Mr BAYLEY (Clark) – Honourable Speaker, I move –
That the House accepts:-
(1) Capital expenditure for the stadium is officially estimated at $1.3 billion – $865 million funded by State Government and proponent borrowings.
(2) Additional elements required to build or operate the stadium that are not included in this cost estimate include:-
(a) additional site works ($32 million);
(b) northern access road and event plaza ($75.9 million);
(c) carpark ($97 million);
(d) event buses ($49 million);
(e) Tasmania Symphony Orchestra compensation and upgrades ($4.45 million); and
(f) Davey, Collins and Hunter Streets path widening ($17.6 million).
(3) The State of Tasmania is entirely liable for any future costs, including cost overruns, penalty payments to the AFL, and failure to acquit the federal funding grant for urban renewal.
(4) The Coordinator-General stated in the Public Accounts Committee on Wednesday 22 October 2025 that the State Government will pay between $45 million and $70 million annually on interest alone, without repaying capital costs.
(5) Further borrowing could be required to fund operational expenditure for the stadium, net operating cash deficits, penalty payments, and life cycle and event attraction costs.
(6) At past cost estimates, the stadium is estimated to add at least $2 billion of debt to the state over 10 years, and that figure would be greater with updated costs and aforementioned unbudgeted components.
(7) S&P Global revised its long-term credit rating outlook for Tasmania from stable to negative, and Tasmania’s rising debt burden increases the likelihood of a credit rating downgrade, increasing debt servicing costs and resulting in reduced public services.
This is a motion that we have brought to the House to try to establish some agreed facts as we go into what is one of the biggest debates that this parliament will have, and indeed any recent and likely any future parliament in the near future anyway, is going to have, that of the Macquarie Point Stadium.
It is a big debate we have debated already in this House. We’ve heard people’s perspectives about the amount of people who come up to them on the street. I don’t know for other members who were just downstairs at lunchtime in the Beacon conversation with school students, but I believe that just about every group that sat down with me to have a talk about how a parliament operates and asked any question they wanted raised the stadium. It’s on the street. It’s in the polls. This is a big debate and we’re going to disagree on a lot of things, but one of the things we do need to agree on is some of the facts around the finances. In any negotiation, in any big debate, it is really important that we have an agreed statement of facts. It’s really important because from that you can make informed opinions and make a contribution, and your contribution can be assessed against those facts.
While we in the Greens would like to accept that the Tasmanian Planning Commission’s report is a really good basis of agreed facts, it’s a report that took a year to develop, an expert panel of members expert in law, expert in planning, expert in architecture, experts in treasury, public hearings, guidelines, consultation and ultimately a very well‑written, a very well‑constructed report that comprehensively rejects the stadium.
From our perspective, this debate should end here. It should end here with this process that this parliament itself stood up and asked and commissioned that panel to assess and to write the Integrated Assessment Report. For Hansard it is abundantly clear that in very simple terms, the Planning Commission writes:
In very simple terms, the stadium is too big for the site and the benefits it will bring are significantly outweighed by the disbenefits it creates.
Those are the agreed facts that we would like to support, but that’s not what this motion is trying to do. We’re happy to set that aside in the interests of trying to get some agreed facts, because we know that view is disputed. The Premier originally tried to discredit the Planning Commission when it’s Draft Integrated Impact Assessment was put out. He said that they went into it with a preconceived view, which is an outrageous thing from a premier to say about his own panel. The Treasurer, the minister responsible here, also described a lot of their views as ‘subjective’.
Putting that aside, this motion is trying to get some agreed facts. The issues that the TPC raises have been well ventilated in the past, the issues on the heritage of Hobart have been ventilated a lot, and we Greens accept that this stadium will have a negative impact on the heritage of Hobart. The impacts on the Cenotaph are well understood. The RSL has been loud and proud about the state War Memorial – the oldest in the country – that will have its view‑fields damaged, some of them completely obliterated by this stadium, and of course the view of other stakeholders have been well captured. This motion is trying to get to the facts of the debate.
To go to the motion, and as a result we’ve taken the politics out of the motion, we’re hoping that both the Labor Party and the Liberal Party can accept that this is a straight bat motion that talks about the costs associated with the stadium. I look forward to the contributions of others. You laugh in relation to that, so it seems you’re not that supportive, but I invite you to point out where there are errors in the motion.
