Exactly why are we spending $2 billion on new stadiums in Sydney?

[leeroy*NRL*]

yeah exactly>> there a manner factors behind the build>>

It could be 2050 and there would still be complainers about the build>>

[AFLcrap1]

It appears this issue will not go away. Even RL journalists point out the massive waste of taxpayers dollars.

But, but, but, the leaguies will say News Ltd.

NSW Government should be upgrading the SCG
Phil Rothfield, The Daily Telegraph
January 28, 2018 9:11pm

THE debate continues over the NSW Government’s $2.3 billion spend on Sydney stadiums.

Most agree ANZ should be a 75,000-seat world-class rectangular venue for grand finals, Origin, Ed Sheeran and Adele concerts, the Socceroos, Man U, Liverpool and major events that would otherwise go interstate.

Moore Park needs an upgrade, too.

But the government has ­chosen the wrong venue.

It should be the SCG instead of ­Allianz. The old SCG might be the most nostalgic sporting arena in the country but is now the No. 4 AFL/cricket venue behind Perth, Adelaide and the MCG as far as fan facilities go.

The SCG needs an upgrade, writes Phil Rothfield.

It caters for the Sydney Swans, cricket and far bigger crowds than next door at Allianz.

Simple research on the major tenants and their crowds at Allianz shows the Roosters have averaged just 13,474 over the past three years, the Waratahs 18,611 and Sydney FC 15,817.

So why has Premier Gladys Berejiklian agreed to a 45,000-seat venue at a cost of $650 million? That’s $650 million for 31,526 empty seats on average when the Roosters play. Or 26,389 empty seats for the Waratahs and 29,183 for Sydney FC.

And remember, no other NRL club wants to play there. This is a gigantic waste of taxpayers’ money.

A boutique 30,000-seater similar to AAMI Park in Melbourne would have been sufficient and hundreds of millions cheaper. Surely bringing the SCG up to the magnificent standards of Perth, Adelaide and Melbourne would be a far better plan for ALL sports fans.

Sydney would then have the best rectangular venue in Australia and a cricket/AFL ground to match any other in the country. And isn’t that what we all want?

https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport ... 47f2fafb31

Oh dear......beatup has done it again!!!!! Did you even read this column pal????? It doesn't say NOT to spend the money ya dill. It sensibly argues that Allianz should be made smaller & the money left over spent on the SCG. The SAME amount of money will be spent. Very similar to what I have previously said. Sheeeesssshhhhh...you're hard work!!!

And of course you don't post today's article saying how the 3 new stadiums will be pivotal to Australia hosting the Rugby WC in 2027. Raging bias really does bring you undone pal!!!!!

Lol
Wonder what bandana boy will do now ?
With Gosper from RU backing the stadia builds for the RUWC bid .. how will Fitzy respond .
Will his love of RU make him change his tune or just drop the matter all together .
Or will his hate of all things RL over ride the WC bid & he will keep ranting .
My bet is option 2 .

[leeroy*NRL*]

yes true to that!
Fitzy is a complete knob and he has shown it time and time again..

I do notice though since the RUWC bid has come afloat things have gone a lot quieter

Sydney stadiums are not up to scratch to host WORLD CUP GAMES!!

WAS DOES THAT SAY ????

[NRL&NFLweLaughATafl]

Have any of you guys seen the new Perth stadium? Is probably the best oval stadium I have seen.
So apparently a new stadium for AFL and cricket is fine in a much smaller city.

Yet building a stadium just as good for Soccer, Rugby Union, Rugby League and Gridiron exhibition matches is apparently a waste of money in Australias biggest most visited city. Sydney.

[Beaussie]

Have any of you guys seen the new Perth stadium? Is probably the best oval stadium I have seen.
So apparently a new stadium for AFL and cricket is fine in a much smaller city.

Yet building a stadium just as good for Soccer, Rugby Union, Rugby League and Gridiron exhibition matches is apparently a waste of money in Australias biggest most visited city. Sydney.

