Hello everybody, welcome to the No Stadium event at the Hobart Town Hall, 25th of February 2025.
This event is being live streamed. We have some hundreds of people watching this event remotely from different areas of the state. Firstly, if you have an empty seat next to you, can you please put your hand up and that will help people to find their way to seats.
Now I want to pay my sincere respects to the Palawa people past and present. They occupied the land we meet upon today and they occupied the area now known as Macquarie Point. They never gave up that land.
I want to say a loud thank you to our No New Stadium team. I don’t want to embarrass them by naming them, but this has been a significant event to organise and, as I said, it’s being live streamed and I want to welcome the hundreds of people who are watching this event remotely. And I also especially want to welcome those people that have travelled a long distance from the north of the state to participate in today’s very important meeting.
I want to thank our esteemed speakers and especially Andrew Wilkie MC who will be managing this program and the constraints of time ruthlessly. I also want to acknowledge other esteemed public representatives that are here – Senator Nick Mckim, Helen Burnett MHA, Andrew Jenner MHA, Rosalie Woodruff MHA, Cassie O’Connor MLC, and Meg Web MLC.
So, in the context of this meeting, here’s the question. What do we value about this city? What makes it magnificent? What do we face losing in the way of water views, uniqueness, heritage, solitude, open space and the opportunity to respect those who died in wars. And of course, the specialness of Sullivans Cove. Those are the big questions.
Tasmania has for decades fought for, argued for, and even pleaded for AFL and AFLW teams. There is no doubt that by 2022 Tasmania had earned its place in the league. But in that year, 2022, the Tasmanian Premier had the community behind him in wanting those teams in the AFL. The community pinned its hopes on him as leader to deliver women’s and men’s teams. Premier Rockcliff had a once in a generation opportunity to bargain for those teams so they could participate in the national competition. And what did he do? What did the premier do? He fluffed it. He secretly negotiated teams on terms that were disastrous. He agreed that the state had to build a stadium that it could not afford in a location that was utterly unsuitable. All of this was done in secret. And we must note it was all done at a time when people were not demanding or even asking for another stadium in Tasmania. At the very moment Tasmania needed a Premier who could lead the state to negotiate a team on good terms and who could deal powerfully and openly with the AFL, all we had was Jeremy Rockliff to bargain for us. And the Premier has proved himself an utterly impotent negotiator for Tasmania. And his impotence was made worse by his secrecy. His epic failure was that he could have been open with the community, told us of the AFL’s bullying demands and had the entire state backing him as he stood firm to the AFL. But what did he do? He caved in to the AFL. They wrote the agreement and it was all done in secret. He squandered a once in a generation opportunity.
And then of course he went to an election in early 2024 by which time the stadium was a proposal and what happened? The result? He went backwards. And then he blamed us for mistruths, and he lied to us about the cost and the height of his proposed stadium, and he blustered along. He called us blockers.
We are in the age of the authoritarian, where resistance is asserted to be futile, where a project such as this is projected as inevitable, where opposing groups are demonised, and where the truth has no value to the government of the day. It’s an age where integrity to this government means successfully avoiding being caught out. In fact, the opposition to this proposed stadium is very powerful, as shown by this public meeting and by this awesome panel of wonderful speakers who are exemplars of integrity and public interest advocacy.
So here’s the message for Premier Rockliff and the AFL. We will not be silenced. We will not be bullied. We are angry. We have truth and economics and reality on our side. We have the Gruen report, obtained by the Premier himself, vindicating our opposition to this crazy project. And most importantly, we have a vision for the site that includes desperately needed housing.
Do you all remember the odious Gunns pulp mill proposal and the equally odious Ralphs Bay Canal Estate? Both of these were projects of state incompetence. And just as the opponents of those projects prevailed, so will we. We will prevail.
Before I hand over to Andrew Wilkie to guide us through this special event, I want to draw everyone’s attention to the QR codes on the tables on the landing. There’s a link to the shop and to the ‘donate’ location and to our No New Stadium website. We really need help to fund our campaign. We have a long year ahead of us, especially with hearings in the Planning Commission. The government has endless resources to peddle its lies, so please help by donating.
I also want to draw particular attention to the link that takes you to the Gruen Explainer on our website, with answers to frequently asked questions and chapter summaries. It’s a fantastic piece of work by the No New Stadium team. If only Premier Rockliff would read it! Lastly, there’s a ‘sign-up’ link to sign up to join No New Stadium. I encourage you if you haven’t already to join our campaign.
I now hand you over to Andrew Wilkie. Thank you, Andrew.
Andrew Wilkie:
And thank you, Roland, for your leadership on this.