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Stadium – Housing, Costs, & Contamination Concerns
Escalating debate over the Macquarie Point Stadium has exposed allegations of hidden cost blowouts due to material shortages and backroom deals, raising fears that essential housing funds are being sacrificed for the project.
Critics from the Greens, Our Place – Hobart, and independent Peter George warn that unresolved site contamination risks and a lack of transparency threaten to burden Tasmanian taxpayers with a financial disaster.
Media release – Vica Bayley MHA, Greens Housing Spokesperson, 4 December 2025
Tasmanian Homes on Stadium Chopping Block?
Despite assurances that essential services wouldn’t be cut to pay for the stadium, in Parliament the Premier refused to rule out reducing Homes Tasmania’s borrowings.
It throws a question over its ability to build the homes that vulnerable Tasmanians need.
To get Legislative Councillor Dean Harriss’ vote, the Premier committed to reducing future borrowings of government companies by $500 million, to make up for $490.7 million of the government borrowings needed to fund the stadium.
The Premier has long said the essential services Tasmanians rely on won’t be sacrificed to pay for the stadium – while at the same time committing to cut the very public service jobs that provide those services.
Now, it’s clear that the Premier is putting even more of the services Tasmania’s government businesses provide on the stadium chopping block.
The Premier refused in Parliament to rule out reducing Homes Tasmania’s borrowings in future years to fund the stadium.
Tasmanians know by now they can’t take the Premier for his word. On the stadium costs, he’s consistently been dishonest with the public.
The Liberals are prioritising a roofed stadium ahead of Tasmanians unable to put a roof over their heads.
With so many Tasmanians struggling to find an affordable and safe place to call home, the Liberals priorities are all wrong.
Media release – Roland Browne, Spokesperson for Our Place – Hobart, 4 December 2025
Deals done between the government and some Upper House members
Our Place Hobart has responded to revelations about deals done between the government and some Upper House members to secure their votes for the passage of the Macquarie Point Stadium Order.
Spokesperson Roland Browne said:
“These deals are laughable. They rely on this government honouring its word, a most unlikely outcome.
“Have these Upper House members forgotten the Premier’s promise to politicians that the Teams were not linked to a stadium? Have they forgotten the promise of ‘not a red cent more than $375m’? Have they forgotten the stadium was to be funded by private equity? Have they forgotten the assurance to the RSL that the stadium was to be no more than 40 m high?
“Most importantly, there’s no accountability and no consequence if the governments falls short on the commitments it has actually offered.
“Premier Rockliff’s Christmas present to Tasmania are AFL/AFLW teams at a cost of around $2.5 billion, and the desecration of the Hobart Cenotaph and destruction of the heritage of Sullivans Cove.
“It is a recipe for ongoing division.
“While Parliament can permit the stadium to be built, it cannot legislate reality to be different.
“And at some point, reality will doom this unaffordable stadium. The problems will grow to engulf all Tasmanians.
“None of our political leaders can say they were not warned.
“And as these problems grow, so too will the endless financial consequences.
“Because the problems will worsen, the campaign against the stadium will continue.”
Higher Taxes revealed to help pay for Mac Point stadium
The entire Parliamentary Liberal Party has signed an undertaking to raise taxes in Tasmania at the next Budget to pay for the Macquarie Point stadium.
The move was revealed by Huon MLC, Dean Harris, as part of the deal that secured his vote for the stadium.
Statement by independent MP for Franklin, Peter George:
Building the Macquarie Point stadium will mean Tasmanians will pay higher taxes. It’s taken a secret deal with one MLC to reveal what should have been publicly acknowledged all the time the debate was dividing Tasmanians.
Higher taxes and deep cuts in public spending are part of a secret deal done with Huon MLC, Dean Harris, to win his vote for the stadium.
According to Mr Harris, the deal has been signed by all 14 members of the Parliamentary Liberal Party – a deal that would discredit any government on the mainland but which the Tasmanian Liberal Party obviously sees as “business as usual”
While I accept that Mr Harris has approached his decision in good faith, the truth is that he has been played and his vote won at the expense of ordinary Tasmanians and at the expense of the public services he espouses.
Extract from Parliamentary speech delivered by Peter George this afternoon in reply to Budget estimates:
I have been left with an overwhelming sense of a long fiscal shadow hanging over Tasmania, one that the government and the Treasurer are unequal to tackle.
I hope I am wrong.
But I know I’m not.
And I’ve just discovered why.
Just this afternoon in the Legislative Council, the Honourable Dean Harris revealed he has struck a deal with the government.
The entire Parliamentary Liberal Party has undertaken to raise taxes – taxes it promised in the election campaign not to raise – and why?
