The Macquarie Point stadium has emerged as a defining issue in the race for the Legislative Council seat of Nelson, with two leading candidates offering voters contrasting views ahead of this month’s poll.
Incumbent Independent Meg Webb will go head-to-head with Liberal candidate Marcus Vermey and the Greens’ Nathan Volf on May 24.
Nelson is one of three seats up for grabs, alongside Montgomery and Pembroke.
Vermey has the backing of former long-serving Nelson MLC Jim Wilkinson, who represented the Sandy Bay, Mount Nelson and Kingston areas for more than 20 years.
“There’s not many business people within the Upper House,” Wilkinson said on Thursday. “We need people in the Parliament who are business people, who are quality people and Marcus is just that.”
“If you’ve got a quality person who can deliver and who can add real value to the parliament, that’s the person who I’d vote for.”
Vermey, a local businessman whose family has been operating in the area for over 60 years, has centred his campaign on backing the stadium and the local high-performance AFL facility.
“I’ve been part of the community for over 40 years … I have a trusted name, I deliver on what I say I do and I think that’s the focus of what people believe in and what they see is what they get,” he said.
“Part of delivering for the community is having an AFL high-performance centre in Kingston. That would be great for jobs, for the kids, for the future of the area.”
Webb, meanwhile, has previously described the stadium as “manifestly flawed” and attempted to push the state government to revisit its deal with the AFL around the site’s location and construction timeline.
She argues both Labor and the Liberals have “lost their way” and no longer hold the community’s confidence.
“Nelson voters know to secure meaningful action on their key areas of concern such as the controversial Macquarie Point stadium, the Sandy Bay UTAS campus, affordable housing reform, effective pokies reform, protecting our planning rights and climate justice, they need a strong independent voice representing them in the upper house,” she said.
“People are telling me they recognise the upper house is more effective with independents representing the community and doing that crucial scrutiny.”
