Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Ruby Jones and you're listening to seven AM.
Speaker 1: When Tasmanian Premier Jeremy Rockcliffe struck a deal with the
Speaker 1: AFL to build a brand new stadium in Hobart's historic center,
Speaker 1: it was a decision made without Cabinet, Treasury or parliamentary backing.
Speaker 1: It's that stadium that's kicked off a messy fight over
Speaker 1: who will lead Tasmania. It's now been over a week
Speaker 1: since the election that delivered a hung parliament and neither
Speaker 1: the Liberal leader or Labor leader have managed to form government. Today,
Speaker 1: author Richard Flanagan on the political crisis in his home
Speaker 1: state of Tasmania and why it's a warning for the
Speaker 1: rest of the country. It's Tuesday, July twenty nine, So Richard,
Speaker 1: welcome to seven AM. Thank you for coming on the show.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me. Raby.
Speaker 1: As we speak, it's been just over a week since
Speaker 1: the Tasmanian election, in which neither party gained enough votes
Speaker 1: to govern. The cross bench may well decide who ends
Speaker 1: up leading the state. So tell me this election, what
Speaker 1: would you say it was all about?
Speaker 2: Well, I think it's all about an old order crumbling,
Speaker 2: but refusing to accept what politics in the twenty first
Speaker 2: century is going to look like and rather than it
Speaker 2: being a mess, I think it's a harbinger of what's
Speaker 2: coming not just to our island here but to Australia.
Speaker 3: Tasmonia's fourth election in just seven years has delivered another
Speaker 3: hung parliament. The Liberals have again won the most seats,
Speaker 3: but falling shy of a majority, will be forced to
Speaker 3: negotiate with a largely progressive cross bench to try to
Speaker 3: form government.
Speaker 2: A bit over a third vote for the Liberal Party,
Speaker 2: a third voted for the cross Bench and about a
Speaker 2: court voted for the ALP and so the dilemma here
Speaker 2: is that neither the Liberal Party nor Labor Party except
Speaker 2: that a large sway that Tasmania doesn't agree or endorse
Speaker 2: their policies and is extremely discontented with what they're doing.
Speaker 4: The proposed Macquari Points Stadium has been a contentious topic
Speaker 4: in this election. The major parties are supportive of the plan,
Speaker 4: which would pave the way for a Tasmania based AFL team.
Speaker 2: There was a lot of discuss with the Liberal Party
Speaker 2: and there's a lot of disillusion. That's to do with
Speaker 2: the fact that budget now is in crisis in a way,
Speaker 2: it just isn't anywhere else in Australia. It's now got
Speaker 2: a thirteen billion dollar debt by twenty twenty eight, which
Speaker 2: when you add the government businesses to it, is a
Speaker 2: further nine billion, So that's a twenty two billion dollar debt.
Speaker 2: And the Treasury released a document mid election which said
Speaker 2: to address this, you would have to raise taxation by
Speaker 2: two hundred and fifty percent, or reduce services by twenty
Speaker 2: five percent, or sack twenty thousand public servants.
Speaker 1: All right, So in that context, and let's talk a
Speaker 1: bit more about the stadium deal that Jeremy Rockcliffe made
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago with the AFL. Under the deal,
Speaker 1: Tasmania would build this new stadium and in return they
Speaker 1: would get to enter the league. So these are the
Speaker 1: terms that the ALFOL wanted and got right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, Rockcliffe. I mean it was the deal of
Speaker 2: the century as far as the AFL goes, because they
Speaker 2: got a blank check for a stadium, They specified where
Speaker 2: the stadium would go, what type of stadium, it would
Speaker 2: be a deadline for when it would be built. And
Speaker 2: not only that, if it's not built, I think it's
Speaker 2: by twenty twenty eight. The state has to pay a
Speaker 2: fine every year. It's not built of several million dollars.
Speaker 5: When Premier Jeremy Rockcliffe or the AFL tells Tasmanians that
Speaker 5: there's nine team without a stadium, I say that's rubbish,
Speaker 5: poor performance. I've been told by Business Leans that this
Speaker 5: was the worst deal they have ever seen. The Tasmanian government.
Speaker 2: Doing this idea that a mainland corporation can come in
Speaker 2: and just demand that the taxpayer here build their stadium
Speaker 2: stagus people, particularly when we already have two stadia which
Speaker 2: are routinely used for AFL games here and have been
Speaker 2: for the last two decades.
Speaker 5: The Douglas Rockcliffe government rollover and sold Tasmanians out and
Speaker 5: your stars as treatss chips. You should be ashamed of yourself, Jeremy,
Speaker 5: you should be as lowly as shame for yourself.
