Docklands, since its conception and financing by Westpac and by Stapled Debt securities (also financed by Westpac!) has cost a lot of people (including Westpac!!) a very great amount of money - including because it just cost far, far too much in the first place.
And the investment into the Stapled Debt Securities was promoted exclusively on tax minimisation considerations (under a complex ATO Ruling at the time)
Hence the financial arrangements around the venue now.
It has been an unmitigated financial disaster from conception to now.
Inclusive of re-zoning, jurisdiction approvals, demolition and site clean up including removal and finance costs, what is it worth?
So who invests in a re-zoning application and the formal approval of Council to market (or develop) the site?
And will it bring forward objections, adding time and expense?
How do you finance inclusive of pre-sales, because no financier would look at the project without significant (10% Deposit paid) pre-sales off Plan (including to full debt take out).
The property investment industry is not what it was under the Liberal Party government and its donors such as the Stamoulis family, which has been the subject of some reporting in "The Age", reporting that excludes the influence of that family on who the MP for Bulleen is (and has been).
Then we get to the Tennis Centre/MCG precint - and access and parking including if there are mutiple events.
Plus vested interest - Maguire and Collingwood.
There is a bit of a walk from Richmond Station to the MCG concourse, over the rail lines to the Tennis Centre then to the mooted site - and this would add to the traffic volumes, parking and congestion.
An Adelaide Oval access location it is not!
Docklands should stay Docklands - and if it is "out of date" in less than 30 years, what about the proposed venue?
Better to upgrade what is already there if deemed required and necessary, being the MCG and the Tennis Centre complex, both of which (along with Docklands) are mostly laying idle so (further) taxpayer funds being deployed for what return exactly?
Sport seems to presume - and wrongly!
That said, I do view it an appropriate function of government to invest in recreation where there is a community return.
And in that statement lies a question.
Future of Etihad Stadium?
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