Unpacking the Gruen Review: findings and implications

Our Place invites you to a public meeting in Hobart.

Our speakers will focus on the findings and implications of the work of Dr Nicholas Gruen, Independent review of the Macquarie Point Stadium.

Where: Hobart Town Hall
50 Macquarie Street

When: 12 noon to 1.00 pm
Tuesday 25 February 2025

To ensure we start promptly at 12.00, please try to arrive no later than 11.45.

MC: Andrew Wilkie

Speakers:

  • Jacqui Lambie
  • Craig Garland
  • Richard Flanagan
  • Kristie Johnston
  • Vica Bayley

 

Will you come?

This is a free event but we need RSVPs to manage seating numbers.



Speaker Bios

Andrew Wilkie has been the Independent Member for Clark (previously called Denison) since 2010. He has a strong sense of social justice, and his flagship issues include gambling, animal welfare, climate change, asylum seekers, and foreign and security policy. Andrew supports developments that meet sensible social, environmental and economic criteria, and are assessed in a transparent way that can be trusted. By that criterion, he strongly opposes the Macquarie Point stadium and has said as much personally to the Prime Minister and AFL CEO.

Jacqui Lambie was elected to the Australian Senate in 2013. Like most Tasmanians, Jacqui is an AFL fan but she doesn’t support a new stadium at Macquarie Point.

Born and raised on the North West Coast of Tasmania, Jacqui’s holidays were spent in the mining towns of the West Coast and, after being ‘a bit of a naughty girl at school’, she joined the army at 18. After ten years in the army Jacqui had to spend the next nine years fighting the Department of Veteran Affairs for recognition of her injuries. Jacqui eventually won this battle and then resolved to get into the Federal parliament so she could be in a position to protect other veterans from the indignities she had suffered. In 2014 she took her seat in the Australian Senate and, after years of advocacy, the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide was established in 2021 and its recommendations were handed down last year.

Craig Garland is an ex-footballer, fisherman and first-term Independent Member of the House of Assembly in Braddon.

Richard Flanagan’s father was, at his death, the oldest surviving member of a North Hobart State Premiership team (1936).

Kristie Johnston is the Independent Member for Clark in the State Parliament and was formerly the Mayor of Glenorchy City Council. She has long campaigned on issues of integrity and social justice, and has a particular interest in community involvement in strategic land use planning and transport.

Vica Bayley is a trained property valuer, teacher, and a long-time campaigner for environmental protection and Aboriginal rights. He is one of the Tasmanian Greens’ two members for Clark and, as a local Greens’ member, has been a vocal critic of the stadium. The Greens argued and voted against the Project of State Significance declaration of the stadium and in 2024 unsuccessfully moved legislation to enshrine protections for the values and sightlines of the Cenotaph. Together with state and federal colleagues, Vica has worked to expose the financial and other risks associated with the stadium and advocated for Tassie’s AFL and AFLW teams to play in the existing stadiums that have long hosted AFL games successfully.