Transcript of press conference with Senator Peter Whish-Wilson, Greens Senator for lutruwita/Tasmania, George St, Launceston, 28 April 2023.
Peter Whish-Wilson
So Australia is in the biggest housing and homelessness crisis we’ve seen in generations. And a budget is a time for government to show the nation, especially a new government, what its priorities are for the people. And what we’ve heard from our Prime Mister Anthony Albanese is he wants to spend $300 million of public money on stadiums in Tasmania in the middle of a rental and housing crisis. I think most Tasmanians would rightly ask: ‘why are the Prime Minister’s priorities spending money on football stadiums?’
When he goes down to UTas stadium today, go talk to some of the homeless people that are living in tents and living in caravans, ask them what their priorities are. Go and knock on some doors in the electorate of Bass, or Glenorchy, or anywhere around this state, and ask Tasmanians what they want him to prioritise in this budget. And I guarantee you, they’ll say homes, and they’ll say health. So where are the funds for that?
We’ve learned in the last half an hour that the National Cabinet meeting has admitted that we are in a housing and rental crisis in this country. And they’re now going to formulate a plan, potentially giving some kind of blueprint in the next six months on what they’re going to do about these. This budget is the time for the Albanese government to deliver for the Tasmanian and Australian people.
Can I say that for thousands of years, politicians – going right back to the Roman times – have been populistly offering circuses and bread to the people to keep them happy. Well, at least they offered bread, some kind of incentive to help people with a cost of living crisis. We know that from the Anglicare report yesterday in Tasmania. Tasmania has the fastest growing rate of homelessness in the country and the least affordable rents. That’s the crisis we’ve got to deal with. That’s the priorities Tasmanian want to see from this government at this budget. And I think Tasmania is be bitterly disappointed if the Prime Minister doesn’t address tomorrow, or today when he comes to Launceston, why he’s not prioritising homes for people who need them. And health in this site.
Journalist – unidentified
Andrew Wilkie this morning has said that he fears some of the surrounding infrastructure of the project won’t be completed as well, leaving Tasmanians with a half-baked stadium with no roof. Do you share those concerns?
Peter Whish-Wilson
Well, I think we share the concerns that we don’t need this extra stadium. I mean, it’s a good question to be asking today: Why are we going to spend another 40 or so million dollars on upgrading our stadium here in the north, York Park UTas Stadium, which we know is worked perfectly well for hosting AFL teams in the past. Myself, like most Tasmanians, would like to see a Tassie AFL team. But we don’t want to be blackmailed by the AFL, or by the Prime Minister or the Premier into having a new stadium. On its own business model it’s going to cost us hundreds of billions of dollars, it’s going to lose money for years. For 300 days of the year we expect it’s not even going to be used, when there’s people out there that need a home 365 days a year.
So yes, I think the whole thing sounds like it stinks. They’re making it up as they go along. And it’s not the priority. It’s not what we need right now. If York stadium has worked well for us in the past, fine, let’s keep an open mind to upgrading that stadium. And let’s use that as our premier AFL stadium for our new team in Tasmania. I think most of us would agree that’s a pretty good idea. So why do we need $750 million on a vanity project for the Premier and now the Prime Minister. Even state Labor don’t agree with this. And I can tell you, federal Liberal Party that I’ve spoken to and some of them like Senator Duniam have been very outspoken about this. They don’t agree with the expenditure of these funds on a new football stadium either. So we’ve got concerns at many levels.
But the key one is it’s just not a priority for us right now. The priority is looking after Tasmanians in need and we know there are way too many of them. The government can fix this. Adam Bandt at the Press Club just two days ago, put up a fully costed plan for over $70 billion to be spent in this nation. That’s taking money away from, from wealthy landlords who get tax breaks to the extent of $64 billion over 10 years of public monies used to fund wealthy landlords to get tax breaks who own multiple homes. Let’s take that money and reinvest it back into both freezing rents, doubling rent assistance in this country, and providing up to $5 billion a year to build 225,000 new homes for people who need them. That should be the priority.
Journalist – unidentified
So theoretically if the Hobart stadium were to go ahead, would you support the $100 million for York Park?
