Fact:
The TT-Line Company Pty Ltd, (trading as Spirit of Tasmania) is wholly owned by the Tasmanian Government.
Fact:
The Macquarie Point Development Corporation (MPDC) is a statutory authority wholly owned by the Tasmanian Government.
Statements on the record:
9 May 2025. ABC – The Tasmanian government has revealed another cost blowout to berth infrastructure to host the two new Spirit of Tasmania ferries, with the project now set to cost nearly half a billion dollars.
Transport Minister Eric Abetz told a parliamentary committee on Friday morning that the berth works in Devonport were now set to cost $493 million — up from an estimate last year of $375 million. Last year’s figure was itself an increase from an original estimate of $90 million provided by state-owned ferry operator TT-Line, and TasPorts.
Mr Abetz said it was “fanciful to suggest the original figure was ever realistic.”
14 April 2025. ABC Radio – Transport Minister Eric Abetz, again: ‘The costs will be determined ultimately when the final decisions are made in relation to the exact plan etc, so those matters still are in the process of being worked through”, adding –
“Excessive optimism was a major failing of past management of the project.”
Joining the dots . . .
9 May 2025, Vica Bayley MHA (Greens): “On one hand, saying that the wharf in Devonport has blown out by a massive proportion, and yet on the other, he’s telling us not to worry about the stadium costs and that will be managed within a “budget envelope” — it’s completely unrealistic.”
Stadium ‘Budget Envelope’ calculation
Based on the government’s own figures, the Premier’s promise of ‘$375 million and not a red cent more’ can now be contextualised with his government’s most recent infrastructure performance.
For this we have a good example in the Devonport berth upgrades required to accomodate long-awaited new ferries. Said upgrade costs for the premature twins (Spirits IV and V) have escalated from $90 to $493 million – a neat 548% increase.
Using the same government ‘budget envelope’ computations (based solely on the Premier’s $375 million guarantee), the proposed Macquarie Point Stadium would cost two billion and fifty-five million dollars ($2.055 billion).
Exaggeration! you may say. Not at all.
No one needs a degree in architecture to conduct an AI or deep internet search of the final (or projected) cost of fixed-roofed stadia throughout the world over the last decade using parametric prompts, including conservative inflation imputation to the 2028 deadline.
Although all have seating capacity proportional to their city’s population of at least twice that of Hobart – Minneapolis Bank Stadium cost AU$2.17 billion in 2016, and Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas cost AU$3.6 billion in 2024 – none of these stadia (including Christchurch’s Te Kaha) have (or will have) Ethylene Tetrafluoroethylene (ETFE) fixed roofs spanning the playing area of an international cricket field.
Irrespective of the fact that independent surveys confirm the Macquarie Point site will not accommodate the proposed stadium and its ancillaries, throughout the world to date no ETFE tension membrane roof of this type and scale has ever been built.
A stadium of this type, therefore, has never been accurately costed.
Yet Tasmania is relying on AFL-affiliated Melbourne architects who have (reportedly) been contracted $37 million to make it fit, but will never be held accountable for the inevitable budget explosion as witnessed in the ferries berth fiasco.
Our other dubious reliance is on Abetz’s spirited ‘budget envelope’, harking back to his Premier’s ‘Not a red cent more’ (plus borrowings) pledge of February last year and juiced up with ‘No stadium, no team!’ sloganeering.
Thus far the government’s budgeting has been more like back of the envelope.
The design adage ‘what can be conceived can be created’, may be true if cost is no barrier, but as a local surveyor suggested: “The scale-to-site ratio of the Mac Point stadium is like trying to squeeze Gina Rinehart and Clive Palmer into the back seat of a Fiat 500. York Park already exists and is one of the best footy grounds in the country, so if we had to bow to Rockyhorror’s roofed stadium, UTAS is the only viable site.”
The Squeeze
7 May 2025, ABC – Tasmanian Premier, Jeremy Rockliff has issued an ultimatum to upper house MPs ahead of a vote on special legislation that would enable an AFL stadium on Hobart’s waterfront, saying a Tasmanian AFL team won’t go ahead unless the legislation passes.
“If the legislation is not passed, the stadium won’t go ahead and the team will not go ahead and the POSS process won’t go ahead,” Mr Rockliff told state parliament.
