With our government in the clutches of the AFL and thrashing about for any means possible to deliver their stadium, we are wondering if there are any grown-ups left in the room. As we scan about, we see a goodly number of crossbenchers who want to put our state before big business and the gambling lobby, but our “Opposition” is missing in action.
We think it’s time the Tasmanian ALP took stock and stepped up to do the job assigned to them – hold the government to account.
This Tasmanian Labor party has strayed a long way from its roots, its ‘light on the hill’ days.
The party has completely lost its way and its elected members are not performing effectively as an Opposition. At the very time in our state’s history when that role is critical, Tasmanian Labor is in lock-step behind the minority Liberal Government. At the very time this government is hellbent on pushing through the biggest unfunded planning disaster in Tasmania’s history – the Rockliff stadium.
The Tasmanian Labor Opposition lacks focus, purpose, integrity and consistency in its response to the stadium.
How did we get here?
Prior to the election a year ago, Labor State members and candidates proudly distributed NO STADIUM bumper stickers and criticised the project in countless media releases, pointing out the myriad reasons why it should not proceed. These were sensible and appropriate statements that centred on a lack of need and its ongoing impacts on the state budget – namely, that the state would be unable to pay back the loan required to build the proposed stadium – and the opportunity costs this debt incurred on future generations of Tasmanians would be unconscionable.
Their Federal colleagues backed them, reminding the other major party of their position: “Can I say, Senator Duniam, that you and I get on pretty well. But I’m disappointed to hear you say that the state Labor Party haven’t put their position or that they support it. They do not, and have been very clear for months that they don’t support it.” (Catryna Bilyk, Senator for Tasmania, Hansard 28 Nov 2022).
They routinely promised to renegotiate the Team Agreement with the AFL. And Tasmanians trusted that Labor would do so when they voted for them. On the eve of the election, Dean Winter said: “We’ve been saying we will renegotiate the deal. We need to renegotiate the deal in the best interest of Tasmanians. Everyone I speak to – no matter what you support – can see that there are serious issues with the deal that Jeremy Rockliff signed. He didn’t take it to Treasury, he didn’t take it to cabinet. And he has left us effectively with a blank cheque to the AFL on this deal.”
After Tasmanian voters elected a Parliament that would oppose the stadium, Labor then betrayed us. They elected a new leader and suddenly reversed their position on the stadium. To this day, no reason has been given for that reversal that makes any sense.
The big lie
The inescapable post-election “jobs, jobs, jobs” talking points are indefensible. While Tasmanian public sector workers are already the object of efficiency dividends and a freeze on new jobs to pay for a stadium, the erstwhile party of the workers is aligning itself with big business and the gambling industry to spruik for jobs we all know will, in the main, fall to mainlanders working under the aegis of a Tier 1 construction company from the north island.
And this is in the knowledge of the many alternative proposals for the site that could deliver real jobs to real Tasmanians – proposals that would better honour the history and heritage of this unique location, maintaining the scale and character of a waterfront precinct. All without bankrupting the State. You can view one such alternative, the Our Place Vision, here:
They have justified their support for the Premier by going along with his fairy tale of job creation while ignoring the fact that more than half the jobs won’t go to Tasmanians. On 21 June 2024, in his evidence to the Public Accounts Committee, architect Shamus Mulcahy spoke to some of the key arguments for considering alternative proposals for the site – in this case, the Our Place Vision. He said:
“It’s a spatial, social and economic model for the site and it seeks to address the issues that face our community today. It relies on projects on that site of a scale that focuses entirely and explicitly on the skills of the Tasmanian building industry. It addresses the gap in supply of the missing middle-density housing stock, which the Government has itself identified as desperately undersupplied.
“This project, this vision, is about building community. It proposes uses that provide perpetual and sustained economic activity for the whole year, 24/7. It stands as an absolute counterpoint to a singular dominating corporate use on that site. It does not rely on Tier 1 mainland contractors or mainland lead consultants with token appointments for optics. The construction industry needs sustained and targeted spending on projects that directly benefit small-, medium-, and large-scale Tasmanian businesses, not a singular megaproject where so much of the economic benefits flow offshore.