Peter Whish-Wilson
Well, we haven’t heard any figures about 100 million at this stage. What we’ve known today is that they’re dealing with $45 million, they may need extensions. I think it’s something we would keep an open mind to, for sure. I mean, Cassy O’Connor wrote a letter to the AFL saying, you know, sadly, we’ve always supported an AFL team, but we don’t any more, because you know, this ridiculous situation where we’ve been blackmailed into having to have a billion dollar stadium and it probably will be a billion dollars over time with all the cost blowouts. Especially if it needs a roof. You know, I’m sure we’d keep an open mind to having York Park as our premiere stadium. So I might say that again, because of the word premiere might be a bit of a play on words. That’s clearly not the premiere stadium. But I think it’s a stadium that Tasmanians would accept has done a great job in the past. If it can be upgraded then I understand the capacity of York Park is around 20,000. The new stadium is going to be around 23,000 We’re not talking big, bikkies here in terms of differences of what it can accommodate says of Tasmanians or visitors interstate going to see an AFL team. We’ve got a good stadium, we’ve got another one in the south too. We don’t need a third stadium.
Journalist – unidentified
Is Anthony Albanese lacking empathy for those without a home.?
Peter Whish-Wilson
Anthony Albanese, when it suits him, uses the fact that he grew up in a housing estate. And he’s you know, he understands the battler and those doing a tough, he knows what it’s like to go without. He’s going to be driving past these kind of people tomorrow when he’s in Hobart and even today in Launceston when he when he gets picked up by his Comcar and his cavalcade at the airport tomorrow, and goes down to down to the precinct at Macquarie Point, he’s gonna be driving past homeless Tasmanians. I’d really like it if he’d stop his car and get out and talk to them and say, Yeah, look, I understand I do have empathy for what you’re doing.’ And then he can answer the question: ‘Well, why aren’t you prioritising building new homes in this state?’
On our calculations, the government’s prepared to put up $55 million under the new housing affordability future plan, which is due before the Senate soon. $55 million over five years. So you add the commitment Macquarie Point stadium and what they’re going to be announcing today at $300 million. It’s six times more. This government is prepared to spend six times more on football stadiums than they are building affordable homes and new homes to help those who need them in this state. It’s clearly wrong, wrongheaded. It’s warped, and it’s twisted.
And I think the Prime Minister needs to explain to you guys, today and tomorrow, why he is prioritising his first budget for this country. His first budget for the state of Tasmania, why he’s prioritising football stadiums. Most of us think it’s ridiculous. And I think you know, judging on someone’s social media, or a majority of the social media comments we’ve seen on your pages in the media, and on our pages. Tasmanians also, I think this is ridiculous. So what is it Albo? Why are you doing this? Now’s the time to be dealing with the crisis that we have before us. That’s what Tasmanians want to see.
Journalist – unidentified
If the federal government approves a funding contribution for a Hobart stadium is there any way the project can be blocked from going ahead on a state or federal level?
Peter Whish-Wilson
Could be quite difficult federally, I won’t comment on the state. Because I think that, I’m guessing it’d be fairly similar because, the problem is in budgets appropriation bills tend to come in what we call omnibus bills. So when we pass budgets and supply which pays for public servants, our police, our workers in hospitals, we don’t often get a chance to break down these bills, these appropriation bills. So if it’s part of the budget is going to be very difficult to do. There may be issues around the EIS and other things that we’ll go through processes for a set of estimates over a period of time.
But no, I think I think our focus as The Greens right now is the government’s $10 billion fund that they’re bringing to the Parliament, which is nowhere near enough to prioritise housing affordability in this country. Our priority is to freeze rents; a third of Australians are renters. Many of us have a young Australia’s that know they’ll probably never be able to afford a home. They’re low income Australians who have to choose between paying medical bills or paying their rent, or putting their kids through school. These are our priorities right now. And they should be the government’s priorities. It’s not as if this is new. This crisis has been deepening, and getting worse over time. We’ve got inflation off the charts. We’ve got wages growth that’s not keeping up. With inflation, at least a rent freeze and a doubling of rent assistance will provide real cost of living relief for those who are tough in this country for two years to allow wages to catch up. They’re the priorities of the Greens at the moment.
Journalist – unidentified
What do you see as being the main challenge that would mean a Hobart stadium wouldn’t go ahead? Is it the cost of transport infrastructure, construction workforce pressures, or strong community opposition to the project?
