact, contrary to the government’s current absurd argument, these borrowings are listed as a source of capital funding. However, there is no public-private partnership in the business case funding model, which is what the minister said. This is a basic fact that is not in dispute. The minister must correct the record.
Of course, we know the idea of public-private partnership was actually first put forward well over a year after the business case was released as part of the Premier’s cost-cap promise at the election. The whole point of the cost cap announcement was to override the business case by changing the funding arrangements for the stadium through the introduction of private funding. The government’s position changed from saying it would borrow money to fund the stadium cost shortfall, to saying it would fund this shortfall through private investment. That is why the Premier said at the last election:
$375 million will be invested. Not a cent more, and, of course, the rest will come from the private sector in a true partnership to realise that vision.
The minister has said on numerous occasions now that borrowings for the stadium were always part of the plan. If that was the case, that means the Premier was dishonest with the Tasmanian people throughout the election. Let me read again the Premier’s quote:
$375 million will be invested, not a cent more, and, of course, the rest to come from the private sector.
No mention of borrowings. In fact, the Premier did not mention borrowings being a source of funding once in the entire press conference about his cost-cap promise, nor in the media release about it. He did not talk about borrowings in the campaign at all. Borrowings were part of the plan in the 2022 business case, but the Premier promised they were no longer part of the plan at the 2024 election. Now, they are back as part of the plan.
The government, and this minister specifically, are pretending borrowings are not capital, despite the fact that their own stadium business case, which they love to talk about, contradicts them. Regardless of anything else, the minister said the stadium business case’s funding model included the public-private partnership when it did not. That is a fact. The minister must correct the record again.
