Andrew Wilkie:
Our next speaker is Kristie Johnston. Kristie has been in public life for some time now, having first been elected to Glenorchy City Council in 2011. But it was in 2014 that Kristie really made a name for herself when she was elected Glenorchy Mayor with an enormous personal vote on a promise duly delivered to clean out and to clean up the council. Kristie was re-elected mayor in 2018, elected to the House of Assembly in 2021 and re-elected in 2024. In other words, Kristie knows all about public administration and quickly recognises a gross failure of governance when she sees it.
Kristie Johnston:
Thank you, Andrew, and thank you for having me here today.
The Gruen report confirmed what we already knew or strongly suspected. The stadium’s costs are grossly underestimated, its benefits overstated, and it’s already showing all the hallmarks of mismanagement. And today’s EMRS poll tells us that 59% of Tasmanians oppose the stadium.
The experts, as we know, have been lining up to tell us that this stadium does not stack up, that the stadium is a bad idea and that we simply cannot afford it. So you would think that, with this government’s track record of stuff-up after stuff-up, that they’d be ready to listen. You would think that common sense would prevail. But not this government. With their trademark arrogance and a subservience to the AFL, they’re going to stick to their dud deal. They want to leave future generations of Tasmanians lumbered with an almighty bill to pay.
The expert economists this government is choosing to ignore are Dr Nicholas Gruen, Mr Saul Eslake and Dr Graham Wells. They are also ignoring KPMG, who have been commissioned by Macquarie Point Development Corporation. Even KPMG on behalf of MPDC admit it doesn’t stack up. They can’t even confect a case that sees a stadium being a positive return on investment. Even the Treasury Department says this stadium is a significant budget risk. And if that’s not bad enough, they’ve snubbed the RSL, the TSO and the Tasmanian Aboriginal community.
They’re also ignoring a significant number of members of the crossbench and Legislative Council who are here today, who oppose the stadium after listening to their constituencies and their communities. But most importantly, this government is also choosing to ignore you, the people.
But you might ask, who is missing from this big list of voices of opposition? Who is conspicuous by their absence? Well, it’s the Opposition, of course, the Tasmanian Labor Party. Remember that party, the alleged Opposition, the Labor Party, who went to the last election opposing the stadium? Are they here by chance today? Can we see them? No.
It took Labor less than two months after the election to do an Olympic gold medal winning backflip and drop their opposition to the stadium like a hot potato. They seem perfectly happy to go along with the Government’s fairy tale – the stadium will only cost Tasmanians $375million and not a red cent more. The problem is, of course, we all know the costs are going to be many times much more and we know that Tasmanians are on the hook for all of it.
So when do we pull the pin on this particular folly? And will Labor wait until it’s too late for them to act? Will they only act when the $375 million promise is broken and we have a partially constructed stadium that comes with a billion dollar price tag to finish and we’re the laughing stock of the nation? Or will they end this madness now, before it goes any further? They have been very vocal about the Spirits debacle, but why won’t they bring their voices to this? A debacle on a much grander scale, but one that they can prevent?
All but one crossbencher is putting the best interests of Tasmanians first by opposing this stadium, but the Labor opposition is missing in action now. I know we’ve lost faith in the major parties because sadly neither party seems interested in sound management, whether it’s the economy, the environment or any number of issues. They’re interested in pandering to their financial backers because their main concerns are maintaining power and self preservation. But at the end of the day, they need your vote, so we need to maintain the rage. Let them see your power now. It is time to hit both parties where it hurts. For the Liberals it’s the fear of losing government and for Labor it’s the fear of continuing the historic term on the Opposition benches.
I urge you to write to every Liberal and Labor member. Particularly, call on Labor to try and justify to you why they are doing nothing and letting this happen. Don’t let them continue to hide behind their Liberal colleagues. The Liberal government may be a lost cause because they are so firmly within the clinches of the AFL, but Labor can, and they should, oppose this stadium. They can use their numbers combined with the crossbench to put an end to this fiasco now.
If they want us to believe they are a credible alternative government then they need to stop rubber-stamping stupid ideas and projects like this. They need to stop being Liberal-light and they need to start acting like an Opposition. And my call out to Labor is there is no better way to do this than by standing up to the AFL bullies, opposing the stadium, and finally putting Tasmanians first. Thank you.
Andrew Wilkie:
Thank you, Kristie.