Govt Draws Veil of Secrecy over Stadium Costings

Important parts of the two MI Global Partners reports regarding the proposed Hobart stadium have been blacked out.

The version on the Dept of State Growth website features entire panels of missing figures in the Hobart Stadium Capacity Optimisation Analysis and the Hobart Stadium Cost Benefit Analysis Report.

The text ‘commercial in confidence’ appears below the blacked out information.

According to an economist who has been studying the stadium figures, the full documents had previously been available. Another source, who has had an unredacted version, said he had downloaded it from the State Growth website.

State Growth however told Tasmanian Times that “the report(s) you refer to has not been changed since being uploaded in January.”

The economist bemoaned not having downloaded the full documents, writing: “I had the link for the MI Global analysis and believed I would be able to access it whenever I wanted; I wasn’t expecting Putin-like censorship of what should be publicly available documents – especially considering it was paid for using our tax dollars.”

The move was made among growing scrutiny grows of the business case for the major development.

The documents include economic analysis of the overall stadium project and of the likely ‘best size’ to maximise return on state government investment. Ultimately even the ‘best case scenario’ finds the project to have a negative outcome, ie. to return far less than invested.

Earlier this week, stadium lobbyist Russell Hanson released his own spruced up version of the business case, based in part on the MI Global Partners work as well on the Price Waterhouse Coopers study. Missing information from the MI reports makes it harder to test the veracity of Hanson’s assumptions, most of which are not in any case fully explained.

Just yesterday Energy Minister Guy Barnett was referred to the Privileges and Conduct Committee for failing to meet a parliamentary deadline to provide costings for the Marinus Link and North-West Transmission Developments projects.

Also this week, the Public Accounts Committee Inquiry into the stadium expanded its terms of reference to specifically include scrutiny of “the financial risks associated with the Agreement” (between the State of Tasmania and the AFL) and “matters related to the financing and delivery of the entire proposed Arts, Entertainment and Sports Precinct” which includes the stadium.

This post has been updated since first published.