Ms O’CONNOR (Hobart) – I move –
(1) That the Legislative Council notes the correspondence from the Premier and Treasurer to the honourable member for Elwick, dated 4 December 2025 and tabled in the Council by the Leader for Government Business on 4 December 2025 in relation to the Macquarie Point Stadium Project which set out a number of claims in relation to:
(a) the final project costs and cost cap, budget impact, economic and social benefits, governance, design and construction of the Macquarie Point stadium; and
(b) a P90 assessment which the Government relies on to support a high degree of confidence in the current $1.13 billion budget estimate for the stadium.
(2) That the Legislative Council expresses its concerns:
(a) that these claims and the P90 assessment are not supported by available evidence, are incomplete or may not be technically possible.
(b) that an industry standard P90 requires a finalised scope, known quantities, identified risks and quantified contingencies; and
(c) the project conditions may not be met resulting in penalty payments and overall costs increases; and
(3) That the Legislative Council calls on the Tasmanian government to make publicly available and lay upon the table of the Council the document it refers to as the P90 and any materials supporting the P90 as described in the letter by 5 May 2026.
I rise to move motion 14 which goes to the heart of this Council’s responsibility, the responsibility to ensure members are given accurate, complete and reliable information before we vote on a project that will shape Tasmania’s finances, our planning system and our public trust for decades to come. This is not a motion for or against the stadium. It’s about accountability, transparency and probity. It’s a motion for transparency and the integrity of parliamentary decision making.
Mr President, why is this motion necessary? When this Council voted on the state policies and projects order for the Macquarie Point stadium, members were asked to rely on assurances provided by the government about the project’s cost, its risks and its financial credibility. One of the most significant of those assurances was contained in a letter sent by the Premier and the Treasurer to the Member for Elwick on 4 December 2025. In that letter the government stated, and I quote from it; (tbc 3.05)
The $1.13 billion estimate is a P90 figure, providing a high degree of confidence that the project will not exceed this cost.
That statement was not a passing comment, it was a central reassurance provided directly to a crossbench member whose vote was pivotal. It was presented as evidence that the project was financially sound, that risks were contained and that members could vote with confidence. The more we have learned since that vote, the clearer it has become, certainly to the Greens, that this assurance was not supported by the facts. This should concern us all.
P90, it’s not a political slogan, it’s a technical term used in major infrastructure projects. It means that the cost estimate has a 90 per cent probability of not being exceeded. To produce a P90, industry standards require a finalised scope, known quantities, identified and quantified risks, stable design inputs, a complete risk register and a Monte Carlo simulation to model cost probabilities. These are not optional components of a P90, they are the minimum requirements for a valid P90.
Industry practice requires that a P90 be produced from a completed scope and a documented Monte Carlo simulation. At the time the Premier’s letter was written, major scope items including the roof, power upgrades, remediation, enabling works and the underground car park were unresolved or uncosted. Under recognised cost estimation standards, a P90 is only decision quality evidence if it explicitly included and quantified those major unresolved items.
The critical question is not whether a P90 can exist in theory, but whether the government’s claimed P90 for this project was produced to that standard. We say the public record contains no auditable evidence that it was. At the time that the Premier and the Treasurer wrote to the Member for Elwick, the government had already acknowledged that the stadium design was not final, the scope may change, community works were still being costed, and key elements were still under development.
We now know that Cricket Tasmania and Cricket Australia were still negotiating design changes, and maybe, they still are. The roof design was still under research and it probably still is. Acoustic modelling had not been completed and the question is, has it been now? A turf and grass research facility had not been costed. Has it been since?
Power upgrades were not included, but we know from the Greens’ recent Right to Information that there’s major TasNeworks substation works to support the stadium, which were not part of the costings presented to this Council. Transport upgrades were not included, and there’s still a question mark over them. Enabling works were not included, the underground car park was not included and it seems to have fallen by the wayside since.
Under recognised industry standards, a P90, produced before these items were costed and modelled, would not meet the maturity requirements for decision quality assurance. Members were told a P90 existed and this was provided as a reassurance. But no auditable P90 deliverables were placed on the public record at that time. I’m very happy to be corrected by the government on this, if they can produce this document, or if it was provided to the member for Elwick.
So, the government used both technical language and local benefit framing to reassure honourable members. The Minister for Sport explicitly invoked a P90 to reassure honourable members. His words were,
On top of this, the government has issued a P90 estimate. For those who are unaware, a P90 estimate can be described as a statistical cost estimation method that provides a 90 per cent confidence level in project delivery.[TBC]
That technical claim was not accompanied in the public record by the underlying P90 deliverables, including percentile tables, native model, s-curve, sensitivity outputs, and the like. The Leader for the Government repeated the $1.13 billion headline and framed it as local economic benefit. Her words were,
In terms of the cost of the stadium and reconciling that, an important thing to consider in that equation is the amount that $1.13 billion that will be spent here in the local economy. paying tradespeople, paying concrete providers, paying the painters and the decorators and the people who will build this thing.