A stadium you say? Here I was thinking 3 brand new rectangular stadiums were planned for Sydney with costs approaching the $3 billion mark before construction has even started on the two big ones. Wake up, NSW taxpayers will not accept this.

[AFLcrap1]

Yet not a peep out of you about any $$$ spent on AFL stadia
What a fucking hypocrite

[Terry]

Have any of you guys seen the new Perth stadium? Is probably the best oval stadium I have seen.
So apparently a new stadium for AFL and cricket is fine in a much smaller city.

Yet building a stadium just as good for Soccer, Rugby Union, Rugby League and Gridiron exhibition matches is apparently a waste of money in Australias biggest most visited city. Sydney.

A stadium you say? Here I was thinking 3 brand new rectangular stadiums were planned for Sydney with costs approaching the $3 billion mark before construction has even started on the two big ones. Wake up, NSW taxpayers will not accept this.

Wake up you say Beatup, only left wing activists living in tree houses or Neutral Bay won't accept this lololololololololol.

The circus has moved on with this one pal. I suggest you unshackle yourself from your tree and go home lol.

[Beaussie]

Yet not a peep out of you about any $$$ spent on AFL stadia
What a fucking hypocrite

So the taxpayers of NSW had to fork out billions to bulldoze multiple stadiums in order to build brand new ones just for the AFL? Wake up stupid.

[Beaussie]

Have any of you guys seen the new Perth stadium? Is probably the best oval stadium I have seen.
So apparently a new stadium for AFL and cricket is fine in a much smaller city.

Yet building a stadium just as good for Soccer, Rugby Union, Rugby League and Gridiron exhibition matches is apparently a waste of money in Australias biggest most visited city. Sydney.

A stadium you say? Here I was thinking 3 brand new rectangular stadiums were planned for Sydney with costs approaching the $3 billion mark before construction has even started on the two big ones. Wake up, NSW taxpayers will not accept this.

Wake up you say Beatup, only left wing activists living in tree houses or Neutral Bay won't accept this lololololololololol.

The circus has moved on with this one pal. I suggest you unshackle yourself from your tree and go home lol.

Over 70% of those recently surveyed in NSW were very opposed to this monumental waste of taxpayer dollars. Keep your head in the sand and ignore that as we approach another state election in NSW. Gladys is already struggling big time with public transport, roads, hospitals etc, etc.

Bring on the next election.

[Terry]

Haha!!!! Turn it up beatup. That walking dial tone Foley has less chance of winning an election than you have of joining mensa lolololololololololololololololol.

In Glad we trust!!!

[AFLcrap1]

Yet not a peep out of you about any $$$ spent on AFL stadia
What a fucking hypocrite

So the taxpayers of NSW had to fork out billions to bulldoze multiple stadiums in order to build brand new ones just for the AFL? Wake up stupid.

Taxpayers right across AUST have forked out BILLIONS to build AFl stadia .
So STUPID .
Wher was all your bitching when they were being built .
Fucking hypocrite of the highest order .
Money spent on afl ..no problems
Money spent on Rl ..you have a massive sook .

Yo can't seem to answer this

[Beaussie]

Yet not a peep out of you about any $$$ spent on AFL stadia
What a fucking hypocrite

So the taxpayers of NSW had to fork out billions to bulldoze multiple stadiums in order to build brand new ones just for the AFL? Wake up stupid.

Taxpayers right across AUST have forked out BILLIONS to build AFl stadia .
So STUPID .
Wher was all your bitching when they were being built .
Fucking hypocrite of the highest order .
Money spent on afl ..no problems
Money spent on Rl ..you have a massive sook .

Yo can't seem to answer this

The AFL has contributed millions of its own funds over the years to work with governments to develop multi purpose stadiums. When have those fucking leeches at NRL headquarters ever chipped in a single fucking cent for stadium redevelopment?

