Matthew Abraham: The government has never convincingly explained why we need a new arena, probably because we don’t

The promise of a new stadium is a real stinker and hasn’t been convincingly explained, probably because we don’t need it. writes Matthew Abraham.

Sportsman’s Drive at West Lakes is Adelaide’s very own boulevard of broken dreams.

It used to run smack into the edge of Footy Park – AAMI stadium – once the spiritual home of the mighty Adelaide Crows.

Now all that’s left of the stadium is a sad admin block and a patch of lawn - still the training ground for the Crows - surrounded by bulldozed sand and new “condos”, sprouting like Kikuyu after a good rain.

The Crows are marooned, the club’s dreams of a new home close to the Adelaide CBD dashed first by the Adelaide City Council – because saying no is what it does best – but then inexplicably by the Marshall government.

Sportsman’s Drive runs along the eastern shores of West Lakes. You’ll catch glimpses of the lake, but mostly you see the trademark, Spanish-style 1970s townhouses, with cream stucco walls and more orange roof tiles than downtown Madrid.

But something new is sprouting along this stretch of the drive - election posters promoting Premier Steven Marshall’s promise to build a $662m Riverbank arena, or a basketball stadium, as the ALP delights in calling it.

Artist impressions of how the Riverbank arena would look. Picture: Supplied

These aren’t the same as the blue posters featuring a deflated basketball and the message “A $662m basketball stadium?!” with the tag line “the wrong priorities”, a thumbs down and a small, wacky pic of Premier Steven Marshall. They’re everywhere.

Instead, the West Lakes posters drop the question mark, and baldly state “Steven Marshall will spend $662m on a basketball stadium”, with the same fine print tags. It looks like a Liberal poster when you’re motoring past. But it’s Labor’s handiwork. It’s normally madness for a political party to advertise the single big-ticket promise made by the opposing side. But Labor can’t talk enough about the Premier’s big promise.

It’s not just in the Big Smoke. In Port Augusta, stobies are festooned with posters shouting “Dan and Marshall are spending $662m on a city basketball stadium”. The Dan is local MP and Deputy Premier Dan van Holst Pellekaan, fighting to hold Stuart. The promise to spend $662m on a new stadium is a real stinker. The government has never convincingly explained why we need it, probably because we don’t.

I’m hearing from Doorknock Land that it bobs up repeatedly as a question at the screen door, and older Liberal voters in particular see it as a waste of money.

But that’s not the real campaign headache with Premier Marshall’s arena. By doing the right thing and releasing an accurate costing well in advance, the Premier inadvertently wrote a $662m cheque for Opposition Leader Peter Malinauskas.

Labor has promised to scrap the stadium. That leaves it with the best part of a billion dollars to spend on its priorities, no hard questions asked. And that’s exactly what it’s doing, throwing cash hand over fist at the health system, particularly the militant ambos. The stadium was meant to underpin the government’s narrative on rebuilding the economy but it’s doing just the opposite.

Opposition Leader Peter Malinauskas with the Premier of South Australia Steven Marshall. Picture: Morgan Sette

Last weekend’s Newspoll showed Labor has opened a six-point lead on the Liberals. With just 13 days left before polling day, the Premier has two choices. He can stick to his guns and hope to raise doubts with voters about Labor’s economic credentials and its miserable Transforming Health record in government.

Or he can bury the Riverbank Arena. The late NSW Labor premier Jack Lang, a hard man, said of politically wounded colleagues “never nurse a mug, he’ll die in your arms”.

If the arena is seriously hurting the Liberals – and it must be – why nurse it in your arms all the way to polling day?

Drop the “basketball stadium”, tell voters you’ve got the message and promise to push all that cash into fixing hospital ramping, and the many other things families care about far more than yet another monolith on the banks of the Torrens. He could even offer the land to the Crows – it’d have to be more popular.

This is what’s called a campaign reset. He also needs to end the ridiculous uncertainty over who’ll be his next treasurer if returned to office. This one’s easy. The Premier can just take on the job. He’d do it on his ear. Former Labor premier Jay Weatherill did it for a year and WA Premier Mark McGowan is also Treasurer.

Rob Lucas quipped during the week this wasn’t his call as “I’ll be off in a retirement home somewhere”. Maybe in sunny West Lakes? Unless the Premier plans to join him there, he needs to act now.