Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Tasmania stands on the cusp of making a terrible mistake that will place an intergenerational burden on our state. The Macquarie Point Stadium is an awful deal for Tasmania, and the Legislative Council of Tasmania must vote it down next week. It's a multibillion dollar project that will rip money out of our health system, out of our housing services, out of our public schools and out of the supports Tasmanians desperately need. We do not have billions of dollars to waste on a stadium when people are sleeping rough on the street, when our hospitals are overburdened, when homelessness is skyrocketing and when our public housing waiting lists are stretching for years. A government with its priorities straight would be fighting for Tasmanians and the services they need, not signing up for decades of debt on a stadium the majority of Tasmanians do not want. This saga is turning us into a national laughing stock. The ABC is literally funding a fully scripted comedy based on the stadium saga. This is cargo cult stuff. It is abjectly embarrassing for Tasmania. The Legislative Council of Tasmania needs to clean up this mess, they need to stand up for people who need services, and they need to stand up for people who will be paying the bills long after the politicians and the AFL suits have moved on. Kill the stadium, and tell the AFL, 'We demand our team, we will not held hostage, and we will not be blackmailed.'