Tasmanians, I have decided, are a thoroughly ungrateful and disrespectful lot. I refer of course to their impertinent and unacceptable treatment of Anthony Albanese last week.
Why they questioned the goodwill of a FIFO politician bearing bucketloads of public dosh is perplexing.
It was not meant to be this way. Full of beans, the Prime Minister had turned up to announce much largesse would be heading Hobart’s way. Admittedly that contrasts with his usual bemoaning about having inherited a trillion dollars of Liberal debt, and we can only assume this exception to budget restraint rules reflects Albo’s new-found affinity for Tasmanians.
Albanese knows the state desperately needs federal assistance. It has one of the lengthiest waiting lists for elective surgery. Some patients wait more than six years to see a neurosurgeon. The percentage of Tasmanians with a long-term mental health condition is 11.5 per cent compared to the national average of 8.8 per cent.
Tasmania also has a housing crisis. As of two years ago, 2350 of the state’s citizens were homeless, a 45 per cent increase in just five years. Hobart last month recorded a rental vacancy rate of just 1.1 per cent. Rents have increased nearly 50 per cent since 2016.
But the homeless, the destitute, the chronically sick and the mentally vulnerable need worry no more. Thanks to Albanese, Tasmanians will have a state-of-the-art football stadium and precinct on Hobart’s Macquarie Point. How good is that?
Like you, I cannot think of any issue in the state more pressing than a new stadium. This federal funding allocated for its construction was crucial in the decision to admit a Tasmanian team to the AFL. Now you might counter this was unnecessary as Hobart’s Bellerive Oval is a perfectly suitable venue, but you would be wrong. None other than AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan has decreed the building of a majestic arena as the price of Tasmania’s admission to the league.
Such opulence is essential given his organisation has long ceased to be a mere administrator of the code. As McLachlan informed us in 2019 when reflecting on the same-sex marriage plebiscite, people look to the AFL for guidance on the great social issues of our time. Accordingly this new stadium must also be a monument to the AFL’s magisterial wisdom, or should I say Gill’s magisterial wisdom.
And so paved the way for Albanese’s announcement last week, which he began by reminding his audience he is renowned for giving to others. “Way back in 2012, I stood just down there and committed $50 million as the Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development for the development of a plan for this site,” he reflected.
That was an interesting year for many reasons. Back then Albanese was a member of the Gillard minority government, and the grant in question was announced only a year before the 2013 election – but I digress. In short, the Labor government he now heads will provide $240 million of funding for the Macquarie Point site. On top of that $65 million of federal money has been set aside for the upgrade of UTAS Stadium in Launceston. Did I mention there are three marginal federal seats in the state’s north?
Expecting thanks and praise, he was instead heckled and jeered by locals demanding he address issues such as public housing and healthcare. This was a jarring experience for him. He normally loves crowds, but this was not the adoring rock concert audience in his Sydney electorate that cheered as Albanese skolled a beer. Nor were they the hipster patrons of the Esplanade Hotel in St Kilda, Melbourne, who rejoiced as Albanese announced $286 million in new funding for the arts industry. These were ordinary Australians, and angry ones at that.
Clearly Albanese could do with advice on how to interact with people outside the Sydney and Melbourne inner-city districts. I would be happy to draft a few lines for him. “I know how you lot feel, believe me. Did I ever tell you I’m the son of a single mother who grew up in public housing?” Or “You don’t have to tell me rents are ridiculously high. I charge my two tenants a combined total of $115,000 a year!”.
The sports-mad Tasmanians love that they are getting their own AFL team. But they loathe the fact the Rockliff government has rolled over and committed $375 million to build the Gill Mahal, let alone the likelihood construction costs will blow out way beyond the $740 million estimate. State Labor opposes the project, and Opposition Leader Rebecca White was conspicuously absent during Albanese’s tour.
Only two years ago, Albanese, then in opposition, sanctimoniously decried the Morrison government over the so-called sports rorts affair. “[Taxpayers] deserve better than to have their funds, their taxpayer funds from their hard work, funnelled into marginal electorates on the basis of a political whim,” he said.
He should know. As the Sydney Morning Herald reported in 2012, the Auditor-General found that 11 Labor ministers and parliamentary secretaries had breached anti-pork-barrelling obligations. And guess who was mentioned? “The Infrastructure Minister, Anthony Albanese,” the paper further detailed, “approved more than $31 million in grants for his own electorate or against his department’s advice, in breach of government policy.”
The last word should be left to the Australian Financial Review. Commenting last week on the stadium backlash, the paper noted “Albanese was on the defensive on Friday, saying the investment was about more than football.”
Too right it is.
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