Government in the dock 

I can’t see the Spirits of Tasmania leaving Europe for here anytime soon, so let’s put the government in the dock instead. It’s time we put the current state government on trial.

Exhibit A: An obsession with a stadium

Forget grand visions. Tasmania’s government is peddling a billion-dollar fever dream, scrawled on a napkin over a boozy lunch at one of Hobart’s finest eateries with the AFL. It’s funded by your future. 

Let me be clear: I’m not anti-sport. I’ve spent enough cold nights on the sidelines and warm afternoons cheering from the stands to know what sport brings to a community. But what we’re seeing isn’t community development, it’s political cosplay disguised as progress.

Exhibit B: A Government of Grand Designs (and Grand Failures)

This is the same government that let the Spirit of Tasmania IV sit rotting in a Scottish port for months because Devonport’s port wasn’t ready. That misadventure alone bled taxpayers dry, siphoning off millions in berthing fees and maintenance.

A floating monument to staggering incompetence.

Now they want us to believe they can deliver a complex, controversial, and astronomically expensive stadium project in Hobart, on contaminated land, no less. They’re fumbling ships, crippling hospitals, and failing on housing. 

Yet, we’re supposed to swallow the lie that they’ll seamlessly execute a waterfront megaproject?

Exhibit C: Jeremy Rockliff himself

For a man who often speaks softly, he governs with an iron fist wrapped in velvet. When he wants something, he really wants it. Reason, restraint, and reality be damned. The stadium has become his obsession. He’s like the schoolyard bully who wouldn’t stop trying to steal your lunch money, not because he was hungry, but because he needed to win.

That’s not leadership. That’s fixation.

And here’s the thing: it’s not just critics saying it. Even his own MPs, Lara Alexander and John Tucker, called him out publicly, accusing him of being a bully. 

These aren’t fringe voices. These are members of his own team. And if he’s willing to intimidate his colleagues, what does that say about how he governs the rest of us?

He’s bullying Tasmania into a stadium, whether we want it or not. And that’s dangerous, because it’s not just about cost anymore. It’s about trust. And Jeremy Rockliff’s government cannot be trusted to deliver this project responsibly. 

Or at all.

Exhibit D: The Royal Hobart Hospital

While the stadium debate drags on, Hobart’s health system is collapsing under the strain. The Royal Hobart Hospital is under constant pressure, with staff burning out at an alarming rate and patients waiting far too long. Nurses, doctors, and ambos are begging for help,  and getting empty spin instead of desperately needed support.

Tasmania doesn’t need another press conference about “precincts.” It needs a new, major hospital for Greater Hobart – a properly planned, properly staffed, and properly funded facility. That’s infrastructure worth borrowing for.

The closing address: Bring In the Feds and Balance the Books

If this stadium must go ahead, the state government should not be allowed to fly solo. Frankly, they don’t have the track record or the fiscal capacity.

It’s time to bring in the Commonwealth, not just as a cheque-writer, but as a genuine, scrutinising partner. Any major infrastructure project of this scale demands federal due diligence. Tasmania cannot afford a white elephant that drains our future. We need a stadium that stacks up economically, socially, and strategically, not one that simply satisfies Jeremy Rockliff’s inflated ego.

Tasmanians aren’t asking for the moon; we’re demanding the absolute basics.

Functioning healthcare, genuinely affordable housing, early education places, schools that equip our kids for the future, ferries that can be berthed.

I ask you, the jury, to find the Rockliff government guilty.

Guilty of  hubris and incompetence.