Stadium spending caps? There’s one born every minute
Upper house MP Bec Thomas and several fellow independent colleagues have been talked into backing the Hobart AFL stadium, partly on the basis of a new “cap” on state taxpayer exposure.
This $875m, we are meant to believe, is the new absolute maximum Tasmanians will be slugged to build the state’s third AFL stadium, on prime waterfront-adjacent land at Macquarie Point.
Some might have a queasy sense of deja vu.
Back in the 2024 state election campaign, Premier Jeremy Rockliff sought to defuse growing revolt over the $1bn-plus arena by repeatedly assuring voters state investment in the project would be $375m “and not one red cent more”.
The private sector, we were told, would step in to provide the rest.
Then, post the July 2025 election (yes, we’ve had two since March 2024), private sector investment was dropped and, in a clarification that might almost have made Richard Nixon blush, voters were told they failed to read the fine print.
The $375m was the capped amount of capital funding by the government and did not mean the government’s development vehicle would not go massively further into debt to complete the build.
Eric Abetz, who since this year’s election increasingly looks like the real premier, taking over the troubled treasury and the stadium, on Wednesday continued the Nixonian approach.
On the one hand, he told reporters, the government was highly confident in the latest $1.13bn total cost estimate and therefore the new $875m state contribution cap.
(The Albanese government has promised $240m for a broader Macquarie Point precinct plan, while the AFL is making a $15m contribution).
“We do not see any blow out,” Abetz reassured Tasmanians, pointing out the costings were “P90” – set with a 90 per cent confidence level.
On the other hand, if there was another blow out, the price tag could creep up, Abetz conceded, but “that would then need to be discussed again and renegotiated”.
So what, if MPs said ‘no more’, you would leave a $1bn-plus stadium half built – a useless monument to the triumph of Tasmania’s political dysfunction?
Well, no. “We won’t be ending up with a half built stadium,” Abetz insisted.
Which means someone – taxpayers, state or federal, or the AFL – stumping up more cash to finish the job. (The private sector has so far run a mile from the project).
Given the AFL has thus far appeared to get 100 per cent of everything it has demanded of a state surviving on spiralling debt, I think we know how that would end.
Tasmania’s population growth is almost non-existent but it seems there’s one of a certain type born every minute.