Hobart’s inaugural Festival of Stupid Ideas has launched with the Yes Stadium rally in the capital.
In a city better known for proximity to wilderness, UTAS development plans and 135 brands of artisanal gin, Hobart has boldly declared itself the global centre of brain-dead nonsense this weekend.
Organisers insist the event is “a celebration of human ingenuity’s less successful cousins… our leaders” and the program certainly delivers. A strategic decision was made to lead with the biggest and most clodpated idea in the history of the known universe on day one – the Macquarie Point stadium supporter rally.
The headline boganpalooza rallied in the city centre to demand a $2Bplus budget-blowing third AFL stadium the state doesn’t need and can’t afford, slated to host just 7 football matches plus lots of seagull crap on the plastic roof.
A few thousand diehard fans of stupid joined the rally, whistling through their collective 7 teeth at every false promise of jobs and prosperity.
Asked to explain the benefits of a giant, pointless wankerdome on a site featuring 220,000 cubic metres of toxic waste and overshadowing the sacred Cenotaph with glowing AFL signage, a Yes supporter proudly stated: “Footy.”
Asked to explain why a project that is going to return less than 50c in the dollar should be given, free, prime inner-city land better suited to other purposes, the supporter stated: “Footy.”
To resoundingly celebrate stupid, attendees stood around in a late-November downpour – won’t somebody think of our kids? – to hear vested interests, sporting has beens, economic know-nothings, a Premier who twice lost his parliamentary majority over the stadium issue and a former Labor leader dumped for being a sex pest spruik stadium tosh with forked tongues.
The lineup of speakers featured not a single person with even a year’s experience in planning, all flapdoodling against a project that has been exhaustively evaluated and comprehensively rejected in a two year public inquiry by the eminent experts of the state’s own Tasmanian Planning Commission.
After the rally, Yes Stadium supporters demanded a roof be built over Parliament Lawns, regardless of the cost or viability. Admittedly Parliament Lawns hosts more events than the proposed stadium will.
A visiting tourist from Melbourne, Margaret H, admitted confusion.
“I thought this was some sort of a comedy festival. Turns out it’s just… Tasmania.”
Other festival highlights include a kunanyi cable car and zipline double header, Louise Elliot talking about anything, the Marinus Link project, Pulse pretending to be an independent news outlet, the kunanyi cable carand a celebration of Eric Abetz as Treasurer.
Lifetime and outstanding achievement awards are to be presented to Gunns, Marti Zucco, Michael Ferguson and whoever decided the National Party ought to campaign in Tasmania.
The Festival of Stupid ideas is co-sponsored by TasPorts and the native forest logging industry. It continues more or less forever.
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