Ms BURNET (Clark) – Deputy Speaker, that was quite a list of infrastructure projects. However, one project that seemed to be missing from the Premier’s list was an infrastructure project that might bankrupt the state. We are talking about the stadium.
Labor has brought to the Chamber the issues about ferries and wharves, and the project Tasmanians were solidly behind way back in 2016-17, with the delivery of the two new ferries, Spirit IV and Spirit V, and upgrades to the Devonport wharf. Unfortunately, that has proved to be a great challenge for the government to deliver on time, on budget and with the requisite upgrades to the Devonport wharf, and how the Quaylink project has been delivered – or not. We have seen a minister and deputy premier stumble and resign as a result of this. The state relies on that connection to the mainland to meet our needs. Unfortunately, we see tourism ventures and businesses in the north west particularly struggling because that has not been delivered.
Premier, I would like to think we can learn from this project that has not been delivered well, on time, and on budget. However, if we look at the Macquarie Point stadium project, the Tasmanian people do not see it as a vital piece of infrastructure at a time when we have a housing and homelessness crisis, a crisis in health care and wellbeing in our community, when administrative frontline workers are asked to do more to the point of exhaustion, and when clinicians are often required to step in to administrative tasks. This is the efficiency dividends we have seen in this horrendous Budget.
Catching public transport in this state is a game of roulette, with an underfunded, less reliable Metro Tasmania. With fewer services to rely on anyway, why would commuters take the bus? Tasmania’s education and community services are failing, our state is up to its eyeballs in debt, estimated in the forward Estimates to be an $8.5 billion debt in 2028 – a significant amount of debt service and, frankly, a huge burden on the Tasmanian community. We have a list of priorities that are not delivering for, or strengthening, our communities. Yet here we are, Premier, with this fool’s errand of a Macquarie Point Stadium, another major infrastructure project that could well be something we cannot afford right now and that may only overburden us with debt.
Let us look at the eye‑watering figures for the proposed Macquarie Point Stadium. I have in front of me as a stadium cost breakdown and the estimated cost is $715 million, but the government’s financial impact report, part of the Project of State Significance (POS) submission, names it as $775 million, GST exempt, I do not know what that means, but it is probably an under‑representation, and other capital elements not included amount to $55 million, bringing the actual capital cost to $830 million. The total funded contribution is $630 million with a funding shortfall of roughly $200 million. These are huge figures.
Let us look at some of these projects. In the WSP Report, appendix N of the submission to the Project of State Significance process, the northern access road alone is going to cost $33.9 million and it is an unfunded project apart from a meagre $3 million in the Budget for scoping and design work, but the majority is unfunded, like so many of these other projects.
The infrastructure projects costed between $174 and 186 million that are critical to the delivery of the stadium, present a picture that is scarily familiar to some of the other projects that we need to deliver for the stadium. Reconfiguring Hunter Street, the Collins Street active transit bridge is unfunded but set to cost between $44.5 and 56.5 million. I am not sure who is likely to pick up that tab, but I hope we are not relying on the local council to do that. The Davey Street footpath expansion is another of a number of requirements that are part of the stadium debacle.
The upgrade to the Tasman Bridge is funded, but it is a project that is unfortunately, on so many factors, painfully slow to deliver –
Time expired.
