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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-04-28 Daily Xml
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SPORTS STADIUM

The Hon. P.L. WHITE (Taylor) (15:37): Can the Treasurer advise the house of the latest update—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, the leader!

The Hon. P.L. WHITE: —to the opposition's costing for the proposed inner city stadium?

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY (Port Adelaide—Deputy Premier, Treasurer, Minister for Industry and Trade, Minister for Federal/State Relations) (15:37): I wonder whether that is the same made-up stuff that The Advertiser ran the other day about me seeking a job. I say on the public record that I was somewhat disturbed, and it is in line with this because it is about a Treasurer who brings down a budget with infrastructure spending and then apparently goes through an intermediary seeking a job paying hundreds of thousands of dollars from contractors. That was an absolute lie.

Ms CHAPMAN: I rise on a point of order. The question was about costings of a stadium, nothing to do with the job prospects or otherwise of the Treasurer.

The SPEAKER: Order! There is no point of order. The Treasurer.

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: It probably was a bit of a stretch. Unless I am totally unaware of what I do, the suggestion that I have been seeking a job is not true. The suggestion that I have used an intermediary is not true. I just wonder whether it is the same person who gave the leader that last question that was so enthusiastically tracked down by Russell Emmerson and others. We will see.

The issue with the stadium in the inner city area is one of great concern in terms of the Leader of the Opposition. One would have hoped that there would have been a skerrick of—and I know this will get me into trouble and they will be belting me again tomorrow in The Advertiser, but I have to say that we saw on the front page of the Sunday Mail of 4 May, I am advised—

Mr Pederick: We haven't had May.

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: No, we haven't had May yet. I have my dates a bit mixed up. No, it is May 2008—in which the Leader of the Opposition released a statement, 'Stadium truth'. I am advised that in that release it stated:

A sports stadium at City West would cost around $520 million according to an independent firm of property and construction consultants.

Remember that—on the Sunday Mail front page, from memory—independent consultants. It could not tell us who they were because, somehow, there would be retribution. It sounds a little bit like why sources—that are telling lies to The Advertiser—cannot be named but, never mind.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: Or sources that don't exist.

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: Or don't exist. Anyway, there was never any scrutiny of that, and why would there be? It is not in The Advertiser's interests. What we now find is that the 66-page document released on 20 April 2009 reveals that the stadium will cost $900 million. One minute it is $520 million, months later it is $900 million. That is a $400 million blow-out in their own costings. Do we see any of that reported in The Advertiser? No.

On page 66 of this document about the stadium, I am told that only pages 37 to 39 canvass construction costs—2¼ pages of a 66-page document refer to costings. This is what the document states—there is allowance for further blow-outs in the costings. It states:

For the purpose of this plan, average 2008-09 prices shall apply. Actual construction costs are influenced by delays in start-up—

they are already foreshadowing they are going to have a delay in the start-up of their own program—

speed of construction—

they are now saying it will not be built as quickly as they may say—

financing and variations in the price of labour and material inputs. To commence operations there is the further dimension of fit-out and other start-up costs.

So, in that statement, they are already saying the great evil of this government is that projects have not been delivered on time; there may have been a variation in price. We are highly scrutinised for that. What they are now saying is, 'Yes, there will be a delay. Yes, there will be problems with the time it takes to build it. There will certainly be problems financing it, and there will be variations in the price of labour and material input costs.'

Anyone who had read this and then wrote a report on it, I would have thought, would pick this up—it ain't rocket science! This is what it says, 'To commence operations there is the further dimension of fit-out and other start-up costs.' So, they have not put the seats in. They built the stadium without seats in it. They have not put in the Coca-Cola and hot dog stands. They have not put in the showers—what a joke! A $900 million cost which does not have all the fit-out costs put into it. What a joke!

Then the Leader of the Opposition tried to talk about the Docklands Stadium. He said it only cost $400 million in 2000. It might have, in 2000, but in today's dollars that would be $600 million. That is a 50 per cent blow-out. Therefore, if what we are saying is that over a seven or eight year period to build his stadium of dreams, that it would go up by at least another 50 per cent, so we are already heading up to $1.35 billion. Again, I quote from the 'Stadium truth' release back in May 2008: 'The report and costings supplied to the state opposition show Premier Rann's claims that a stadium would cost $1.5 billion were nonsense.' We are almost there at 1.35.

What it shows is that he makes stuff up, gullible media swallow it and then produce it and promote it. Even Geoff Roach, somebody who at least has been prepared to be upfront about this in The Advertiser, states (about the idea of a multipurpose sporting stadium on the city fringe):

Sure, it would be great; but that dream is becoming more distant from reality with every passing day as the global financial crisis digs its talons ever more deeply into the social order. You surely don't need a deep understanding of economics to know that, in order to make such an expensive amenity viable, it is necessary to attract tenants capable of attracting vast numbers of people, along with corporations willing to expend significant dollars for the privilege.

He then went on to say in The Advertiser, regarding the prospect of that stadium, 'It's about as likely as Dean Brogan winning the Brownlow.'

This is why I was really annoyed a few weeks ago and I paid such a price in The Advertiser which directly, for revenge purposes, clearly made up a story for the front page. No doubt, in the next day or two, it will get revenge back at me again. But I will say this: the stadium's scrutiny has been non-existent, because Martin Hamilton-Smith has not even asked the football league, the SANFL, the AFL or the SACA whether they would use the new stadium, and they have all come out and said that they would not. They would not use the stadium. So, he is making this stuff up. There is no basis and credibility to it. Nobody wants to use it. But then what do we see in yesterday's newspaper, again? I was flabbergasted when I read in the paper an incredibly bizarre story by reporter Russell Emmerson: that he will get his infrastructure paid for by Kevin Rudd. What he said was, if he is going to get the—

The Hon. P.F. Conlon: Why didn't we think of that?

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: Why didn't we think of that? He is going to get Kevin Rudd to pay for $400 million of stormwater. He is going to get Kevin Rudd to pay $1.3 billion for the hospital. He is going to get Kevin Rudd to pay for the new football stadium. You know, fair dinkum—and it gets written as if it is going to happen. Wouldn't you have asked first, 'Have you written to the Prime Minister?' Have you written to the Prime Minister asking for that? Have you? He hasn't even written to the Prime Minister.

Mr Hamilton-Smith: Yes, I have.

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: Have you seen the letter? Can you produce the letter to him?

Members interjecting:

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: Have a look at him. I can assure you—and I can say this with absolute confidence, Premier—that there is no way that the Rudd Labor government is going to pay for $400 million of stormwater, a $1.35 billion hospital or a $1.5 billion football stadium. They ain't going to do it. So, how are you going to pay for it? You cannot get your costs right. You do not even cost the fit-outs.

The Hon. P.F. Conlon: Plan B—Scientologists.

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: Scientologists. You do not even ask if anyone would use it, and then we have this bizarre story yesterday that the Rudd government is going to pay for it all, and it gets printed in the paper as if it is a fait accompli. It is like we are living in the twilight zone. I know I have been harsh on The Advertiser today, and I know that the editor will get very angry, and he will ensure that there is a retribution wrought upon me—of that there can be no doubt. But, I am going to call it as it is. The opposition's stadium proposal is one of the most harebrained, reckless proposals that Mr Bankrupt has ever delivered in terms of a policy. And Mr Bankrupt over here—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: It has become a point of embarrassment that an alternative premier, 10 months away from an election, is coming up with such harebrained, ill-thought-through, ill-costed dopey ideas when the state's financial system has never been under greater stress. Don't you honestly think that there is something more important out there than a football stadium?

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