Media release – Josh Willie MLC, Shadow Sports Minister, 10 April 2023
Where’s Alastair Clarkson’s White Paper?
AFL coach Alastair Clarkson was paid $100,000 by the Tasmanian government to produce a football white paper that was never produced.
RTI information provided to Tasmanian Labor shows that item 4 of the project brief of his contract with the state government was to prepare a white paper on football structure, talent identification, coaching, facilities, and the future of football for Tasmania by the end of January 2022.
His contract also stated that he was then to consult with AFL, stakeholder and influencer groups in January through March 2022 on the white paper, finalise it by no later than June 30 and from this consultation finalise an implementation strategy for execution from July 2022.
Where is the white paper and implementation plan?
Did the AFL interfere in some way, given their love of controlling everything, and prevent the report and plan being produced?
This work was supposed to assist footy in Tasmania which is in an awful state, with for example, a famous club like Hobart unable to field a senior team and Glenorchy only just able to field a senior team.
One wonders what the many stakeholders who contributed to the deliberations would think of their thoughts never forming part of an anticipated white paper on the future of the game here and a much needed change to the way footy in Tasmania is administered?
The failure here lies with the state government for not properly enforcing the contract.
This is another example of a government that throws taxpayer money around like confetti with very little to show for it.
A Labor Government will freeze expenditure on consultants and government advertising at 2020 levels, saving an estimated $120 million over a term of Government.