[NlolRL]

Yet not a peep out of you about any $$$ spent on AFL stadia
What a fucking hypocrite

So the taxpayers of NSW had to fork out billions to bulldoze multiple stadiums in order to build brand new ones just for the AFL? Wake up stupid.

Taxpayers right across AUST have forked out BILLIONS to build AFl stadia .
So STUPID .
Wher was all your bitching when they were being built .
Fucking hypocrite of the highest order .
Money spent on afl ..no problems
Money spent on Rl ..you have a massive sook .

Yo can't seem to answer this

AFL fans in Perth, Adelaide and Melbourne regularly fill their stadia, or close enough to. RL fans rarely fill theirs. That's one reason why $$$ on AFL stadia is justified, and RL stadia is not

[NRL&NFLweLaughATafl]

Is all relative.

Sydney has more people, more football codes and more teams.
So obviously they are going to need more than one stadium upgrade.

Does that make sense to you in simple terms Beaussie?

[Beaussie]

Update time and it would appear government backbenchers and those in cabinet are getting very nervous. Even the Premier's interviews on radio sound less and less committed to the total rebuild of 3 stadiums. I'm thinking the powerful SCG trust led by Alan Jones and co will get their way however with a rebuilt SFS (Allianz Stadium).

ANZ Stadium on the other hand... hmm, lets see how this pans out eh. With just 4% of NSW voters keen on the idea of the three stadium rebuilds, I think it looks less and less likely, especially when you see news stories this week of schools with no air conditioning and kids suffering in 30+ degrees classrooms. Add to that, not enough train drivers to run Sydney Trains to timetable, increasing road tolls and hospital wait times growing ever longer. Well you get the picture right with an election to come soon? The Opposition Leader certainly has got on board with the simple, yet no doubt very effective election slogan of "Schools & Hospitals, BEFORE Stadiums".

Peter FitzSimons: Stadium rebuilds still have a stink around them and will until I see a business case
February 7 2018 - 8:00PM

Now, where were we?

Oh, I remember! Before Chrissie, I had penned a column about the sheer insanity of the NSW government knocking down and rebuilding three perfectly fine stadiums – Parramatta, the Olympic and the Sydney Football Stadium – at a cost of a lazy $2.5 billion, all on no public demand, only to suddenly find myself standing in front of a raging mob of seriously pissed off NSW people who felt exactly the same as I did.

On the strength of the reaction, I started a petition that gained 100,000 signatories in 48 hours, and now has 178,000. The Herald published a poll that showed – despite the NSW government having generally strong media support for the #StadiumSplurge across all of News Limited and even a fair chunk of Fairfax – of NSW electors, just FOUR per cent, were red-hot to trot, insisting it was a great way to spend public funds, while the rest were lukewarm at best or, more likely, red-hot against it. (And speaking of Luke, the Opposition Leader Luke Foley quickly came out with a formal slogan for the ALP going into the next election, "Schools & Hospitals, BEFORE Stadiums", which it has been running hard on since. Foley's view, as he told Radio National's Fran Kelly is that spending money for such a purpose is an "outrageous extravagance", when there are so many other areas of the state's remit crying out for resources.)

On the strength of it all, I said, and I meant, the NSW government can either go ahead and knock down the two remaining stadiums or they can win the next election, but they cannot do both.

Which begs the question – the very one I have been asked hundreds of times in the past six weeks – where is the government up to now?

The reports differ. I had one very strong whisper in late January that there is a cabinet revolt on the cards, backed by a backbench that can see exactly what I see, that the mob is waiting for them with a cricket bat on this one, and every school that can't get a demountable replaced, every hospital that can't get a kidney machine, every community that can't get the bridge or bypass they so desperately need – now have the narrative of the stadiums to scream at the government, "You bastards can find money to throw at the big-end of town on this, but you cannot find the money for us".

They want the government to do a screaming u-turn on the whole debacle, and there has to be a good chance of that. When Premier Gladys Berejiklian was interviewed by Richard Glover on ABC Radio on January 30, she remained broadly positive, but sounded a little less certain than previously that it was all totally locked in.