That $1.13 billion headline was presented as a decision quality assurance, but as I’ve explained, it wasn’t supported in the parliamentary record by any available P90 modelling, anything that we could look at, or any kind of scope maturity statement. So, the P90 claim appears in the Premier and Treasurer’s letter to the member for Elwick and in the minister’s remarks. It wasn’t, however, published in budget papers, Treasury briefings, planning documents, or other public government material prior to the vote. That selective appearance, immediately before a pivotal vote, heightens the need for the Council to see the underlying evidence. The P90 claim was never repeated in the public documentation in a way that allows for independent verification. It was never defended in the parliamentary record with auditable outputs. This raises a serious question – was the P90 claim used selectively to influence a critical vote?
The government presented the stadium as an $875 million state contribution, capped and contained. Of course, that is the most recent cost estimate, because, as we know, on the first day of the 2024 state election campaign, the Premier promised the people of Tasmania that the state’s contribution would be $375 million and quote, ‘Not one red cent more.’
The stadium was only one part of a much larger financial commitment, however, which would be footed by the state. Industry analysis shows that when we include borrowings and interest, maintenance, remediation, enabling works, power upgrades, transport upgrades, turf systems, the underground car park – if it’s ever built – the high performance centre, team subsidies and stranded assets, the true exposure to the state is not $1.13 billion. It’s much closer to $3.1 3.3 billion at baseline and, if you look at typical Australian cost overruns for major projects such as this, it could be heading up towards the $4 6 billion mark.
Members were not told this. The Premier’s letter also stated that the high performance centre would be ‘Capped at $105 million.’ We now know the total cost is $115 million. The cap applies only to the state’s contribution. Associated community infrastructure works are not included. The development application has not been lodged. The project is 2 years behind schedule. Again, members were not given the full picture before that decisive vote, for the future of Tasmania on the stadium order.
This motion does not accuse, it doesn’t prejudge, it simply seeks the truth. It asks the government to table by 5 May, the following auditable deliveries in full:
• the QS P90 report and executive summaries;
• the native probabilistic model or input spreadsheet, showing the line item cost basis, probability distributions, and correlations;
• the P50 and P90 percentile table with run date; simulation metadata;
• the complete risk register and risk qualification worksheets;
• scope definition;
• any peer review assurance or validation reports;
• records showing whether and when these files were provided to the Commonwealth or to the Auditor General;
• a signed statement from the lead QS or cost consultant confirming which major work streams and financing costs such as roof remediation, power upgrades, enabling works, underground car park and the like were included in the probabilistic runs and which, if any were treated as single point allowances or excluded.
If any item is withheld on commercial grounds, we would ask the government to provide a written explanation and potentially offer an in camera briefing to members under confidentiality protections. If the P90 that was referenced in that decisive letter exists, the government can table it. If it does not exist, the Council deserves to know.
Members of this Council are entitled to rely on the information provided to them by government. We’re entitled to assume that when the government claims a P90 exists, it exists. Particularly for a project of such consequence and significant public interest. We’re entitled to assume that when the government claims a cost is capped, it is capped. I’ve paused my natural cynicism here, of course, but it was there in writing, provided to the member for Elwick, in a letter which has now been tabled, a clear commitment to a cost cap. Wisely or not, the government made that commitment, but it is there in writing, and we seek to understand the foundation of that commitment. We’re entitled to assume that when the government claims risks are contained, they are contained.
If those assurances were incomplete, inaccurate, or technically impossible, then the integrity of the vote on the order is arguably in question. It is arguable some members may have voted differently had they known the true level of uncertainty around the cost of this project in its totality.
This Council has a duty to ensure that decisions of this magnitude are made on the basis of accurate, complete and reliable information. The people of Tasmania, the people we represent, also deserve transparency because, as we know, ultimately, they will pay for this stadium, one way or the other and they will pay for generations. The people of Tasmania deserve accountability and they deserve a parliament that insists on the truth.
This motion is not about stopping the stadium. The Greens’ position on the stadium is well known, we remain implacably opposed to the expenditure of billions of public money on a sports venue while the budget is a complete disaster, while ambulances don’t arrive on time, while our hospitals are in crisis, while our community sector is facing savage cuts. We’re also determined to fulfil our responsibility to hold government to account. This is about ensuring that the parliament and the public are not asked to make billion dollar decisions in the dark. The Premier’s P90 assurance was a headline claim unsupported in the public record, other than in that letter to the member for Elwick. The Council requires the full P90 package.
We need to be able to verify the government’s claims on the cost of this project, the order may have passed, but the government is a long way from actually turning the first sod on that site. There is significant uncertainty about what the ultimate costs will be, particularly when you have a look around you at the state of the world.
I do hope members recognise that this is about holding government to account if government’s going to make a claim about cost caps and certainty around cost assurances that are made to this Council, then we should have a look at the underlying documentation around those claims.
I do commend the motion to the Council, and obviously I don’t know what’s going to happen with this motion, but you can be absolutely sure we won’t be letting this go because this is a matter of such significant public consequence it must be pursued.
This motion’s been crafted in such a way that asks the government quite nicely for this documentation. I hope it has the support of members, whichever way you voted on the stadium, we should have a look at these documents. We should be able to understand the foundation of any claims of ultimate costs of the stadium. I do commend this motion to the Council.