Speaker 2: The AFL made the condition of Tasmania getting its own
Speaker 2: AFL side that it had to build the stadium. But
Speaker 2: Tasmania is actually giving over a quarter of a million
Speaker 2: dollars to that AFL team. It is the most generous
Speaker 2: state sponsorship of any sporting team in Australian history by
Speaker 2: the poorest state at a moment in its history when
Speaker 2: it's teaching on bankruptcy. This is a stadium Tasmanian's never
Speaker 2: wanted and had consistently opposed. It's always sixty to seventy
Speaker 2: percent of Tasmanians when they poled, say they don't want it,
Speaker 2: which the Premier nevertheless is hugely committed to.
Speaker 1: So why do you think the Tasmanian government agreed to
Speaker 1: those terms?
Speaker 2: Well, that's a good question. I think the Tasmanian government
Speaker 2: didn't really agree. Premier Rockcliffe signed the contract without reference
Speaker 2: to his party room, his cabinet, his treasurer or the treasury,
Speaker 2: and having signed it, he's been desperately backfelling ever since,
Speaker 2: trying to justify and as time goes by, the ever
Speaker 2: more ludicrous nature of the proposal becomes apparent. Nevertheless, you know,
Speaker 2: people are united behind the team, but they are not
Speaker 2: united behind the stadium.
Speaker 1: After the break, will the stadium deal die? Richard? We've
Speaker 1: spoken about the stadium deal itself, the cost of it,
Speaker 1: the fact that many Tasmanians don't support it. But if
Speaker 1: it were to go ahead, where would this stadium actually be.
Speaker 2: Well, the AFL insisted it go in the heart of
Speaker 2: colonial Hobart down on the wharf. This creates several problems.
Speaker 2: The first is just that it is completely impossible to service.
Speaker 2: You can't service it with public transport, you can't adequately
Speaker 2: get cars in the way the arterial road system works
Speaker 2: into in and out of Hobar. It's going to create
Speaker 2: absolute traffic chaos because of the appalling nature of governance
Speaker 2: in Tasmania. We have the least expenditure per capita on
Speaker 2: public transport of any state in Australia. And we've been
Speaker 2: been report showing with the most car centric city and
Speaker 2: yet so people will have to to the games by car.
Speaker 2: There's nowhere even for them to park their cars. And
Speaker 2: then on top of that, it sits next to the Senator,
Speaker 2: the equivalent of Melbourne Shrine of Remembrance. This is a
Speaker 2: prominent spot in Hobart's topography, on a point overlooking both
Speaker 2: the river and the city. There was a plan to
Speaker 2: build housing and so on on the site and the
Speaker 2: first Indigenous memorial park in Australia dedicated to the frontier walls.
Speaker 2: This was a very powerful idea that resonated with Tasmanian people.
Speaker 2: Was very popular. The AFL, which claims to care about
Speaker 2: indigenous culture rolled over that straight away. They haven't cared
Speaker 2: less about it. In fact, the indigenous people who worked
Speaker 2: on it, the first they knew about it was hearing
Speaker 2: it on the TV news and the radio news. So
Speaker 2: all these things were recognized in planning around the city
Speaker 2: and future planning. All of them were utterly ignored by
Speaker 2: the AFL and then by the government.
Speaker 1: You mentioned some of the challenges that Tasmania faces. Can
Speaker 1: we talk a little bit more about that, about about
Speaker 1: what you think that the money that Tasmania does have
Speaker 1: should be spent on and its political will I suppose,
Speaker 1: but it should be directed.
Speaker 2: I think the real problem for Tasmania is that its
Speaker 2: politics are utterly distorted by its resource industries and had
Speaker 2: for a very long time in Tasmania. From colonial times.
Speaker 2: You kept power and you maintained power by the giving
Speaker 2: away your aspects of the natural environment, from the kangaroo
Speaker 2: hunting grounds, of the power of people that you gave
Speaker 2: away to the pastoralss. It's always been about giving away
Speaker 2: forest concessions, mining concessions, water to sand and barrens and
Speaker 2: so on. Forces behind those industries become unduly powerful, and
Speaker 2: that there are two problems with this one is that
Speaker 2: there clearly are dirty deals going down all the time here.
Speaker 2: We're the only state that doesn't have a proper corruption commission.
Speaker 2: But the other problem is is that it destroys the
Speaker 2: necessary contractor democracy needs between its people and its state.
Speaker 2: And people need to believe that the state, generally speaking,
Speaker 2: does what it does in an honest way. Tasmanians don't believe.
