Tammy Tyrrell (Tasmania, Jacqui Lambie Network) Share this | Hansard source

With another rate rise this week the federal government is under fire to find ways to reduce inflation. Their big solution is to take money out of the economy by pulling back on infrastructure projects. The government say they are going to have to make tough decisions about which projects face the chopping block, that nothing is off the table. When it comes to infrastructure spending in Tassie, I have an easy solution for the government: get rid of the $250 million earmarked for Macquarie Point Stadium. Let's put this in perspective: if the federal government pulled their $240 million, the state government wouldn't have enough money to complete the project and the stadium wouldn't happen because the $375 million the state government was going to spend would have to be pulled too. Add to that the $15 million from the AFL and inevitable blowout costs, and this would mean that infrastructure spending in Tasmania would be reduced by close to $1 billion. In a $2 trillion economy, $1 billion might not be that much, but it's not nothing either. Believe me, you would notice an extra billion in your bank account.

We are in no position to ask the rest of the country to tighten its belt if we are refusing to do so ourselves. Tasmania has to do its part. If we need to reduce spending, which we do, we certainly can't afford to spend money on projects that we don't need. The federal government and Tasmanian Liberals insist on stubbornly pursuing a stadium that will probably never see the light of day. All that's doing is putting further pressure on the economy and punishing Tasmanians. When people are struggling to put groceries on the table and can't afford petrol to get to work, it is obvious we should be doing everything we can to get inflation down. So if we are cutting infrastructure projects to bring down inflation, I've got an idea that Tasmanians would be happy with: the Macquarie Point Stadium funding has to go.