This Opinion Piece is a summary of my Election Updates to date to fill a void in the mainstream media and public commentary on critical issues that should be considered and front and center of the election campaign.
The Macquarie Point stadium debate is fast becoming Tasmania’s political Bermuda Triangle—swallowing scrutiny, sinking fiscal transparency, and leaving any dissenting voices marooned as “anti-Tasmanian.” With both major parties now on a unity ticket for the $975 million stadium project, rational debate has all but vanished. Instead, we’re witnessing a theatre of handshakes, hard hats, and high-vis photo ops, while Tasmania’s fiscal future hangs in the balance.
Let’s get one thing straight: the $240 million in federal funding is for the precinct, not the stadium. That money comes with strings attached—housing outcomes, wharf upgrades, facilities for the Nuyina and the national interest.
So when party leaders deduct the entire $240 million from the stadium cost to produce a net state contribution, they’re not just being optimistic—they’re being disingenuous.
Yet despite this murky accounting, those who dare to raise these concerns are labelled obstructionist. Try pointing out that the actual cost to the state includes associated infrastructure, opaque operating subsidies for the AFL Devils, and obscure arrangements for a high-performance centre in Kingborough—and you’ll be branded a pessimist.
The Charter of Budget Responsibility Act 2007 was created precisely to stop this kind of shell game. It mandates fiscal strategy statements with measurable targets, a Pre-Election Financial Outlook (PEFO), and transparent policy costings. It doesn’t just apply to the government. By Wednesday 2 July, every opposition party, including Labor and the Greens, is legally obliged to present a fiscal strategy with targets for 2025–26 and the three years following.
And yet—so far—silence.
The government’s existing fiscal strategy is barely more than a PowerPoint with a dream. Of its 11 strategic actions and targets, only one is “on track”—and that’s the one requiring infrastructure spending to exceed depreciation.
A victory lap for doing the bare minimum.
The long promised and yet to be delivered, cost-benefit framework for large infrastructure projects, has morphed into a bureaucratic farce. Three years of policy cartwheels and still no credible framework to justify the stadium spend, let alone ensure there are Tier 1 builders ready to construct it.
This matters, because there’s a fiscal reckoning already underway, and it’s been years in the making.
Hydro Tasmania, once the cornerstone of our energy wealth, is floundering. Inflows have tanked. The 2023–24 year saw hydro production fall to its lowest since the Millennium Drought. This year will be worse. Distributions from Hydro, which prop up the state budget, have collapsed down $154 million from previous forward estimates. The “Battery of the Nation” is looking more like a flat AAA battery.
Yet the government insists everything is fine. Surplus? Just around the corner. Because Parliament was dissolved on 11 June, we didn’t even get Estimates hearings to interrogate the fantasy.
Then there’s Marinus Link—a $4 billion interconnector that, like the stadium, was committed to with little more than a shrug and a slogan. Tasmania owns just 17.7% of Marinus Link Pty Ltd but will shoulder 27.6% of the fees.
The link is only 50% larger than Basslink, yet costs five times more, and the consumer benefits remain dubious. Even the Australian Energy Regulator isn’t convinced Basslink should become a regulated asset due to lack of net benefits. So why are we rushing headlong into its bigger, riskier cousin?
We’re told the business case is coming. It’s been “coming” for months. It’s allegedly sitting in the Treasurer’s in-tray, a document so sensitive it hasn’t been shared with voters. Under the Charter of Budget Responsibility, the PEFO must include any government decisions that could materially impact our fiscal position. So let’s see it.
And let’s not forget the Spirit ferries—another cost blowout and abject failure to build a new berth to cater for these vessels. All quietly buried under corporate structures and ignored by a government and now the election imposed avoidance of scrutiny. The 25/26 Budget’s line about “alternative funding options” for the Spirits is a masterclass in bureaucratic understatement. If there isn’t a plan already locked in, TT-Line may not legally be able to continue trading. That’s not a political crisis—it’s a legal one.
We’re now at a point where some of the most significant fiscal decisions in recent memory—stadiums, interconnectors, Spirit ferries—are being made or cemented during a caretaker period, without full transparency, and without the accountability the Tasmanian demand. This is not sound fiscal management.
The Charter of Budget Responsibility was not drafted to sit on a shelf. It was intended to prevent exactly this kind of opaque, politically driven spending and prevent the Tasmanian Government’s financial position returning to the dark days of the 1990s. It requires both government and opposition to front up with a strategy—not a vibe, not a slogan, but an actual plan. Yet with less than four weeks until the election, we’ve seen little evidence of any party taking that obligation seriously.
If democracy means anything, it’s that voters deserve a full, honest account of the financial road ahead—warts and all. Instead, we're offered stadium renderings and silence around the even larger risk of Marinus and the financial challenges facing TTLine.
Tasmanians deserve facts.
The fiscal truth needs to be aired.
Hon Ruth Forrest MLC
Independent Member for Murchison
23 June 2025