Media release – Josh Willie MLC, Shadow Minister for Sport, 9 December 2022

Weak Premier needs to stand up for Tasmanians

Polling released today shows that 67 per cent of Tasmanians oppose the proposed stadium for Macquarie Point.

The polling was conducted between 6-9 October this year by Community Engagement and surveyed 2541 Tasmanians statewide.

The polling showed that 52.4 per cent of Tasmanians strongly oppose the stadium and 14.9 per cent oppose it.

The polling showed that 16.1 per cent are neutral and 8.5 per cent support the stadium and 8.1 per cent strongly support it.

Two thirds of Tasmanians do not want this stadium.

Tasmanians clearly believe it’s not a priority for taxpayers when we have a housing crisis, health crisis and cost of living crisis in Tasmania.

Mr. Rockliff has been completely out maneuvered by the AFL.

He should have just said no to Mr. McLachlan and stood up to him rather than being pushed around and rolling over.

A stadium is not a priority for the state and a large number of Tasmania’s Federal Liberal MPs agree, including Senators Dunium, Chandler and Askew and Braddon and Bass MPs Gavin Pearce and Bridget Archer who have all voiced their disapproval of the project.

We should have had the license by now.

Tasmania should already be in the process of building our Tassie team. We should have already appointed a CEO, a board and started our push for members.

The requirements placed on Tasmania by the AFL to get its own team exceed what is fair and reasonable and go far beyond what any other club has ever been asked to do.

Instead we have this attempt by the AFL to squeeze taxpayers and it is holding up our licence being granted.