To pay for the Macquarie Point stadium.
But there’s more.
The government has promised Mr Harris deep spending cuts.
Why? To pay for the stadium.
I fear that what we’re left with after the mini-Budget and Estimates is the razor gang getting stuck into the State’s public services and the frontline community organisations that will be expected to fill in the ever-deeper holes the government will abandon.
GOVERNMENT HID RISING COSTS OF MACQUARIE POINT STADIUM
Construction industry warns:
“What does this mean for Tasmania?
“Less affordable homes, roads, and infrastructure…
Construction industry documents reveal the Rockliff government hid the truth about the escalating cost of the stadium from the Tasmanian public during the 2025 state election.
The documents show the government was aware during the July election campaign that significant cost escalations and delays would result from southern Tasmania running out of sand suitable for the concrete to build the stadium.
The report by Minerals Resources Tasmania (MRT) was released publicly only last week but the national body, Cement, Concrete and Aggregate Australia (CCAA), reveals the report dates back to at least July.
The impact of suitable sand resources running out in southeast Tasmania means significant cost increases as sand will have to be shipped 300 kilometres from the northeast of the state, rather than 35 kilometres.
CCAA’s “2025 Tasmanian Election Policy Priorities” document the MRT report the government concealed from the public until last week.
CCAA is the industry voice of Australia’s heavy construction materials.
CCAA explicitly mentions the MRT Report that was released only after Budget Estimates concluded preventing MPs from scrutinising the impact of the concrete sand shortage on all building projects in the southeast of the state and specifically the Macquarie Point stadium.
In their July 2025 document, the CCAA wrote-
“Latest Mineral Resources Tasmania (MRT) research indicates that the supply of concrete sand in SE Tasmania is effectively exhausted which will likely result in significant price increases for future developments.”
It goes on to quote Infrastructure Australia saying “shortages in local quarry supply threatens the deliverability of major public infrastructure works, increases project costs and schedule delays, and contributes greater emissions by bringing heavy materials to site from further afield.
“What does this mean for Tasmania?’ asks the CCAA, answering its own question by replying
“• Less affordable homes, roads, and infrastructure.
“• Project delays.
“• Loss of investment & jobs.
“• Increased political risk.”
The CCAA report mentions that heavy construction materials “average 29% of project cost”. The sand issue will clearly cost Tasmanian taxpayers dearly.
Media release – Cassy O’Connor MLC, Greens Member for Hobart, 29 November 2025
Premier and Abetz in Damage Control Over Stadium
After two credit rating downgrades and devastating evidence from the Tasmanian Planning Commission assessment panel to Legislative Councillors this week, government desperation ahead of next week’s stadium vote is showing.
As a last-ditch bid to secure independent MLCs support and in a late Friday news dump, Minister Abetz released a ‘Governance, Oversight and Assurance Framework’ that provides zero reassurance the Rockliff Government can deliver this project on a heavily contaminated site without risks to public health, the degradation of heritage – including the Cenotaph – massive cost blowouts and further borrowings.
At Thursday’s hearing, the TPC’s former Panel members had no recollection of being told by the proponent the site contains up to 220,000 cubic metres, or tonnes, of contaminated soil containing asbestos, lead, mercury, arsenic, cyanide and other toxic chemicals.
In Estimates, MPDC claimed the volume was about 130,000 cubic metres, but the EPA later confirmed the potential higher volume.
We also confirmed in Legislative Council estimates that the current cap on the Copping C-cell waste facility is 45 000 cubic metres a year.
The maths isn’t promising. We’re talking here about poisonous soil having to be stored on site until it can be safely disposed of.
MPDC is operating to a four year old Environmental Management Plan, written for the previous mixed use redevelopment of the site.
This, and the Corporation’s attempts to fudge the actual volume of contaminated soil – apparently to both the TPC and Estimates – does not instil faith that public health risks during construction can be managed safely.
Given the government’s terrible track record on infrastructure, how can the people of Hobart trust that the toxic soil being stored and transported on Macquarie Point won’t contaminate the air they breathe.
In short, they can’t.
Former Treasury Secretary, Martin Wallace, told MLCs the compound interest on borrowings to build the stadium could be up to $80 million within 5 years.
Those interest payments would be met by further borrowings. He described the prospect as, “A completely untenable situation’.
A comfortable majority of Tasmanians agree. MLCs inboxes are still being flooded with emails from worried people across the island.
Overwhelmingly, they agree Tasmania cannot afford and does not need this stadium.
Now the Premier and Minister Abetz are in damage control. They cannot and should not be trusted.
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