ABC NEWS: The Liberals are pushing ahead with a Hobart stadium and Labor have tied themselves to the contentious project

It’s not the mid-term report any parent (or proponent) would’ve wanted.

The Tasmanian Planning Commission’s fierce and frank draft report on the proposed Macquarie Point stadium may make no final judgements, but it also doesn’t hold back.

Finding issues with everything from the cost-benefit analysis — it says for every dollar Tasmania spends it’ll only get 53 cents back, that’s less than the 69 cents the proponents predicted — to the “overbearing” scale of the stadium.

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But it doesn’t seem like anything could scare off the Liberal government, which has waved away the report with a “we’ll deal with the issues” attitude.

Which suits the AFL because it’s refusing to budge from its ‘no stadium, no team position’.

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It remains unclear whether Labor intends to vote for the stadium, regardless of what the Planning Commission recommends and if there are any conditions on the party’s support for the project.

It may be that Labor thinks it’s a win-win situation: Tasmania gets a new stadium, or the government’s project goes pear-shaped, helping Labor’s chances of ending its 11-year stint in the political wilderness.

Or perhaps it truly believes the responsibility lies entirely with the state government to make it work.

But the argument that Labor’s position doesn’t matter because it’s not in government doesn’t stack up. The stadium cannot happen without them.