“The POSS process will end, it will all end, if we don’t get this enabling legislation through.”
Greens Deputy Leader, Vica Bayley, said it was proof infrastructure costs were blowing out and highlighted potential dangers with the Macquarie Point stadium project.
Labor Leader, Dean Winter: “Minister Abetz and other ministers of the Rockliff Liberal government often gaslight Tasmanians — they say things that are not true.”
Just do it!
An overwhelming majority of Tasmanians believe the heartland of AFL resides in the north, and the shared $130 million upgrade to York Park (Launceston) is, in itself, proportionally more than any other state has outlaid to secure a national team. No one, least of all the man whose political existence is so deeply dependent on building his vanity project at any cost, can be trusted to act in Tasmania’s best interests.
This evasive, hand-clasping AFL puppet, who has publicly drawn-and-quartered every commissioned messenger delivering the truth on his blank-cheque shrine, now has the dictatorial audacity to pressure every Legislative Council member to deny proper scrutiny of the AFL’s extortionary mandate to expand its gaming empire.
The Devils’ Playground
By the closing date of 8 May 2025, the Tasmanian Planning Commission (TPC) received 862 public representations, 85% of which oppose a stadium at Mac Point.
Shown below are the latest height surveys in relation to an existing survey monument confirming the deception of the MPDC architect’s images and revealing the true domination of the stadium over the Hunter Street and Sullivans Cove precinct.
The weight of public outrage contained within these TPC representations, including exhaustive polling, are precisely the reason the Premier wants his special (emergency) legislation rubber-stamped by the Legislative Council.
Tasmanians can be sure, if the outcome of the ultimatum forced on the LegCo Upper House members is not passed, our honourable Premier will revert to ramping up the pressure in the Lower House (with spineless Labor backing) and elsewhere to find another Hell’s Gate passage for the Devils’ Playground – this is Rockliff’s fervent obsession.
The $130+million York Park investment is more than any reasonable Tasmanian would expect their state to commit in exchange for a paper-licence to play just one of the many nationwide games we already play.
Wake up Labor! Wake up Tasmania!
Mark Pooley is a retired architect living in Hobart.
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Elk
May 20, 2025 at 10:42
To help pay for the Macquarie stadium, I suggest selling off the Bellerive arena and demolishing it to clear the area for housing.
Sell off the TCA ground to Football Tasmania for them to build a soccer stadium.
Sell off North Hobart oval to developers for housing.
Aggressively pursue a naming rights sponsor.
Chief Editor TT
May 20, 2025 at 18:51
All three grounds mentioned are currently used fairly heavily by local Australian rules and cricket, although indirectly you have correctly identified the stadium that Hobart should be building is a rectangular one.
We already have a stadium for AFL and international cricket.
Rob Smith
May 20, 2025 at 11:26
The only thing I would like to correct here, which actually makes things worse, is that it’s the very top of the Cenotaph that is 45m high. The height of the ground you stand on is shown to be only 17m in The Hobart Topographic map available online.
This means the Stadium will tower 37m above the base of the Cenotaph. If my calculations are correct the view for a person standing at ground level and looking to the south will be totally destroyed
Roderick
May 20, 2025 at 21:22
I will make a proposition to the Tasmanian government that it provides a roofed stadium for an Australian sport, one soon to become an international sport – and possibly an Olympic sport as well, namely Farnarkling.
For those unable to understand the logistics of the sport, Farnarkling is described as “to waste time or act in a careless or inconsequential manner.” I feel confident the government will be excited by my proposal and that soon Farnarkling will become the dominant sport in Australia.
Currently we do not have a team, but we have many administrators, a mascot, an arkle, and quite a few people to attract Tasmanians and others to the arkle. We will require the government to provide and fund a high performance arkle centre. Children will gather around the arkle and be entranced by its hypnotic powers and promises of a rich future as elite arkle players. The arkle will officially be opened by a senior Tasmanian politician named Eric. The Premier of Tasmania will then cut the ribbon surrounding the arkle with a pair of pinking shears. The Leader of the Opposition will stand well clear and appear to be unable to comprehend the significance of this momentous occasion.
… it will be just another day in the distorted illusion of “Modern Tasmania”.