Independent Bass MP Lara Alexander says Tasmania’s new AFL team should play its home games at UTAS Stadium, even if the government goes ahead with plans for the new facility at Macquarie Point.
Her comments come after Premier Jeremy Rockliff announced a $375 million cap in taxpayer contribution to the stadium – an announcement she has described as “a stunning backflip”.
She is now demanding the Premier reveal details about the revised deal with the AFL.
“It appears, on the face of it, that the Premier has breached the previous secret deal he signed with the AFL to build them a stadium in Hobart,” Mrs Alexander said.
“Did the Premier inform the AFL of his new price cap and negotiate a variation to the contract, or did he just arbitrarily decide – as he did with myself and John Tucker – that the deal didn’t suit his political agenda and should be tossed aside?”
Mrs Alexander said it was an extraordinary backflip from the Premier given the turmoil he had been willing to put Tasmanians through to protect his original secret deal.
“Jeremy Rockliff was so intent on sticking to this deal he was prepared to let two of his MPs move to the crossbench,” she said.
“He split his Liberal Party, destroyed his majority and wrecked his own Government for this AFL deal, and now on the first day of the campaign – when he finally realizes he’s practically the only person in the State who wants it, he throws the deal under a bus.”
Mrs Alexander added that now that the Premier had broken the ice and breached the deal with the AFL, he should take the opportunity to do what he should always have done, and declare that a Tasmanian AFL team would play its home games at UTAS Stadium in Launceston.
She said she understood that one of the reasons former AFL chief Gil McLoughlin had mandated a Mac Point stadium was because he believed the players wouldn’t want to live in Launceston.
She said there was nothing to stop the club basing itself and its High-Performance Centre in Hobart, and making the short flight to Launceston for home games.
“There is hardly a single professional sporting team in the world that trains where it plays,” she said.
“We have an AFL-proven facility here at UTAS with funds already committed to an upgrade and, most importantly, it will allow the thousands of football-loving Tasmanians in the North, North-West and on the West Coast much greater opportunity to actually see their team in action.
“The Premier talked endlessly about an AFL team being for all Tasmanians, then disenfranchised half the State by cravenly bowing down to AFL demands to build a stadium in Hobart.”
