Labor is today calling on Premier Jeremy Rockliff and Treasurer Michael Ferguson to come clean on the whopping interest bill the state will be left with for their proposed stadium on the Hobart waterfront.
The interest bill on borrowing funds to build this increasingly flawed project stands to come in at more than $20 million per year, or nearly half a billion dollars over a 20 year borrowing period.
This calculation is based on 20 year borrowing costs sitting above five per cent, on a borrowing total of $460 million dollars. $460 million includes the $375 million the State Government will borrow from the Tasmanian Public Finance Corporation (Tascorp), in addition to a further $85 million that will be raised through borrowings (page 65 of the stadium "business case").
The Liberals have conveniently left interest payments out of their stadium costings so far, with the true cost of the project effectively doubling when it is included.
$20 million per year would be much better spent employing an extra 200 nurses to help fix Tasmania's broken health system. Instead, the Liberals would rather spend $20 million on interest repayments for a stadium we don't need.
This further shows that the Government's priorities are all wrong, and that they are completely out of touch with ordinary Tasmanians.
The Premier and the Treasurer must as a matter of urgency tell Tasmanians what they expect the interest bill will be for their new Hobart stadium.
They can't expect Tasmanians to sign up for a new stadium if they won't even be honest about the full costs, particularly when we're in a health, housing and cost of living crisis and have two AFL-compliant stadiums already.
Shane Broad MP
Shadow Treasurer
