Our Place – Hobart has described the Coordinator-General’s belated intervention in the stadium debate as a sign the government is struggling to both stem the growing panic in the broader Tasmanian community that the stadium may bankrupt the state, and to gain the votes it needs in the Upper House.
The Coordinator-General has asserted, like the government, there will be seemingly unlimited economic benefits that flow from a $2billion stadium. Using the Co-ordinator General’s logic, the government would do even better to spend $4 billion—or even $6 billion of money it does not have. Not even the government’s own economists, KPMG, nor the Treasury, have ever suggested anything remotely like such voodoo economics in justification of the stadium.
In fact, in June 2025 Treasury was sounding alarm bells about the uncontrolled and unfunded infrastructure proposals.
The Co-ordinator General’s spin is full of doom and false assumptions, heroic predictions and avoids too many critical facts to take seriously. And he ignores the lack of information about cost.
If the Co-ordinator General was sincere in his claims why did he not submit them to the Tasmanian Planning Commission for rigorous independent analysis?
It is deeply concerning that when a debate of this gravity about Tasmania’s future is under way, the Hobart Mercury has avoided running many articles or points of view questioning the stadium and has instead become a promotional unit for Jeremy Rockliff.
The government has no idea of the size of the blank cheque it is asking parliament to sign, but we know, thanks to the Planning Commission, the true cost is already at the $2 billion mark over 10 years, when major additional works are factored in. There should be a serious discussion about what this means for Tasmania’s sick, homeless, and young.
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