Our Place spokesperson, Roland Browne, has called on Premier Jeremy Rockliff to come out of hiding and face the music over the growing unanswered questions about Macquarie Point stadium in the wake of the Gruen Report.
“Instead, he sent out former Sports Minister Jane Howlett, who was stripped of her sports ministry by Premier Peter Gutwein in 2022[1]. Minister Howlett holds no portfolio relevant to the proposed stadium. Her move into this debate is utterly mystifying.
“Clearly, Minister Howlett has not read the Gruen report. Minister Howlett mentioned the possibility of private/public partnerships to fund the stadium, ignoring Nicholas Gruen’s warning that this may be used to ‘to disguise the true costs to the Tasmanian public’, burdening generations to come with debt.
“Worse still, Minister Howlett repeated what Nicolas Gruen has made clear is an untruth, that the stadium will not cost Tasmanian taxpayers ‘a cent more’ than $375 million when the real cost, according to the Gruen Report is now over $1billion. This is a project that will return, according to the Gruen Report, at best 44 cents in every dollar, at a cost of $1,380 for every Tasmanian.
“The Premier also needs to confirm or deny information we have been given that the stadium is now being redesigned without a roof. If this is so, it would need renegotiation of its contract with the AFL, which Minister Howlett denied is happening. Yet if the stadium no longer needs a roof the contract must be altered, and everything else in the contract is up for grabs, including its linkage to Tasmanian AFLW/AFL teams, and the timing and site of any new stadium.
“These are important questions and I can well understand why the Premier won’t come out of hiding to answer them. But he must, and he must do it now. Tasmanians deserve the truth, no matter how much the government refuses to speak it.”
1 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-04/premier-supports-former-minister-jane-howlett/100879838