The Tasmanian Planning Commission report, delivered last week, is only the latest in a string of assessments bluntly rejecting the proposal to build an AFL stadium on Hobart\u2019s waterfront. It is, like others, exhaustive and scathing: 236 pages, concluding that the stadium would trash the views and character of Hobart\u2019s heritage waterfront while inflicting an unacceptable debt on Tasmanians.<\/p>\n
The Tasmanian government was quick to dismiss the report, as it has other reports. Treasurer Eric Abetz labelled the commission\u2019s findings \u201csubjective assessments\u201d.<\/p>\n
More than a year of intensive work \u2013 conducted by an independent panel of five, with expertise in urban planning, law, local government, architecture and finance \u2013 was passed off as a matter of opinion.<\/p>\n
The government\u2019s response is as brazen as it is unsurprising. On the stadium front, Jeremy Rockliff\u2019s government has bent the rules from day one. It has dodged planning schemes, dismissed and discredited experts and attempted to pass stadium-enabling laws using tactics that critics have dubbed Trumpian. The Labor opposition has barely blinked, and this week reaffirmed its support for the stadium. Parliament will vote on the project later this year.<\/p>\n
The saga started in May 2023, when the Tasmanian government signed off on a deal with the AFL in which the state would be given its own football team on the condition of building a 23,000-seat roofed stadium on Macquarie Point. \u201cNo stadium, no team,\u201d was the mantra of the AFL\u2019s then chief executive Gillon McLachlan, who now runs the gambling giant Tabcorp. As premier, Rockliff repeated the line like a divine truth, despite polls showing that 59 per cent of Tasmanians opposed the project.<\/p>\n
In October 2023, Rockliff declared the stadium a \u201cproject of state significance\u201d to override the planning principles that cover Sullivans Cove, which encompasses the Macquarie Point site.<\/p>\n
He hit a snag after the March 2024 state election, in which the Liberals were returned as a minority government. To secure the backing of the Jacqui Lambie Network, Rockliff agreed to the party\u2019s demands for an independent analysis of Tasmania\u2019s finances and the stadium. Two eminent economists were appointed to the task \u2013 Saul Eslake reviewed the state\u2019s finances, and Nicholas Gruen the stadium.<\/p>\n
Eslake\u2019s report, delivered in August last year, found that Tasmania\u2019s net debt would spiral to more than $16 billion by the end of 2034\/35, with a corresponding rise in interest payments from $250 million to $730 million a year. This deteriorating economic situation was \u201centirely attributable to \u2018policy decisions\u2019 by government\u201d, Eslake wrote.<\/p>\n
He recommended \u201cthe government, and all other political parties, commit to achieving a series of fiscal targets over the next four to ten years\u201d, including a return to a\u00a0net operating surplus within four years. Eslake cautioned, however, against unduly cutting public services as Tasmania was already spending about $530 million a year less than it needed to in order to \u201cprovide services similar to the average level and efficiency of all states and territories\u201d.<\/p>\n
The Gruen report, delivered on January\u00a01, compounded the dire economic outlook and exposed a government that had been trying to disguise the stadium\u2019s true cost.<\/p>\n
The stadium\u2019s cost of $775 million, up from the original figure of $715 million, was \u201csignificantly understated\u201d, Gruen wrote, and the project was \u201calready displaying the hallmarks of mismanagement\u201d.<\/p>\n
Gruen warned that the cost to build the stadium would exceed $1 billion and would return just 44 cents in every dollar invested by Tasmania. Rockliff\u2019s insistence that his government would not spend \u201ca red cent more\u201d than $375 million in funding the project was disingenuous.<\/p>\n
\u201cBuildings do not achieve a positively \u2018iconic\u2019 status by virtue of being large, imposing or simply different. Proceeding with the Project will give rise to irrevocable and unacceptable adverse impacts on Hobart\u2019s spatial and landscape character, urban form and historic cultural heritage.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCost blowouts and unacknowledged costs,\u201d Gruen wrote, \u201cmean that it is already clear that the Government\u2019s undertaking to build the stadium without borrowing more than $375 million cannot be responsibly met.\u201d<\/p>\n
The stadium was located on the \u201cwrong site\u201d, selected in a \u201chasty process\u201d involving just two parties \u2013 the AFL and the Tasmanian government. The project was divisive, its tourism benefits were overstated and its impact on the Hobart Cenotaph, an important site for the veteran community, and the wider social, economic and environmental value of the Hobart waterfront, had not been properly assessed.<\/p>\n
Gruen advised the Tasmanian government to renegotiate the \u201cunrealistic timeline\u201d and punitive conditions set by the AFL and consider alternative proposals. These punitive conditions included a $4.5\u00a0million annual fine for the state to pay the AFL if the stadium was not 50 per cent built by October 31, 2027, a goal that looks increasingly unlikely.<\/p>\n
\u201cTasmania is a proud state that, for too long, has given far more to the AFL than it has received,\u201d Gruen wrote. \u201cTasmania deserves an AFL team and must have it at the right cost. But not at any cost.\u201d<\/p>\n