To start with, the capital cost at $1.13 billion. That is the statement of the Premier. He didn’t seek to update the Planning Commission in the lead‑up to its writing of its report. The report got released on the day that it did and the Premier came out in the same breath rejecting it and saying, ‘Well, don’t worry about that, we’re not going to accept their view,’ and said that the capital expenditure had now blown out to $1.13 billion, the fourth cost blowout. It started at $715 million, then it went to $775 million, then it got to $945 million, and then it ended up at $1.13 billion. This is probably not the last cost blowout in relation to this project, but that is not what this motion is saying, and that’s why we have deliberately written it to take the politics out of it.
Calculations provided to both the budget panel and the Legislative Council make it really clear that the state government will borrow $375 million to invest in the stadium and the Macquarie Point Development Corporation will borrow $490.7 million to invest in the stadium and that’s how we get to the $865.7 million to be funded by the state government and the proponents. That really should not be contentious at all.
Additional elements required to build the stadium that should be considered and should be captured here are identified both by the Planning Commission and the Treasury. I have listed them there, and I have just read them into the Hansard. Things like additional site works, the Northern Access road, the car park, the event buses, the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, and the Davey, Collins and Hunter Street upgrades. The Planning Commission is utterly clear that these should be considered and added onto the capital cost of the stadium. Onto the $945 million capital cost of the stadium as it was then.
As too, was the Treasury in its pre-election financial outlook (PEFO). I will read into Hansard what the PEFO says. It says:
A range of issues could further impact the cost of the stadium. A tight construction market.
We’re not dealing with this in this motion.
The bespoke nature of the roof design.
We’re not dealing with this directly in this motion. And they also say:
The cost of related projects to support the stadium not included in the $945 million estimate, including the Northern Access road at an estimated cost of $75.9 million and the underground car park.
The PEFO goes on to say,
These costs were not included in the 2024‑25 revised estimates report and represent unfunded budget risks.
That is why we want to capture them here, so that members have the opportunity to understand the full scope and scale of the costs of the stadium and the essential elements that go into it.
This is not only of interest to us as parliamentarians as we make this decision. I raise the point that things like the Davey, Collins and Hunter Street path widening – $17.6 million – have been directly raised with me as a member for Clark by the Hobart City Council, because they are deeply afraid that they will have to foot the bill. Ratepayers in Hobart will have to foot the bill for this kind of pedestrian uplift for those streets and won’t get any recompense from the state government for it. So, this is an issue not only for us as parliamentarians, but for every single rate payer in the Hobart City area.
Cost overruns and the liability of this mega project are important and, while we haven’t tried to capture or quantify what they will be or define exactly what they will be, it is a simple statement of fact that we as taxpayers, the state of Tasmania is entirely liable for any future costs, including cost overruns of construction, penalty payments to the AFL and failure to equip the federal funding grant for urban renewal. That is simply a statement of fact. It is abundantly clear with no private entity involved in this project, with the private sector not wanting to touch it with the barge pole. It is a state government project. We are the proponent. Tasmania is the proponent. We will be on the hook for every single dollar of cost overruns.
We just had a debate about the mismanagement of the Spirits, the fact that the bungles keep adding to the cost of the berth and the Spirits themselves. I remind the House of independent expert, the economist Nicholas Gruen, who found and concluded in his independent report, commissioned by government, that this project shows all the hallmarks of mismanagement.
There are likely to be cost overruns, but we are just simply saying that Tasmania is liable for them, as we are for penalty payments to the AFL. That’s a statement of fact. They’re written into the dud AFL deal. As we would be for the $240 million of federal funding that is tied to the delivery of housing and wharf infrastructure at Macquarie Point, not to a stadium or anything else. If we do breach that agreement, it would stand to reason that we are liable for the $240 million.
Point (4) in this motion is talking all about servicing debt and this is where the rubber hits the road when it comes to this stadium. We have heard a lot of arguments, particularly from the Labor Party who have already written their blank cheque for the government on this, about one‑off‑cost infrastructure, and to not worry about the money because this is just how it works. However, where Tasmania is servicing the debt on the borrowings, that $865.7 million at least, that’s where the rubber really hits the road because that does get paid by the general government sector. That is captured in our budget. That does have to be paid for every single year. We are running deficit budgets, which means we are going to be borrowing money to pay the interests on the capital borrowings. This is a critical issue.
