The Minister tasked with delivering Jeremy Rockliff’s stadium has sensationally admitted that the Premier has broken his “not a red cent more” funding promise.

Last night, once most media outlets had filed their stories for the day, Minister Abetz admitted to Parliament that he had misled Tasmanians on ABC radio yesterday by asserting that the Premier had always said his promise to cap spending for his stadium at $375 million contained the condition “plus borrowings”.

By admitting this, Minister Abetz also admitted that his primary defence in maintaining the Premier didn’t break his promise was completely false.

The cover the Liberals then tried to play in suggesting that their funding commitment always contained borrowings because it was in a 2023 business case is also completely void. The Premier’s now infamous promise to cap spending at $375 million “and not a red cent more” was made months later and can only be viewed as overriding any commitments before it.

Labor supports a stadium, but we don’t support the Premier misleading Tasmanians about how he’ll build it, or how it’ll be paid for. I don’t think the Members of the Legislative Council will view it kindly either.

The Premier’s chaos and incompetence in managing this project has become a massive risk to the future of our Devils AFL and AFLW teams.

Josh Willie MP
Shadow Treasurer