Why Do They Hate Tasmania?

I’ve heard a lot from – as my friend Eoin McBrearty has taken to calling them, stadiumbangers – about the proposed AFL stadium at Macquarie Point.

I get that they like Australian rules football. I get that they think Tasmania should have a club in the national competition. Heck, a lot of us share that much.

What I don’t get is why they hate Tasmania.

Because everything that has happened, and has to happen, for the stadium fantasy to come true is bad for Tasmania.

Here’s a handy list for anyone who has been asleep for the past three years.

Abuse of Process

Then Liberal Premier Peter Gutwein lied about a stadium being part of the deal, saying in public in 2022 that it wasn’t whereas behind doors it was already being written into the agreement.

This agreement was so secret even Cabinet did not get to see it. Nor Treasury. It had no proper assessment, neither of the overall merit of a stadium nor due diligence on the location.

It was, simply put, an illegitimate deal. A majority of Tasmanians have rightly been in uproar ever since.

Do you not agree that good governance is important? That Tasmania cannot prosper as a state without it?

So why are you applauding palpably bad governance?

Anti-Democracy

At the 2024 House of Assembly election, Tasmanians voted in a majority of anti-stadium politicians.

Labor, who had run around campaigning with NO $TADIUM stickers on their vehicles, then flipped and refused to support the will of people who voted for them.

The stadium deal should have been decisively voted down by the 2024 sessions of Parliament. That it wasn’t is a travesty of democracy.

A plebiscite on the issue could have been held in conjunction with the 2025 House of Assembly election, allowing all Tasmanians a say on one of the major issues of recent times. Craig Garland (independent MHA, Braddon) even put a motion for a vote, which was defeated by the new LibLab alliance.

No pro-stadium group advocated for this, because they knew they would lose.

Do you believe in democracy? Or only when it is convenient? And please don’t tell me that this election is a vote on the stadium. Both Liberal and Labor know it is so toxic that neither have mentioned it in their campaign advertising, slogans nor speeches.

Corruption of POSS

Both chambers of the Tasmanian Parliament approved the stadium proposal as a Project of State Significance. That means it goes through a rigorous planning assessment by the independent Tasmanian Planning Commission (TPC), who will then send their report back to Parliament..

This assessment is under way.

The TPC has been attacked by politicians who now, apparently, fear ‘frank and fearless advice’ itself.

Both the Labor and Liberal parties were attempting to circumvent the POSS process by passing so-called enabling legislation when the Parliament collapsed.

Do you believe in statutory processes being allowed to run their course without interference? Do you believe in the advice of neutral experts?

Inappropriate Site

Numerous problems have been identified with the Macquarie Point site. These include it having an unstable base unsuitable for large structures, as identified in a geotechnical report.

It has residual industrial contamination that could be capped, but the proposal is now for a excavation of a giant underground car park.

The POSS has identified various other critical issues such as the stadium footprint being too big for the site, other uses of the precinct being compromised, poor heritage outcomes, traffic congestion, blocking of the Cenotaph sightlines, potential emergency evacuation issues and more.

It is simply the wrong site. It was also being gradually turned into a genuine multi-use precinct for the broad community when the AFL secretly hijacked it.

Do you not believe in community? Do you shove square pegs into round holes? Do you not believe site selection for a project of this scale should be done with proper consultation?

Waste of Money

Five expert analyses of the economic base of the stadium project have found it wanting. These are the official business case by MI Global Partners, the analyses by Dr Nicholas Gruen and Professor Graeme Wells, the KPMG assessment made to the POSS and the TPC consideration of same.

All have found the project has negative economic benefit.

Yes that includes jobs during construction, yes that includes ongoing jobs, yes that includes events, yes that includes intangible benefits.

The considerations also include the massive costs, the debt servicing requirements, the likely operational deficits and more.

Even going softly-softly on potential cost blowouts, the return is spectacularly negative. Calculations vary, but an average figure is around 55 cents in the dollar return.