Speaker 2: That's how they're stage one. They believe everything is corrupted.
Speaker 2: Now clearly everything isn't corrupted here, but it creates a
Speaker 2: really disaffected, angry and in the sense also disempowered people,
Speaker 2: and I think that's why you see so many people
Speaker 2: leaving the island.
Speaker 1: Let's talk a little bit about the Greens and the
Speaker 1: independence the new cross Bench. It's largely against the Stadium deal.
Speaker 1: Does it seem to you then that the cross Bench
Speaker 1: be able to convince either major party to give up
Speaker 1: on this deal. Is this something that can actually die?
Speaker 2: So the final makeup of the Parliament won't be known
Speaker 2: until the end of this week, and it's those final
Speaker 2: crossbenches that are still up in the air. But you
Speaker 2: are right, the majority of the cross Bench or opposed
Speaker 2: to the Stadium. The real negotiations will start next week
Speaker 2: and clearly the stadium's going to be a key issue,
Speaker 2: and I guess the question is is whether the Labor
Speaker 2: Party will flip on it or not. The Labor Party
Speaker 2: opposed the stadium up to last election, then immediately after
Speaker 2: it changed to a pro stadium position, which was sort
Speaker 2: of bizarre because it was seen that part of the
Speaker 2: reason for the Liberal Party collapse was their support of
Speaker 2: the stadium. The Labor Party vote this year in the
Speaker 2: election's gone is the lowest in its one hundred and
Speaker 2: twenty year history, and this is coming off a very
Speaker 2: good result in the federal election. So it tells you
Speaker 2: a lot about these extreme right wing positions that the
Speaker 2: Labor Party has taken in recent times. So it's a
Speaker 2: conceit on the part of both major parties that the
Speaker 2: growth in the cross bench is a momentary aberration at
Speaker 2: some point will go back to where it's you know,
Speaker 2: it's just holding law forward, but it's just Labor or Liberal.
Speaker 2: But it's never going to go back to that. And
Speaker 2: the people in the twenty first century who will have
Speaker 2: effect and be capable of changing our society, whether it's
Speaker 2: for the better or the worse, will be people who
Speaker 2: are able to pull together coalitions of constantly changing forces,
Speaker 2: micro parties, different individuals. They won't necessarily all be progressive either,
Speaker 2: but they will be the new style of politics. And
Speaker 2: at the moment in Tasmania neither labor nor liberal except
Speaker 2: the legitimacy of this change.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and as you say, we don't know the final
Speaker 1: makeup of the Tasmanian Parliament yet. But should the stadium
Speaker 1: go ahead, what kind of reaction do you expect.
Speaker 2: Well, because of this pattern of powerful corporations pulling the
Speaker 2: streams behind closed doors, there is a very strong grassroots
Speaker 2: political culture. You know, this is the island that gave
Speaker 2: Australia the environment movement, the Green Party. And what you
Speaker 2: will see if the stadium goes ahead is you'll see
Speaker 2: direct action on the stadium side. You'll see homeless people
Speaker 2: chaining themselves to machinery. You'll see health activists chaining themselves
Speaker 2: to machinery. You'll see the state respond as it does
Speaker 2: down here, by imprisoning those people. And then you're going
Speaker 2: to get rage. And if the AFL really wants to
Speaker 2: go to war with the people of Tasmania, well then
Speaker 2: that's where we're heading. If this stadium goes ahead, So
Speaker 2: even if Parliament approves it, it won't be the end
Speaker 2: of the story, but only the beginning of a more
Speaker 2: bitter chapter.
Speaker 1: Richard, thank you so much for your time today.
Speaker 2: Bath thank you.
Speaker 1: Also in the news today, Ed Husick says Australia should
Speaker 1: recognize a Palestinian state now, saying France's decision to do
Speaker 1: so should be seen as an opportunity. The former cabinet minister,
Speaker 1: who was dumped from the ministry after the election, made
Speaker 1: the comments following the Prime Minister saying over the weekend
Speaker 1: that hurdles must be overcome before recognition is possible. And
Speaker 1: National's leader David little Proud has dismissed suggestions that Barnaby
Speaker 1: Joyce's attempts to scrap net zero is a sign of
Speaker 1: party revolt. Little Proud said that backbenchers have every right
Speaker 1: to bring forward private members' bills following Joys introduction of
Speaker 1: the bill that would get rid of Australia's net zero
Speaker 1: target by twenty fifty. The bill has no prospect of succeeding.
Speaker 1: I'm Ruby Jones. This is seven am. Thanks for listening.