Spokesperson Roland Browne has called on the Tasmanian Liberal and Labor parties to accept financial reality and abandon Jeremy Rockliff’s stadium vanity project and for Jeremy Rockliff to resign.
“The Report could not be clearer that the stadium should not go ahead. It now will cost $1.8 billion using ‘the Proponent’s construction cost estimate’ but the TPC ‘considers there is a significant risk they will be much higher than estimated.’ At $1.8 billion it will cost Tasmanians an annual $50 million increased taxes, according to the TPC, ‘with obvious implications for the cost of living for all Tasmanians’, and yet it will return only 50 cents in the dollar.
“Meanwhile the Royal Hobart Hospital is having its Cancer Unit staffing cut by 58 per cent forcing cancer patients to travel interstate or overseas in order to receive treatment.
“Is this where we have got to – that Jeremy Rockliff would put his stadium folly ahead of the needs of terminally ill Tasmanians?”
The TPC further finds that stadium will be immensely destructive of Hobart’s heritage and city scape.
“I call on all politicians in the Liberal and Labor parties with a conscience to do the right thing and now work together with the majority of Tasmanians who have opposed this stadium from the beginning to ensure that the Tasmanian Devils football team has a future with the two existing stadiums.
"As for Jeremy Rockliff, it’s time he resigned. It’s over, whether he accepts it or not."
“The TPC report should be the final nail in the coffin for a project that has no majority public support, will bankrupt the state, and is a desecration of the Hobart Cenotaph and Sullivans Cove.
“It’s time for the Liberal and Labor parties to start listening to the experts and the community, and abandon their obsession with this stadium.
“The Minister ought not make any recommendation to the Governor; this project should lay where it has fallen.
“And if the government is silly enough to press on, the parliament should reject it out of hand. It has nothing going for it. It represents a triumph of vanity over sensible government. It is a recipe for massive state debt and ongoing community division.”
Share this story
