Planning chief warns economic case for Macquarie Point stadium has ‘significantly worsened’

Planning experts have doubled down on stadium rejection despite Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s direct appeal to Legislative Council members to approve the project.

Paul Turner SC. Picture: Zak Simmonds

The economic case for the proposed Macquarie Point stadium had worsened because of its increasing cost, the head of an expert planning panel that rejected the project says.

It came as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese urged members of the Legislative Council to vote in favour of the stadium next week.

Mr Albanese said he had met Premier Jeremy Rockliff in Canberra this week and said the Legislative Council should vote for the stadium.

“I certainly take this opportunity to call upon members of the Legislative Council in Tasmania to vote for the stadium and to vote for Tasmania getting a footy club,” he said.

“Vote for Tasmanian young people having the opportunity to stay in Tasmania and to dream of playing for the Tassie Devils.”

The five members of the Tasmanian Planning Commission panel that rejected the stadium proposal appeared before a select committee comprising 11 of the 15 Legislative Council members on Thursday.

After a one-year inquiry, their Macquarie Point Multipurpose Stadium Integrated Assessment said the benefits of the project did not stack up and recommend it should not proceed.

Appearing before a Legislative Council Select Committee on Thursday, panel chairman Paul Turner SC, said the economics of the project had changed for the worse since the panel’s report was released.

“When you get down to the sorts of figures that have been published, Dr Gruen’s was 0.44; KPMG at 0.69; MI International I think was 0.4 somewhere; ours at 0.45 – and all of those are based on costings far less, far less, than the $1.13bn that was announced by the premier on the 17th of September,” he said.

Mr Turner told the committee that the panel had reached its conclusions by bringing their extensive professional experience to the evidence before it.

“We have reached conclusions which could be said to be opinions – but they are ones which are valid and which have weight as opposed to the expression of that which is not supported by empirical evidence,” he said.

Former Treasury Secretary Martin Wallace said the cost-benefit analysis done by the panel was based on figures provided by the government, and nothing had happened since that would change the panel’s conclusions.

He said a more positive analysis by the state’s Co-ordinator General, John Perry was not fit for the purpose: “It’s the wrong model,” he said, adding “it has a number of major flaws”.

Because the stadium would make a loss over its lifetime, the state government would need to borrow the money to pay the interest bill, Mr Wallace told the committee.

“It’s a completely untenable situation, the state will have to fund that either through tax increases, the abandonment of future capital projects or a reduction in spending in some way,” he said.

“The stadium benefits a subsection of the community, but the whole community has to pay for it.”

Meanwhile, opposition leader Josh Willie has been added to the speakers’ list of the Yes AFL Teams Yes Stadium rally at Parliament lawns at 1pm on Sunday.