Comment: Why Labor Leader Rebecca White has made the wrong call on a new Hobart AFL stadium
Comment: Labor Leader Rebecca White has acted too hastily in attempting to blow Hobart’s AFL stadium project out of the water, says editor Craig Warhurst.
Tasmania
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IT was disappointing to see Labor leader Rebecca White go out on a limb Tuesday to say a Labor Government would abandon plans for a new stadium in Hobart.
A Tassie AFL franchise, which the stadium is a large part of, is something the Hobart Mercury has campaigned on for more than 30 years.
And with the AFL presidents decision on the move less than three months away the Hobart Mercury will not step away from that cause.
On Saturday May 14, the Mercury ran a front page featuring Ms White, Premier Jeremy Rockliff and Greens leader Cassy O’Connor all supporting a team for Tassie and pushed Tasmanians to sign up “The Last Push to Play” campaign.
Her comments yesterday put all that at risk by showing the AFL there was, instead of unity, political division on key components of the AFL proposal.
Ms White’s reasoning in parliament was sensible enough, she thought the money, $750m – $1b, to build the stadium would be better spent on helping Tasmanians with the cost of living, addressing falling wages and the housing crisis.
The problem is Ms White still doesn’t know how much the stadium would cost state taxpayers and didn’t seem to have an understanding of how much money the team or project would inject back into the state.
When former Premier Peter Gutwein unveiled the artist’s impressions of the stadium at the end of February he made it very clear that cost of the stadium would be worn by all levels of government including federal, state and local. He also flagged a large amount of private investment in the project as well as equity raising.
No one expects the Tasmanian taxpayers to pay for the entire project.
In nearly every other major stadium project built around the country over the past 10 years the federal government has funded large proportions of the project.
One would have thought with a new Labor federal government and newly minted southern Tasmanian Minister in Julie Collins, Ms White would have first gone cap in hand to try to source federal funds before her party attempted to blow the project out of the water.
An AFL team for Tasmania will be a transformative move for Tassie.
So will a stadium in the CBD.
If Ms White, or any other doubters, need reassurance of what an AFL team and a stadium will do for the city they only need to talk to the Labor mayor of Townsville in North Queensland.
The mayor and her three Labor state members will tell anyone that cares to listen about how transformative the new Queensland Country Bank Stadium has been for that city’s economy and pride.
Tassie deserves an AFL side and everything good that comes with it. Tassie also deserves politicians who keep their powder dry until they have all the facts.
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Originally published as Comment: Why Labor Leader Rebecca White has made the wrong call on a new Hobart AFL stadium
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