NSW state election: Labor’s clumsy attack puts stadium funding in focus

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian. Picture:

Three days before the 2001 federal election, The Australian revealed that Howard government ministers had misled the public over the children overboard affair.

This would be a winner for the Opposition at the time — wouldn’t you think?

That people from the Prime Minister down had misled the public on an important issue — the claim that asylum seekers had thrown their children overboard.

Actually, no, as it turned out — I remember being in the Canberra press gallery at the time and Liberal Party ministers telling journalists that they were happy the big issue Labor was weak on was back in the spotlight on polling day.

And so it is in the current NSW election when it comes to the stadium debate.

Yes, Labor leader Michael Daley stuffed up when he made the claim fire sprinklers were ripped out of Allianz Stadium “under the cover of darkness” and there are other points in the stadiums debate he can be picked up on.

Allianz Stadium is due to be demolished under the government’s costly stadium plan. Picture: Jonathan Ng

But as long as the issue runs — particularly in the bush — it is bad news for the Berejiklian government ahead of the March 23 state election.

Whatever the merits of the argument the government has failed to effectively prosecute — that tens of billions more are being spent on schools and hospitals and rail lines — people in the crucial regional seats that will decide this election hate the $2 billion stadiums spend.

A decision is due this afternoon in court on the application to halt the demolition of Allianz Stadium so the issue runs on again — to the government’s detriment either way.

Perhaps this explains why Gladys Berejiklian has decided to head for Nowra today rather than be in Sydney and attack the issue — although her visit to a Liberal seat held by the supposedly safe margin of 9.6 per cent will certainly send a shiver up the spine of Liberal and National colleagues.