After a Rocky week for the State Government, Premier Jeremy Rockliff has warned those set on ‘destroying’ Tasmania’s AFL team and Macquarie Point Stadium that he will do ‘everything he can’ to keep the project alive.
Taking to the ‘Yes AFL Team, Yes Stadium’ supporters group on Tuesday night, the Premier said he was “fully prepared to fight” for ‘the dream’.
With the threat of a potential election looming after the sacking of former Attorney-General Elise Archer and Labor ‘ready’ to take over the Government should an opportunity arise, the Premier told ‘believers’ the fight was “still at a critical point”.
“There are still some in Tasmania that want to destroy this team. In fact, they’re hell-bent on it,” Rockliff said.
“They want to undo all of our hard work and rip our team away from our next generation of kids.”
“They’re fine with throwing away thousands of jobs for Tasmanians right across the state, especially our tradies because of politics.”
“This dream is something I’m fully prepared to fight for. Day in, day out.”
Although the Premier insists that “some things are bigger than politics”, opponents argue that the ‘blank cheque deal’ with the AFL is the top concern.
Labor leader Rebecca White, yet to officially rule out the Macquarie Point Stadium, says she ‘would be hoping to sit down in a mature and civilised way with the AFL should there be an early election’.
White says Labor ‘still want to deliver the team… but so we don’t have that immense financial burden placed on the taxpayer to also deliver a stadium’.
The Tasmanian Government has committed $375 million to the $715 million project, with the Federal Government set to chip in $240 million.
The AFL will provide $15 million and the remaining $85 million will be sourced through borrowings against commercial land deals.