“A singular large project will periodically spike specific economic statistics but does not result in sustainable economic security for the industry. … The facts with the stadium are that only a handful of Tier 1 contractors from the mainland will be capable of undertaking this project. Specialist expertise and a significant interstate workforce will be sourced from the mainland to deliver a stadium of this scale. The vast majority of construction materials will be procured from interstate suppliers simply due to the bulk nature of the materials, finishes and fittings required.
“The Government and the appointed interstate lead architects will no doubt pursue a timber-focused solution to the stadium structure. This will sap the industry of structural timber supply and result in less efficient higher structures which will magnify the already appalling bulk promised by the scale of this proposition on a site that is already too small to hold it.”
Turning a blind eye
The State ALP has ignored the careful and logical analysis from independent and nationally respected experts like Saul Eslake and Dr Nicholas Gruen, and is in lockstep with the Liberal government in its response to this week’s Draft Integrated Assessment Report from the Tasmanian Planning Commission.
It is ignoring the voices of the Tasmanian community, as expressed at an election a year ago and since in the recent EMRS poll, the majority of whom are opposed to a stadium at Macquarie Point, some bitterly so, particularly in the North and Northwest. They realise that they can only lose when state funds are poured into this behemoth in the south. They know that the strongest support for the AFL is felt in the North and North West, and they know that, in UTAS/York Park, they have one of the best AFL playing surfaces in the country located where everyone can access it equitably.
The role of an opposition
A parliamentary opposition has a critical role in a Westminster democracy. It holds the government to account and presents itself as an alternative government. It scrutinises policy and seeks to ensure the best governance and integrity in administration.
Since the start of this year, members of Tasmanian Labor have released more than 50 statements addressing the budgetary concerns facing Tasmania, but mention of the potential contribution by the stadium to those concerns has numbered zero. Even a vague mention of the word ‘stadium’ has been studiously avoided in all but a handful of releases, in which its mention seemed the lesser of two evils when the opportunity to snipe at the government outweighed the use of the ‘s’ word.
Even when a media release specifically concerns the stadium, its ever-increasing cost is never the issue, as Labor reverts to conflating a stadium with the team, fomenting fear of losing the team because of delays, while ignoring that the timing of the build is the least of its concerns. They never present the abandoning of the proposed stadium as a solution to the many budgetary concerns it raises, seemingly happy to persist in the myth of jobs, jobs, jobs, as if no other use for the site would create as much, if not more, employment. And they never present a way forward to have AFL/AFLW teams without a stadium. That would be leadership.
In trotting out tired clichés that they will hold the government to account to bring in this ridiculous construction “on time and on budget” when they know that neither of those goals is achievable, our so-called Opposition displays both hypocrisy and opportunism. Behaviour that is not creditable. Planning to sit back now just to be able to say “I told you so” when this thing is half built and cost blowouts are heading towards $2B that Tasmania does not have, is an abrogation of their duty to their voters and to all Tasmanians.
Can we get the ALP to listen?
With evidence piling up about the negative impact of the stadium, Tasmanian Labor still doesn’t want to look too different from the government. You have to ask: what are they in opposition for? Surely it is past time for them to explain how they plan to address the debt crisis facing the state, and how a team and a stadium fit into that picture.
If you are part of the party rank and file, and you’re here, you’re already listening. But we’re guessing that you weren’t consulted about the backflip. And we are guessing that more than a few of you are not that happy about where you are being led on this. Is it time to take a leaf out of Doug Cameron’s playbook in respect of AUKUS and suggest that members be heard in the context of a wide-ranging debate on the question of the stadium?
Whether you sit inside or outside the party, we ask you to send a message to the two Labor members in your electorate.
Join Our Place in telling the Tasmanian ALP we have had enough!
Click here to read our team’s truly thorough piece of research on this issue: