The debate over the Macquarie Point AFL stadium has escalated with the Government’s release of its response to the Tasmanian Planning Commission’s (TPC) Integrated Assessment Report, a document that was widely seen by critics as a “damning rejection” of the project.
The document and the subsequent political reactions reveal a profound ideological conflict, with the Government arguing the stadium is a vital “intergenerational” investment and the key to securing a Tasmanian AFL team, while the Greens and independent MHA, Peter George condemn the $1.13 billion cost as a “budget black hole” and a debt burden that overrides expert advice.
Community group Our Place Hobart have condemned the document as a dangerous act of political defiance that dismisses expert advice and risks “bankrupting Tasmania”.
Media release – Eric Abetz MHA, Minister for Macquarie Point Urban Renewal, 8 October 2025
Tasmanian Government response to TPC released
The Tasmanian Government has today released its response to the Tasmanian Planning Commission’s assessment of the Macquarie Point Multipurpose Stadium.
Minister for Macquarie Point Urban Renewal, Eric Abetz, thanked the Commission for its work.
“We have carefully worked through the Commission’s report and responded to issues raised in relation to economic and social effects, outlining the stadium’s unquantifiable benefits,” Abetz said.
“The stadium is much more than just a sporting precinct, it will have strong intergenerational benefits.
“We have responded to the Commission’s concerns about urban form, activation and public realm by highlighting opportunities for broader site activation and drawing comparisons with other stadia sites interstate.
“The Commission found that challenges such as parking, traffic, pedestrian movement, noise and environmental effects can all be effectively managed.”
The Government has also responded to issues raised by the Commission in relation to historical cultural heritage and community values.
“Our response makes the important distinction between direct and indirect heritage impacts, reiterates the importance of the roof and highlights that community sentiment about the stadium’s visual impacts may vary across individuals and communities,” Abetz said.
Our response and the Commission’s findings are informing the State Policies and Projects (Macquarie Point Precinct) Order 2025.
Download the Tasmanian Government’s response here.
Media release – Vica Bayley MHA, Cassy O’Connor MLC & Helen Burnet MHA, Greens Members for Clark and Hobart, 8 October 2025
Government Treating Tasmanians Like Fools In Stadium Response
The Tasmanian Greens condemn the Rockliff Government’s response to the Tasmanian Planning Commission’s damning rejection of the billion-dollar Macquarie Point Stadium.
It’s little more than a glossy propaganda document that re-runs the same arguments that were prosecuted in the Commission’s hearing process and rejected by the experts.
Vica Bayley MP, Greens Acting Leader:
The Liberal Government are utterly delusional in their response to the Tasmanian Planning Commission’s unequivocal recommendation that the stadium should not be built. There is nothing in this response that offers any credible answer to the multiple, profound negative findings of the expert panel that the Premier himself established.
The Liberals’ response, designed to replace the facts with spin, is convincing no one. Their so-called positive impacts were already put to the Planning Commission and have been roundly rejected in their cost-benefit conclusion.
The Planning Commission were clear – the stadium should not proceed. It will be a budget black hole, accumulating $2 billion of debt within the decade.
The Commission found that Tasmanians will be worse off as the government is forced to up taxes or cut services to pay for the stadium. This Government response does nothing to clarify exactly how Premier Rockliff will pay for this.
With health and housing services already underfunded, Tasmanians simply can’t afford a stadium. The Premier needs to remind himself who he’s working for. Are Labor really going to keep letting the Premier get away with this?
Cassy O’Connor MLC, Greens MLC for Hobart:
The contrast between the substance and facts in TPC report and the insulting, fanciful response from the government is stark.
They are treating Tasmanians like mugs, with dishonest assurances that the massive debt is manageable and every problem identified by the Planning Commission, easily fixed. It’s dangerous propaganda, given the enormous consequences of any Parliamentary decision to approve the stadium against independent, expert advice.
While the Greens and some crossbench members will fight the stadium’s approval in the lower house, given Labor’s craven capitulation and backing for the Macquarie Point stadium, it’ll be up to the Legislative Council to prevent this utter folly.
I trust my Independent colleagues will recognise their responsibility here, look at the actual evidence presented by the experts, compare it with the Liberals’ propaganda and save Tasmanians from a huge mistake that would blight them financially for generations.
Helen Burnet MP, Greens Member for Clark:
The government has utterly misrepresented and fails to understand the impacts on Hobart’s prizewinning, unique built heritage. The Planning Commission report stated clearly that there would be irreversible and negatively consequences on both heritage and landscape if the stadium project at Macquarie Point goes ahead.
It will be an eyesore as an ugly backdrop to Hobart’s heritage buildings and diminish the connection to place the Cenotaph has.
The government has a fanciful notion of mass transit to and from the proposed stadium. Our transport system can’t meet current demand of everyday commuters, and it won’t be possible to shift people without the infrastructure and bus upgrades being delivered.
The network will be more congested as increased traffic generated from major events at the stadium . The stadium will gridlock the city and surrounding suburbs, and the government has no serious plans to deal with it.
Media statement – Peter George MHA, independent for Franklin, 8 October 2025
So much spin it makes you dizzy – Government response to Planning Commission’s Mac Point stadium report
The government’s response to the Tasmanian Planning Commission’s report into the planned Mac Point stadium is a lazy travesty of a document.
It is a thoroughly lazy document that relies on the idea that if a lie is repeated often enough it becomes the truth, trotting out the same spin that the government has been serving up for two years.
It ignores the TPC’s scathing economic impact assessment that just building the stadium will cost every Tasmanian $4,100 and lead to increased taxes and generational debt over 50 years.
With mental health facilities closing, 18,000 Tasmanians waiting for secure housing and TAFE fees soaring by up to $21,000, there is no economic or social justification for the project.
Not even the most avid supporter of the stadium project could view the response as anything but profoundly disrespectful to Tasmanians and to the Tasmanian Planning Commission’s careful year-long investigation that concluded the stadium is a dud in every aspect.
The TPC’s long, thoughtful report is dismissed in one sentence as “matters of opinion and choice.”
Once more, this Liberal government’s promise of public consultation amounts to no more than lip service to disguise a corrupted process – decisions already made behind closed doors with no transparency or respect for proper process.
Yesterday, I called on the government to include all costs associated with the stadium but the response includes only a final page throwaway mention of a clearly inadequate additional $200 million.
I call on Labor to join with the majority of the cross bench and make the right decision not to saddle the next generation with carrying the debt of the Liberal’s vanity “Rockliff Stadium”
And I have faith that if Labor isn’t brave enough to do the right thing, my colleagues in the Legislative Assembly will have the courage to do so.
Media release – Our Place Hobart, 8 October 2025
Our Place Hobart responds to the government’s response to the TPC’s rejection of the proposed Mac Point Stadium
Our Place Hobart has condemned the government’s response to the Tasmanian Planning Commission’s report on the Mac Point stadium as an insult to both the Tasmanian Planning Commission and to every Tasmanian worried about Tasmania’s future.
Spokesperson Roland Browne said:
This blancmange of fabrication, disproven arguments and pure nonsense was comprehensively rejected by the government’s own Planning Commission report; and yet the government seems to think if it just keeps repeating the same old lies, they will be believed. It trots out the very imagery and arguments rejected by the TPC expert Panel and fails to confront the many complex planning and economic issues raised by the TPC over a period of 2 years of its assessment.
The TPC report was released at about 09:30 on 17 September 2025 and the Premier had rejected the report it by 10:00 that day, before he could possibly have ever have read it.
But then, he signed the agreement with the AFL in May 2023 without having read that massive document, either.
This is a government equally unconcerned by truth, process, or bankrupting Tasmania for the sake of Jeremy Rockliff’s vanity. The TPC made clear taxes will go up to pay for the stadium and that it will cost every Tasmanian household $5,900.
The government response to the TPC is no more than a glossy promotional document from a real estate developer where the land-owner is the builder, funder and regulator and where private equity was utterly disinterested.
Report after report after report by everyone from Saul Eslake to the Tasmanian Treasury has made it clear that these vanity infrastructure projects must stop or the axe will fall ever harder on jobs and services while taxes will rise.
For what is now looking to be a $2billion development, the response document is best described not as simply an embarrassment, but a great work of fiction.
There are many questions about the cost of this project, and its process, that remain unanswered by the government. This brochure tells us nothing. The 20 questions circulated by Our Place Hobart this week remain to be addressed:
Our Place releases 20 critical questions about the costs of the proposed Mac Point Stadium.
Media statement – Kristie Johnston MHA, independent for Clark, 8 October 2025
Don’t buy the stadium BS
The government response is entirely predictable, ignoring the experts and expecting us to buy its BS about unquantifiable benefits – its vibe about the stadium.
They expect us to believe the value of the vibe created by the stadium is enough to justify the intergenerational debt and the inevitable loss of services from a haemorrhaging budget.
Labor can’t escape responsibility with handwringing and performative concern.
Now is the time for Labor to snap out its paralysis, realise they are in Opposition and start acting like it by voting against the stadium.
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