If that sounds good to you, you are welcome to send me $100 every day for the rest of the your life and I will faithfully send you back $55 every time as your return. Are we having fun yet?

The stadium is a financial lemon at a time of record debt for the State of Tasmania. There is no cashed-up balance with which to pay for a luxury.

Do you believe in responsible management of the state’s finances? Why therefore would you support a strongly negative investment? Why would you spend money we don’t have on a project that will worsen our fiscal position?

No Demonstrated Need

There has never been any formal assessment of upgrade options at Bellerive Oval.

Given that the stadium project is likely to turn Tasmania’s existing investment in Bellerive Oval into a liability, surely that work should have been done.

Then AFL CEO Andrew Demetriou admitted in evidence to the Tasmanian Parliament (see box) that the existing stadia in Tasmania were perfectly adequate to start up the club.

All the AFL has said since that stadium is simply that ‘all Tasmanians will understand that a new stadium is necessary’.

Uhh, no we don’t.

‘Necessary’ is not an argument. It’s an ambit claim that could and should have been rigorously assessed.

Funnily enough, in the decade leading up to the announcement, not a single voice was heard spruiking a new stadium as a major project that Tasmania needed.

But: a new public hospital. A replacement Tasman Bridge. A big build of public housing. A reconciliation park as part of…the Macquarie Point urban renewal. These were, in fact, the big ideas.

There was no coterie of event promoters saying ‘Look, I have dozens of big events potentially on the way, I just need a 23,000 seater with a roof.’ Not even one.

Rugby, soccer and Hobart-sized events actually need a rectangular stadium of about 12,000 capacity.

Demetriou also pointed out that stadiums did not need to be large, state of the art facilities in order to successfully showcase sponsor branding:

… the stadiums now are pretty sophisticated with LED signage. Whether you have a 20 000 or 27 000 capacity with a nice shiny roof, it’s not going to get you better sponsorship. Sponsors will still come if the club is successful, if it’s well run.

Do you not believe in needs-based policy? Do you not accept that Tasmania should spend its scarce dollars in areas where there is a demonstrated need based on actual evidence?

Lack of Social Licence

The AFL’s pigheadedness has divided Tasmania.

Multiple opinion polls over two years have consistently shown that a majority of Tasmanians, around 60-65%, are against the new stadium. Around 30-35% support.

You must have some incredible cognitive dissonance to think it doesn’t matter. The Devils Football Club should have not been born into an environment so hostile. Do they want to run out in their shiny new jumpers onto a field two-thirds of Tasmanians didn’t want, but will still have to pay for for generations?

Do you not believe that uniting Tasmanians behind the team is important? If so, why cannot you let go of the single most divisive issue to do with the team? It’s not the jersey, the tattybogle mascot, or even the pricey training centre, it’s the stadium deal.

It’s not a stone tablet delivered to Moses, it’s a piece of paper written by fallible humans who now should admit they got it wrong.

Why will you not use your Devilsmarts to lobby the AFL to renegotiate the deal?

I could go on, but you must have some sense of the big picture by now.

All of these policy and ethical considerations actually matter. They matter if we truly believe in a mature, competent Tasmania that fosters inclusion and a just and sustainable society for everybody.

You either believe in those principles consistently, or you don’t. The are a mark of belonging, of love for the island and its dreams big and small.

Of love for Tasmanianness and our sovereignty, of our destiny being in our hands, of our genuine wants and needs driving key policy decisions in the timeframes that make sense to us.

Why would, just so ‘your side’ can get what it wants, you keep us divided and tribal?

So now I ask you again, stadiumbangers: why do you hate Tasmania?

Alan Whykes is Chief Editor of Tasmanian Times.

Tasmanian Times (TT) is a community-based news and current affairs service covering the island state of Tasmania. It exists to provide a diverse view of Tasmanian issues. TT creates and supports independent media content utilising the best of modern technologies and tried-and-true practices of public-interest journalism.

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