Instead of confronting the AFL, the Tasmanian government engaged in a campaign of character assassination, accusing Gruen of bias because he had met with stadium opponents, author Richard Flanagan and lawyer Roland Browne, before embarking on the report, and had failed to disclose this.<\/p>\n
Gruen responded that the omission was due to an administrative error, since corrected, and that seeking views across the community was not a sign of bias but of independence. Eslake defended Gruen on ABC Radio Hobart, describing the Tasmanian government\u2019s attacks on his integrity under the shield of parliamentary privilege as \u201cvery disturbing\u201d.<\/p>\n
In March, the Tasmanian Planning Commission\u2019s interim report vindicated Gruen\u2019s assessments: the cost of the stadium and supporting infrastructure had been understated, would require the state to borrow about $992\u00a0million and create a debt of $1.86\u00a0billion at the end of 10 years. The project failed on economic, social, architectural, environmental, heritage and urban planning grounds.<\/p>\n
The government\u2019s response? It torpedoed the planning process and drafted a\u00a0new bill that would allow building to begin at Macquarie Point. The planning commission stood firm and continued its work of assessing the stadium, as required by law.<\/p>\n
Former Labor leader Dean Winter\u2019s no-confidence motion against Rockliff in early June stalled the government\u2019s move to introduce its stadium-enabling legislation and prompted an early election in July. Rockliff was returned as premier of a minority Liberal government.<\/p>\n
This month, the Tasmanian Planning Commission delivered its final, blistering assessment. The stadium was a financial catastrophe and, far from being architecturally \u201ciconic\u201d, was \u201coverbearing\u201d and \u201cunexceptional\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cBuildings do not achieve a positively \u2018iconic\u2019 status by virtue of being large, imposing or simply different,\u201d the panel wrote. \u201cProceeding with the Project will give rise to irrevocable and unacceptable adverse impacts on Hobart\u2019s spatial and landscape character, urban form and historic cultural heritage.\u201d<\/p>\n
The stadium would cost every Tasmanian household not on Commonwealth benefits $5900; by comparison, Sydney\u2019s Allianz Stadium cost $273 for every New South Wales household. Taxes would need to be raised by $50\u00a0million a year for the next 30\u00a0years, or public services cut by an equivalent amount. Having used the government\u2019s own cost estimates, the commission warned that as these were \u201cgenerally optimistic there is a risk that the financial impact will be larger\u201d.<\/p>\n
Incredibly, the government\u2019s costings had failed to include essential infrastructure such as a car park, new buses, a bus plaza or a northern access road. Consultation with the Aboriginal community had been \u201cwholly insufficient\u201d. Furthermore, the stadium was\u00a0so\u00a0tightly squeezed onto the Macquarie Point site that there was limited land for the urban renewal and affordable housing that was a condition of the Commonwealth\u2019s funding injection of $240 million.<\/p>\n
This fact prompted independent MP Andrew Wilkie to immediately write to the prime minister advising him that the Tasmanian government was intending to breach its agreement with the Commonwealth for the $240 million in funding for the Macquarie Point urban redevelopment. At time of writing, Wilkie had yet to receive a reply.<\/p>\n
The Tasmanian government\u2019s response? Yet again, it went on the offensive, with Abetz comparing the stadium to the Sydney Opera House and the Eiffel Tower. \u201cThe Eiffel Tower in Paris was considered to be a monstrosity and an eyesore by the artists and intellectuals in the 1880s,\u201d he said. \u201cToday it is the iconic feature of Paris that puts Paris on the world map.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rockliff said the Tasmanian Planning Commission had \u201cmassively\u201d underestimated the social and economic benefits of the stadium and the effects that a \u201csupercharged events industry\u201d would have on the state. And yet on the same day the commission released its findings, Rockliff revised the cost of the stadium to $1.13 billion.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a growing state, reaching for aspiration and opportunity for young people, we must pursue ambitious projects like that at\u00a0Macquarie Point,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt will create jobs, boost our tourism and hospitality sector, secure world-class entertainment and keep our economy strong.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to the government\u2019s own figures, the stadium will create just 203 full-time equivalent jobs \u2013 less than 0.1 per cent of Tasmania\u2019s current total employment.<\/p>\n
Not even the Department of Treasury and Finance buys the \u201cstrong economy\u201d line.<\/p>\n
In its Pre-Election Financial Outlook report, lodged in June, the department warned that the state\u2019s net debt would grow from $4.2\u00a0billion in 2024\/25 to $13.0 billion by 2027\/28. \u201cThis will reduce the State\u2019s ability to manage economic shocks and to provide services to the community in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tasmanians are already facing those shocks, such as plans to cut jobs at the Royal Hobart Hospital\u2019s Cancer Clinical Trials Unit by 58 per cent.<\/p>\n
Amid all of this, Rockliff insists: \u201cIt is time to get on with the job.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on
\n September 27, 2025 as “Expert advice bulldozed”.<\/p>\n
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