Former Liberal attorney-general Elise Archer has warned that Tasmania’s proposed new AFL stadium could send the state spiralling into financial ruin, accusing the government of reckless spending in pursuit of an AFL team.
Archer, who was part of the Liberal cabinet that struck the original deal with the AFL in 2023, said the Macquarie Point stadium had ballooned out of control and now posed a major threat to the state’s future.
“When we did have that policy for a stadium, it was a different time and there was a finite amount that would be put in, of taxpayer money,” she told ABC radio. “We can’t just put in endless buckets of (taxpayer) money … because it will bankrupt the state.”
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Cost blowouts and cabinet fallout
The stadium, now priced at $945 million, up from an original estimate of $715 million, is a condition of Tasmania’s AFL licence for the Devils to join the competition in 2028.
The Liberals, who initially pledged to cap their contribution at $375 million, will now need to borrow hundreds of millions more after scrapping a part-private funding model.
Archer, now running as an independent in the Clark electorate, claimed Premier Jeremy Rockliff pushed the project through without proper cabinet consultation, labelling it a “captain’s call”.
Rockliff pushed back, saying: “The stadium went to the budget committee, went to cabinet. My colleagues were kept informed of the agreement.”
The controversy comes as Tasmania heads to a snap election on 19 July, triggered after Rockliff’s minority government lost a no-confidence vote over budget mismanagement. With state debt projected to climb to nearly $11 billion by 2028–29, the stadium debate is shaping up as a central election flashpoint.
While both major parties still back the stadium, several minor parties and independents, including Archer, are fiercely opposed, meaning final approval could rest with a hung parliament.