Court rules controversial knockdown of Sydney’s Allianz Stadium can go ahead

The knockdown of Sydney’s Allianz Stadium can go ahead before the NSW election, a court has ruled. Contractor Lendlease had previously been scheduled to bring in the bulldozers for the ‘hard demolition’ of the sports ground last month but the work was halted by the legal challenge.

The knockdown of Sydney’s Allianz Stadium can go ahead before the NSW election, a court has ruled.

Contractor Lendlease was scheduled to bring in the bulldozers for the ‘hard demolition’ of the sports ground last month but it was halted by a legal challenge.

Work had previously stopped on the redevelopment of the Sydney Football Stadium. Picture: Jonathan Ng

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The Greens led the push for a temporary injunction, which is believed to have added more than half a million dollars in costs to the project over the past two weeks.

The NSW government awarded Lendlease the $730 million contract to rebuild Allianz Stadium at Moore Park in December.

Since then the 45,000 seats are slowly being removed, the scoreboards have been taken down and the turf is being ripped up.

Labor says if it won government in almost two weeks’ time it would stop the knockdown and force the Sydney Cricket Ground Trust to take out a $644 million loan to complete the refurbish job.

The legal challenge was launched by community group Local Democracy Matters and Waverley Council.

The demolition was already underway when court proceedings brought it to a stop.

The group has argued that the government didn’t exhibit the proposal for the required period of time, failed to consider design excellence and didn’t deal with remediation issues before approving the project.

But Justice Nicola Pain on Wednesday found the government didn’t fail to follow its own planning laws and ruled “none one of the grounds should be upheld”.

“There was no failure to comply,” she told the Land and Environment Court.

An independent report revealed the venue — built in 1988 — has flammable seats, not enough fire sprinklers and insufficient emergency exits.

It comes after NSW Labor leader Michael Daley boldly vowed to sack the Trust’s board if elected premier, accusing its members of collusion with the Berejiklian government.

The Opposition Leader made the threat on Tuesday during a heated on air exchange with radio shock jock Alan Jones, who is the longest serving member of the SCG Trust board.

The powerful body led by chairman Tony Shepherd and including former Premier Barry O’Farrell, rich-lister Peter Ivany and former Wallabies captain Phil Waugh supports the redevelopment of Allianz Stadium.

But Mr Daley said Labor would clear them all out to make way for more women and bizarrely accused them of removing fire sprinklers at Allianz Stadium “under the cover of darkness”.

In an affidavit filed to court, Infrastructure NSW executive program director David Riches said it could cost about $600,000 for the injunction until March 8 and blowout to $1.3 million if the delay was extended until the election result.

Demolition work at the stadium will now continue.

Late this afternoon NSW Treasurer Dominic Perrottet said the government welcomed the court’s decision.

“We will now focus on getting on with the job of delivering a world-class stadium for the people of NSW,” he said.

“Let me be very clear — the people of NSW have a clear choice at the next election. A government that wants to build and grow the state’s future or a Labor Party that wants to cut, cancel and cripple NSW.”

The injunction remains in place until 2pm on Thursday — the deadline Local Democracy Matters and Waverley Council have for launching any appeal.

If no appeal is sought, the Greens have vowed to take the battle to the streets with “civil disobedience” and a picket line of people putting their bodies between the stadium and the demolition trucks.

“If this Premier thinks she can send wrecking balls in tomorrow afternoon, well it won’t just be me standing there but I think many members of the community (will be) putting themselves between an arrogant Premier and a billion dollars wasted of public money,” Greens MP David Shoebridge said.

“The community anger is growing, the community opposition is growing.”

NSW Labor leader Michael Daley said the fight was far from over, adding that only a government that was “dripping with arrogance” would send the wrecking balls in with 18 days to go until the election.

“The only people that can save this stadium are the people of NSW,” he said.

“Your vote is now worth $2.2 billion. If you want the stadium to come down and the money wasted, vote for Gladys Berejiklian and the Liberals.

“If you want the stadium to stand and for democracy to prevail and that money to be spent elsewhere, vote for me and the Labor Party.”