The Hobart City Council will take nearly 50,000 tonnes of soil from the Macquarie Point stadium site, including low-level contaminated material, under an $8.25 million contract.
Tasmanian government tender records show the Macquarie Point Development Corporation (MPDC) awarded the contract to the council’s South Hobart McRobies Gully Waste Management Centre on October 29.
The contract is worth $7.5 million plus GST and runs for two years. MPDC received three bids.
The council said deliveries were likely to start just before Christmas and continue for eight to nine months.
It expects about 20 truck movements a day, weekdays only, during business hours.
The material will include clean fill and Class 2 contaminated soil, which the council described as low-level contaminated soil that approved facilities can accept under strict Environment Protection Authority (EPA) requirements.
New lord mayor Charles Wooley, elected last week, said the deal was expected to bring the council about $5 million in revenue.
He told Pulse the the arrangement would provide “critical funding for the ongoing operation, maintenance and future redevelopment of the waste management centre”.
The council said the price was a negotiated rate, which is standard for large tonnages.
It said revenue would depend on how much material actually arrived and was “not guaranteed”.
It said the money was expected to go towards improving waste management, particularly “a significant upgrade to waste transfer facilities”.
Deliveries are expected to average about 1,325 tonnes a week. McRobies Gully has a regulatory limit of 85,000 tonnes a year.
The council said the project was “business as usual” and would have “no significant effect on the landfill lifespan”.
The council has previously committed to closing the McRobies Gully landfill by 2030 as part of its goal of zero waste to landfill, a target it reaffirmed in its waste management strategy last year. The stadium contract runs until October 2028.
The council said in March 2025 that Hobart had generated 42,000 tonnes of waste the year before.
Specialist contractors will carry out contamination monitoring for MPDC, with EPA oversight. Trucks will be washed before they leave the stadium site.
The council submitted its bid in January, before October’s council elections and council officers approved it.
The previous council voted in April 2025 to formally oppose the stadium.
Its submission to the Tasmanian Planning Commission said “the negative impacts outweigh the positive benefits”.
“While council has previously stated its position on the proposed stadium through planning processes, the operation of the McRobies Gully Waste Management Centre is a separate operational matter,” Wooley said.
“The city has a responsibility to manage waste and fill materials safely and in accordance with its environmental approvals, established procedures and obligations to the broader Hobart community.”
The council has previously taken fill from other major projects, including TasWater’s Selfs Point sewer upgrade and the Hutchins School’s NJ Edwards Hub.
Separately, MPDC awarded a $26.84 million contract, including GST, to Southern Waste Solutions on October 21 to receive, treat and dispose of contaminated material from the site.
At a parliamentary Public Accounts Committee hearing on Friday, Andrew Harris said the amount of material that can be excavated or stored on site during preparatory works had risen from 11,000 cubic metres to a cap of 20,000 cubic metres.
Harris is the independent probity adviser overseeing decisions under the stadium order and has no role in MPDC’s procurement.
He said the change followed “an on-site realisation based on preliminary excavation, which then revealed a need to go deeper or further”.
Asked whether the reason was heritage or contamination, Harris said: “All of the above.”
He said he had “no insight” into whether the change would affect costs.
