Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania, Jacqui Lambie Network) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Indigenous Australians (Senator McCarthy) to a question without notice I asked today relating to the Macquarie Point precinct.

The Macquarie Point precinct stadium has caused a lot of division in Tasmania, and for very good reason. And, by the way, opposing the stadium does not mean being against Tasmania having its own AFL team. For God's sake, we've well and truly earned the right to have our own team, and it is well overdue. Opposing the Macquarie Point stadium means opposing the raw deal that has been shoved down the throats of hundreds of thousands of Tasmanians.

The AFL will not hold Tasmania to ransom on my watch. The Macquarie Point stadium comes at a massive cost that Tasmanians will be paying off for years. Why should 18 AFL clubs be dictating what Tasmania should and shouldn't have or that the Australian taxpayer owes the AFL money for a stadium the AFL didn't even build? What rubbish! It can't be built in a realistic timeframe.

People either believe that taxpayers' money should be spent wisely or they don't. When it's black and white, there's no excuse to play by sides. Tasmanians won't be wooed by dangling the carrot of the AFL team. Tasmania having its own AFL team is an issue of fairness. When Premier Jeremy Rockliff or the AFL tells Tasmanians that there's no team without a stadium, I say that's rubbish—poor performance. I've been told by business leaders that this was the worst deal they had ever seen a Tasmanian government do. The Rockliff government has brought in a new era of arrogance as I have never seen. It's at a whole new level.

The real way to lead a democratic state is to propose something and let the people have their say on what should or shouldn't be. There is no social licence in Tasmania for this stadium. When the stadium was announced, the deal had been decided behind closed doors by a commercial entity, a former Premier and a few foffies. Transparency was non-existent and still is. Yet, despite clear and valid concerns, the Rockliff government has been the most arrogant we have ever seen down there.

This happens because they are spineless and beholden to the AFL. First, Saul Eslake's independent report on Tasmania's final position clearly said that, because of deliberate decisions by the Liberal state government, Tasmania's financials have been driven off a cliff. Then we have Dr Gruen's independent report on Macquarie Point Stadium, saying the stadium is going to suffer massive budget blowouts carving out a bigger hole in the state's finances. What the Eslake and Gruen reports have in common is that, despite the facts being there in black and white by renowned and respected economic experts, the Rockliff Liberal government's mind is set in stone, rejecting the findings of both. It's arrogance at its best. The arrogance of that government sets a very dangerous precedent where the government convenes in the interests of themselves instead of Tasmanians.

All this has been helped by the state government's partner in crime, the federal government, pouring in 240 million bucks. The Prime Minister is champing at the bit for this stadium. Last year he told Tasmanians to get on with it. He said he poured tens of millions of bucks into this site when he was infrastructure minister in 2012. All of that money was spent on setting up a corporation. Those millions were absolutely wasted. In an era when Tasmania is poorer than ever, our so-called leaders are committed to making our state even poorer. Shame on them.

Tasmania's budget update shows an increase in debt of $1.1 billion, taking our total debt to $10 billion in three years. Tasmania's year 12 educational attainment is just 53.1 per cent, the worst of any state or territory. A decade ago, half our population was functionally illiterate, and it is probably even more now. More than 2,300 Tasmanians are homeless. More than 8,300 Tasmanians are on elective surgery waitlists. But all these people don't need to worry, because in some fantasyland they may sit in a seat in a stadium with a roof. Hallelujah! Congratulations! I'm sure that is going to help you out!

The reality is that where the stadium is, what the stadium has and the timeline for it have been determined by the AFL club boardrooms across the country, not in Tasmania and sure as hell not by the Tasmanian people. The gutless Rockliff government rolled over and sold Tasmanians out. You sold us out as cheap as chips. You should be ashamed of yourself, Jeremy. You should be absolutely ashamed of yourself. Well, I say to the AFL clubs out there, all 18 of you: stop bullying us. Stop bullying us, and get out of our state. Stop hurting your AFL brand. I tell you I am only just beginning. If you think you aren't going to take your AFL brand down a very dark hole, you are mistaken. Now go away and have a good think about it, because you're going down.

Question agreed to.