"Once we get a detailed business case," she said, "we will release it to the community."

Which is great. When that business case is released, it will hopefully explain why the NSW cabinet minute on the day the decision was taken acknowledged that it would not help the economy, confirming the previously tabled view of Infrastructure NSW that the state would not get within a bull's roar of it.

When the Premier spoke to Robbie Buck and Wendy Harmer on ABC Radio two days earlier, she sounded circumspect about the business case, saying "when it is completed, we will consult the community about it".

Harmer jumped on the comment, noting it sounded like the government was not locked in?

The Premier: "Well ... no." She did, however, hint a little later that it is the SFS that is the one most people would choose to knock over and my bet is that if the government does buckle, as it should, it will try to at least knock down the SFS.

Staggeringly, however, to Glover, the Premier also repeated the claim that each stadium makes a billion dollars a year. Really, Premier? Each stadium, right now, is putting $20 million into your NSW coffers, every week? $3 million a day? Great! Let's see the figures to back that up. This seems at least a comedown from your previous claim that there would be an annual billion dollar increase from knocking the stadiums down.
Seriously.

Broadly the way the Premier sounded fitted in with what I have also heard, which is the true driving force behind the whole thing is Sports Minister Stuart Ayres. You'll recall, Ayres was equally gung-ho to go full-bore on building new stadiums when Mike Baird was premier, only for Baird to publicly nobble him in early 2016, when, after looking at all the figures, Baird announced there would be refurbishment only, not a root and branch plucking and replacement.
The question now, is whether Berejiklian and the cabinet might belatedly come to the same conclusion as Baird, and stop the madness.

In his own public remarks Ayres has been as enthusiastic as ever, making it sound like it's all locked in, though in his "interview" with 2GB's Alan Jones, most of the focus was on the urgent necessity to knock down the SFS. If you didn't know better, you might think the government was working towards the obvious compromise which is to redo one, but not two of the remaining stadiums. If it did that, it is likely to choose the SFS, hence why Ayres and Jones sounded very grave about the need to knock it down on safety issues alone!

Yes, folks, apparently if we don't knock down the SFS, according to Jones – who is on the SCG Trust – we risk the Hillsborough disaster happening here!

Jones: "There are no fire sprinklers, not enough exits, no emergency power supply, non-compliant crowd barriers and insufficient toilets. The last thing you need is a Hillsborough."

(Weird, yes, how this Hillsborough concern has never been expressed in the past 30 years, until they're trying to convince a dubious public that it must be knocked down? Ayres certainly didn't mention it two months ago when the best he could do was say there weren't enough toilets for women and people with disabilities. And Berejiklian made no such ludicrous claims.)

Ayres was at least forthright to Jones on why the SFS must be knocked over, saying it's "reached the end of its life".
This is consistent with another theme, that the whole SFS is falling apart, another line they consistently trot out.
Umm, hello, Alan? Caller on Line 1. Yes, it's me, Alan. Can I ask how you can have it both ways? How can you gravely shake your head saying its falling apart, when you've been on the bloody SCG Trust that has been meant to maintain it for the last 30 years?

If it's falling apart, it happened on your watch!

And Minister Ayres, yes, I am still here. This is your bailiwick. Can you explain how if all of this is so damn urgent you didn't say that back on April 14, 2016, when you were there with Mike Baird when he announced the stadiums would be refurbished, not replaced? And why, if the Olympic Stadium always needed to be knocked down, millions of dollars was spent LAST YEAR on giving it a new roof!

None of this adds up. Your lot are coming up with reasons now, that were not sighted just two short years ago!
If you have a business case, put it in the public domain please. And also explain just what was wrong with the last business case which – after they had crunched the numbers – said refurbishment on both stadiums was the best option.

As it is, the whole thing stinks.

http://www.smh.com.au/sport/the-fitz-fi ... 0vk6t.html