Not since the controversy surrounding the licencing of Australia’s first legal casino in the late sixties, has Tasmania been so divided over a private development on prime waterfront land.

At that point in time the tentacles of the Australian gambling industry were yet to entwine the state government in its lucrative tax-revenue thrall.

To its credit, the Labor Government of the day sought to settle the conflict by conducting a referendum on the approval or otherwise of the Wrest Point Hotel/Casino at Sandy Bay. The result saw a marginal affirmative vote of 53%.

Remember, this was a referendum on a privately funded venture on private land with virtually no government subsidies for its construction beyond the cost of the referendum itself.

More than fifty years since that decision, we see the extraordinary gifting of the last portion of Hobart’s precious harbour-front land to a private consortium intent on expanding its football empire.

Beyond extraordinary, is the brazen insistence of this mainland commercial entity to nominate and claim its preferred site and further to have the temerity to demand our state pay for the majority of its construction. Seriously, who would sign-up for this deal?

The avoidance by the AFL of ongoing operational and maintenance costs, not to mention the interest on what most auditors calculate to be a minimum billion-dollar loan, shines a light on a deluded Premier’s reckless procurement and the endless financial debt Tasmanians will inherit as a result of his vanity project.

No one can mount a rational case for a state with 570 thousand residents – some of whom ‘reside’ in laneways and under trees – to allocate such a mainland-metropolis outlay to a project so blatantly out of scale not only in its per capita cost, but to its location and, above all, its need in a state with ever-increasing public funding shortfalls.

An unspoken consequence of the 1968 referendum result is the gaming industry’s foothold and insidious expansion of its public bloodsucking.

That referendum determined the granting of a licence to a single private entity. Today’s football arenas – and by extension their visual media – unlike the controlled conditions of a casino, are towering edifices to online betting and malevolent conduits to the scourge of gambling addiction.

The same AFL salesman who is attempting to steal a priceless waterfront site for his football empire is now the new CEO of a gambling empire.

We’ve all witnessed the wonderful (public/private) civic and community Macquarie Point planning proposals of recent years that have been enthusiastically received only to wither and die on the neglected vine of government complacency.

The Premier now refers to the Macquarie Point site as a ‘wasteland’ – a wasteland deliberately and diligently denuded by a Liberal government throughout the past decade.

Macquarie Point is not a ‘wasteland’ but a land of wasted opportunity.

When a Premier of limited vision is cajoled by a Melbourne football hustler promising a few crumbs to support the expansion of his own mainland empire, he and his party cohorts shout from the rooftops that we should grab the ‘opportunity’ with both hands.

That a cheering portion of the population can also be hoodwinked by this patently one-sided deal says much about the standard of education in Tasmania.

By hiding and drip-feeding the spiralling costs, and by keeping the supporters placated with expensive Cox Architects’ CGI renderings, the government will continue with its softly-softly simulations until its poster child is indelibly imprinted on the Tasmanian psyche and it becomes impossible for punters to recognise an alternative reality.

Given the extensive nationwide promotion to date (stadium contract or not), the AFL could never afford to now reverse its decision to include the Devils in the national competition – it’s inherent in its expansion strategy and in its propaganda for domination of the other football codes.

A determined expression and a leader’s firm hand would elevate Tasmania to a level of national respectability by promoting the sensible, staged and cost-effective redevelopment of alternatives such as York Park or Bellerive Oval, and by promoting a world-class, human-scale public precinct for Macquarie Point.

Though a referendum result is not always binding, in a campaign highlighting the ballooning costs, the contractual obligations, the location, and the zero net benefits of this monument to stupidity, Tasmanians will surely make the right decision . . . this time.

But be suspicious of the wording of any government referendum – they, the AFL, and the gaming industry have a lot riding on the outcome.

Mark Pooley is a retired architect living in Hobart