Dr WOODRUFF (Franklin – Leader of the Greens) – Honourable Speaker, I fully concur with everything Ms Johnston said and, obviously, Mr Bayley, who opened for us here. I want to be very clear with Labor and with the words from the Treasurer and other members of the government who’ve spoken about the Greens’ position on this. Yes, the Greens didn’t support the building of the stadium. Yes, we stood with the majority of Tasmanians who chose, and who would like the money not to be spent on a third stadium and to have it spent on essential services.
Yes, I’m standing here in the Chamber and I’ve got the Health minister here sitting next to me and I’m thinking of the hundreds of millions of dollars that have been taken out right now from essential services. We’re hearing the stories and, yes, I’m hearing them from Ms Rosol, the member for Bass, who has the health portfolio, hearing all of the concerns about the damage and the harm that’s happening right now in the health services, just one of so many agencies that are having thousands of jobs cut from them.
We know that the stadium has been approved by parliament. We’re not trying to rewrite history. What was agreed was an $875 million cap. We know every dollar over $875 million is a dollar that will not be going into health services, won’t be going to legal aid, won’t be going to the women’s legal service that’s getting money cut from it, won’t be going into biosecurity, which is also getting cuts.
That’s why we care about scrutinising what the government’s doing with the stadium budget. It is deeply, deeply disappointing. I can’t say how disappointed I am that Labor has totally absented themselves in this space. Despite what Mr Winter, the honourable member for Franklin, said about being on the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) and asking a few questions, they haven’t asked a single question of the government in parliament at all on this matter. They are silent.
It is really shameful that the opposition is not scrutinising the near largest infrastructure project in this state’s history, especially given what we can see is going to come as a result of a non-competitive tender process where there’s only one contractor which is essentially putting in their price, because, if Webuild got it, Tasmania would just go into orbit. Obviously, the government cannot give this contract to Webuild. They’re in court for goodness’ sake, in New South Wales, criminal charges, multiple things. It obviously can’t go to Webuild, which means there’s only one contractor.
So, why we want to know the price now is because we know that these companies, both of them, regardless of what I’ve just said about Webuild, both of them know the price. They know what the cost to build it is. They know it, because they are global organisations. They are tier one contractors, they have highly sophisticated quantity surveyors and people who are employed to be supply chain experts.
They can do the numbers on how much steel prices have gone up after the war in the Middle East. They know how much fuel prices have gone up, they know how much labour prices have gone up, they know how much more it’s going to cost on top of the $1.13 billion quantity surveyor work that was done before the stadium went last year.
Here we are now. We’ve had prices in the construction industry go through the roof. These companies are doing the work, so, it is absolutely not going to affect any tender price, because they already know what it is. What they’re doing is exactly what Ms Johnston said. They are going through the work of having a competitive bid, and, you know, the government could give us a 10 per cent either way increased price cost. They could tell Tasmanians that because that wouldn’t jeopardise anything because that’s the sort of work that companies do when they’re bidding against each other. They’re doing the small stuff at the end.
Because if there was a price that was substantially below that, then I would really hope that the MPDC would not be naive enough to take it, because, if they did, it would be terrible sign that they were so gullible to think that they should take the cheapest price, because no one does that when they’re looking at tenders. They look at the quality of the work, they look at how companies are providing different prices for the steel, for the concrete, for removing the contaminated soil and, so, it is an absolute furphy to pretend it’s going to jeopardise the contract negotiations by telling Tasmanians what the price is.
The reason that this government owes it to Tasmanians to tell them what the price is going to be – the current updated cost – is because they’re paying for it, and anything over that $875 million will not be going to health services and schools and the rest. We’ve seen what’s happened around Australia. I’m not just overstating this for Tasmania. The Brisbane Live arena was initially pitched as a $2.1 billion project for the Olympics, but the recent market testing and inflationary reviews for that project have seen estimates skyrocket up to $4 billion. Four billion dollars, and, so, what’s happened? Design pauses.
The Christchurch stadium, the Te Kaha, also had post-COVID supply change pressures, and they had a fixed budget for that stadium, and it forced the local council to approve an emergency budget increase of $150 million. So, this is what is confronting us.
The stadium price will be a lot more than $1.13 billion and there will be, you know, three options available to this government. The price will massively go up and Tasmanians will end up paying for it for more than a decade, and the Labor Party will just sit there quietly while the Liberals effectively sign a blank cheque away. Or there will be some severe descoping of the project.
Descoping is what construction companies do, what governments do, or funders do to keep the project under or close to the fixed price. That means cutting things out. The sort of things that would get cut out are the things that have already been talked about being cut out. The stadium’s own transport plan has already foreshadowed that there could be ‘value engineering and rationalising of ramps, stairs and elevators and getting rid of pedestrian walkways’. Getting rid of everything else except the building.
So, we in all likelihood could end up with a very expensive building that doesn’t have the furnishing and the fixings that were promised, and that is a decision Tasmanians should make. If that’s what the government’s going to go ahead doing, either just to have a blank cheque and do it as it’s planned or dramatically cut back on the things that they’ve promised will be part of the build or the commercial precincts and all the other things that have been talked about.
People should be able to know that. So, there is no reason at all not to tell Tasmanians now, because the sooner we know, the more we can have an informed public conversation about what to do. That is what should be happening here.
I just cannot believe that Labor supported this in May – and I think Ms Johnston is probably absolutely right that the reason Labor supported in May was because we were calling on the government to provide this information – but now that they haven’t done it and we’ve changed it to ordering the information to be provided, Labor has gone to water and they’re not actually interested in being serious about scrutinising the project. They don’t want to know the details, and they actually believe the cooked-up advice so-called from the MPDC Chair which said, oh, it would be a danger to the project.
Honestly, I mean the government – and Labor, it seems – are treating Tasmanians like fools. It’s just not the way it is. It is not the way it is.
Mr Winter – So, now you’re attacking the probity advisor?
The SPEAKER – Mr Winter, honourable member for Franklin.
Dr WOODRUFF – There are many ways that the government could give us the updated cost and it could be, as I said before, there could be a variation around the edges of a 10 per cent margin so that we don’t know the actual updated cost, and that wouldn’t be revealing anything to the single company that is preparing how much they’re going to build the stadium for.
It’s incredibly important at this point that we have the information, because this is what Tasmanians should get to make a decision about by having decisions about what the way forward ought to be. It seems as though that’s exactly what the government’s afraid of doing. What we see is very likely, thanks to Labor not supporting this, is that the government may well provide the updated cost, you know, just moments before a decision is made to sign the contract. Then history will unfold for decades to come. Labor has an opportunity be to bold on this, and I encourage you to do what you did in May. It’s not too late – to the end of being transparent with Tasmanians.