Peter Whish-Wilson
There are many reasons why this project shouldn’t go ahead and may not go ahead. Firstly, I challenge the Premier to take this proposition to the next election. I challenge you, Premier, take this to the next election. See what the Tasmanian people have got to say, I don’t see many people out there supporting you spending hundreds of million dollars on a new stadium that we just don’t need.
Additionally, we know that right around the country, this is not just a problem in Tasmania, we have shortages of building materials, we have shortages of lobar There are some views – looking at like housing, dwelling approvals, and housing approvals, going forward – that there may be some states where these will come off. But right now, right around the nation, it’s really hard to get a new home built, it’s really hard to find a tradie who’s not booked out six, nine, 12 months in advance. So what a stadium that’s going to be a billion dollars of expenditure on raw materials and labour will do is continue to push up the price of raw materials, continue to push up the price of labour. And, and that’s only going to make the situation worse. And I’m sure the government’s own business case reflects these realities.
Journalist – unidentified
Won’t many affordable housing projects be impacted by materials and labour shortages?
Peter Whish-Wilson
Absolutely, and that’s why we need to be planning for it now. The Greens plan is for building housing over the next 20 years. We need to be planning for this now. Our proposal is for a housing fund over the next 10 years. The government’s own housing body said they need to be spending up to $15 billion a year on housing for 20 years to solve this problem. We’ve got 640,000 Australians on waiting lists for affordable housing and public housing around this country. 640,000 Australians, families who don’t have a roof over their head, don’t have any certainty of where they’re going to live in the months and years to come.
This is not going to happen overnight. But if we don’t start planning for it now, and we don’t commit the funding to it now, then it will never happen. The government’s own Future Fund – and one of the issues that Max Chandler in Mayo one of my colleagues in Queensland and Adam Bandt have been saying is the government is not even guaranteeing when that money is going to be spent. It’s a gamble on the stock market as to whether they even make the returns they need on that fund, to reinvest back into housing. We need those appropriations and that commitment in this budget, we need to have the certainty so we can actually plan where these houses are going to go. We need to work with state and local governments right around the country to find appropriate locations, we need to make sure we got the labour, we need to make sure we got the materials, we need to get on with it now.
And it’s not just about building new new homes and new housing. In other countries, the government steps in and buys existing houses and makes that supply available to people who need them. And we have even seen that in Tasmania in the past. So there’s definitely the potential for a housing fund to actually purchase public housing and make it available. So this is this is an absolutely critical and urgent need for us right now. But if the government won’t even take those first steps, and make that commitment, then we’re buggered basically and this will never happen.
Media release – Federal Member for Bass Bridget Archer, 8 April 2023
Wider vision needed as part of northern stadium funding
Federal Member for Bass Bridget Archer has called on the Federal Government to provide wider funding for community sport after today’s UTas Stadium announcement.
“The funding is yet another reminder that northern Tasmania is the home of AFL in our state and building on grass roots sport is part of this,” Mrs Archer said.
“While I always welcome investment in the north, and wholeheartedly support an AFL team for Tasmania, stadium funding should not come at the incredible cost of failing to support the many needs of our local community, including local sporting infrastructure, health and housing.
“Northern Tasmanians are doing it tough in the current environment and rightly believe that instead of hundreds of millions more to fund a stadium in Hobart, federal support is needed in our regional community.
“If we want to talk about investing in infrastructure, I urge Labor to recognise, for example, the growing number of local sporting organisations who are struggling with less-than-ideal facilities, with many rapidly outgrowing their aging infrastructure and insufficient courts.
“Anthony Albanese said during the election that Labor won’t leave anyone behind, but he is leaving northern Tasmanians behind if a wider community sporting funding commitment isn’t made.
“As someone who campaigned for health not Hobart AFL in 2019, it’s difficult not to see this announcement as a cynical attempt to appease our community who are rightly angry about Labor prioritising an AFL stadium in Hobart over the pressing needs of northern Tasmanians.
“Labor has failed to match key commitments I made during the 2022 election, including to upgrade hockey facilities in St Leonards, which is having a dire outcome on Hockey Tasmania’s ability to support growth of the sport and to host national and international tournaments.
“I have also been vocal about the challenges facing basketball and netball, working with them to find suitable solutions and yet I haven’t seen members of Tasmanian federal Labor making any noise on behalf of the needs of our community.”