The Coordinator-General in the Public Accounts Committee has highlighted this as an issue and that’s what this part of the motion says. It’s a statement of fact that he said we will pay between $45 and $70 million annually.
Again, however, the documents that have been provided to both the Budget Panel and the Legislative Council highlight in the forward Estimates that simply servicing the $490.7 million Macquarie Point Development Corporation borrowings is going to cost $30.7 million in 2030‑31; and $32 million in 2031‑32. Obviously, that has a really big caveat next to it, and I quote, ‘Interest cost estimates are subject to revision and may change in response to movements in borrowings requirements and interest rate assumptions.’
Servicing this debt is going to be significant. That’s $30 million a year simply to service Macquarie Point’s debt. We have asked the Treasurer, and we hope that he brings an answer to this House before we debate the order, what is going to be the cost of servicing the $375 million debt that is the capital in equity transfer from the state government. We do not have that sitting around as spare cash in the bank at the moment.
Further borrowings could be required to fund the operational elements as well. Basically, the stadium will run at a loss for certain periods. We’re going to need to borrow further money to fund the operational expenditure for the stadium, any net operating cash deficits, penalty payments, life cycle and event attraction costs, so as we run a deficit-backed budget until we reach peak debt, until we reach a point where we’re earning such that we can actually service the interest on our debt from those earnings, we are going to have to continue to borrow to service any underperformance or additional expenditure. We’ve heard a lot about concerts. We’ve heard a lot about the 1500‑seat convention centre. What we haven’t heard about is Hobart or Tasmania actually bidding in the international and national scenes to attract those concerts and conventions takes a significant amount of money. Life cycle and event attraction costs are something that we will have to continue to borrow money for. It is really significant.
Point 6 in the motion is simple, the Tasmanian Planning Commission has estimated that the stadium will add $1.8 billion to our debt burden over the next 10 years and that’s based on the $945 million, so not the additional $1.13 billion. This is significant and this is where pushing ahead with the stadium at the moment in the face of the red flags being flown by Treasury, in the face of the advice of independent experts like the Tasmanian Planning Commission is absolute recklessness in this day and age. Not least when we are seeing and hearing so many tragic horror stories about the desperate needs of Tasmanians with regards to food, housing, literacy levels, and healthcare including dental health. We are seeing Tasmanians in desperate need and that debt that we are racking up to build this stadium is something that the experts are recommending against.
Finally, we talked earlier about servicing the debt on the Macquarie Point Stadium borrowings as being between $45 and $70 million or well over $30 million, according to Treasury’s reports. Well, that’ll get a whole lot worse when it comes to our credit rating because both Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s have downgraded the outlook for Tasmania from ‘stable’ to ‘negative’. I quote and read into the Hansard just quickly from Standard & Poor’s –
The negative outlook reflects our view that Tasmania’s fiscal metrics are weakening and its debt burden is rising. The negative outlook revision reflects our view that Tasmania’s fiscal controls are loosening, leading to weaker financial outcomes and rising debt burden. We project the state debt as a proportion of operating revenue to grow to about 119 per cent by fiscal 2027. This would be roughly double the debt ratio in fiscal 2023. The state’s relatively low debt burden was previously a key pillar of its credit strength.
Where our low debt burden was a key pillar, our high debt burden is now a massive weight. The PEFO itself has identified this as a major problem. Treasury says:
These changes indicate that there is now a higher likelihood of the state’s long‑term credit rating being lowered over the short to medium term. Both rating agencies cited the state’s weakening fiscal performance and growing debt burden as key factors in assigning a negative outlook to the state.
Servicing the debt we are going to borrow to pay for Macquarie Point Stadium is only going to get more expensive if those credit ratings are downgraded. Point (7) is simply another statement of fact.
Before the Treasurer takes to his feet and talks about the economic nirvana that will be coming because of this stadium, the age of prosperity –
Mr Abetz – Thank you for recognising it.
Mr BAYLEY – Let’s remember that Treasury itself has said that we cannot grow our way out of this problem. We can’t grow our way out of this problem because the issues and problems are embedded and baked in. What we need to do is change policy. One of the first policy changes we need is to ditch the Macquarie Point stadium because that’s going to head us onto a trajectory that is completely unsustainable and untenable in the wake of expert planning advice from the planning commission that says we should not build it.
Time expired
