For decades, Australian taxpayers have been treated like mugs by politicians in cahoots with some of the country’s — and the world’s — greediest vested interest groups: Big Sport. Tens of billions have been pumped into infrastructure that sits idle 90% of the time for the likes of AFL and rugby league (and its poor, posh cousin, rugby union). Billions are tipped into the coffers of rotten international industries like Formula 1, soccer and the Olympics, with due process and cost-benefit analyses abandoned in favour of policy by press release and nonsense “independent modelling” peddled by the shonks and spivs of the Big Four audit firms. Now, that unholy alliance between politicians and the gouging gangs of Big Sport has unravelled the Tasmanian government, with Tasmanians facing a snap election because the AFL won’t stop demanding a shiny, new and utterly unaffordable billion-dollar stadium for a new team in Hobart. The AFL’s 18 club presidents yesterday reaffirmed that the entry of the Tasmania Devils into the national competition still required a roofed stadium with a capacity of 23,000 — thus demanding that a state government, and Tasmanian voters, agree to plunge the state further into debt. AFL chief executive Andrew Dillon told the Seven network (the AFL’s media partner and ally in its propaganda efforts) that the league will continue its plans to have the Tasmania Devils join the competition in 2028. “As we sit here now, 2028 is still on the agenda. We are looking forward to working with the government to deliver a stadium for all of Tasmania.” It certainly will be a stadium for all Tasmanians, because every single Tasmanian taxpayer, and their kids and grandkids, will be paying extra taxes and missing out on government services because of the greed of a gambling-addicted, unaccountable sporting code. The stadium was originally to cost “only” $775 million, but will now, the outgoing Tasmanian government admits, cost at least $945 million, before the planning process has even properly begun. Just as bad has been the complete debauching of proper process in Tasmania, with the government proposing to sideline the state’s Planning Commission from assessing the project, due to its willingness to subject it to proper scrutiny. The only reason the stadium numbers have been exposed this early is because Jacqui Lambie Network MPs, empowered by the government being in minority, hired Lateral Economics’ Nicholas Gruen to vet the case put forward by the government’s chosen Big Four shonks, KPMG. Gruen patiently demolished KPMG’s work and its lowball numbers — work for which he’s since been smeared by Hobart journalists. Tasmania is already heavily in debt, and it shows no sign of slowing down. At the end of 2024, the state had debt of more than $3 billion, which is forecast to rise to close to $7 billion this financial year, and is on its way to over $10 billion by 2029 — with interest payments of $500 million a year. Ratings agencies have the state on a AA+ rating, which looks too high given the forecasted explosion in debt. Part of that $500 million a year — and rising — in interest will be what is effectively an AFL arrogance tax, as Tasmanians pay for the obscenity of a sport — the richest in the country off gambling and media rights — demanding a state government take on an impossible debt burden. The AFL’s financial position is quite different: back in September 2022, it signed a broadcast deal — to start this year and run to 2031, valued at $4.5 billion — to be paid for by Kerry Stokes’ struggling Seven West Media and pay TV business, Foxtel. At the time of the deal, Foxtel was controlled by News Corp and Telstra. Now, it is controlled by a struggling wannabe global sports streamer, DAZN, which in turn is controlled by billionaire Sir Len Blavatnik, with the Saudi state investment fund having a small holding as well. At least when controlled by News Corp, Foxtel was nominally sensitive to local interests. There’s none of that now Blavatnik and the Saudis control Foxtel. The willingness of the state government to sign Tasmanians up to this debt bomb is bipartisan, with the state’s Labor Party — the country’s most dysfunctional ALP division — also signed up to the farce. Only the Greens, the Jacqui Lambie Network and independent MPs have challenged it. And the majority of Tasmanians oppose the stadium: a poll in February found 59% oppose it, with opposition particularly strong in northern Tasmania and among older voters. If the Tasmanian governor decides to agree to dissolve parliament, it will mean Tasmanians will be heading to their fourth trip at the ballot box in seven years — that’s on top of the three federal elections and the referendum on the Voice. The debacle has all the hallmarks of the rapacious gouging that big sports have inflicted on taxpayers across the country over the years: the unnecessary sporting infrastructure, the enthusiastic agreement of the major parties, the immediate blowout in costs, the wholesale abandonment of proper policy process, the involvement of Big Four shonks, and the studied arrogance of a powerful sport. The worst outcome would be Tasmanian Labor, bouncing off the Albanese government’s federal success, putting the Tasmanian Liberals to the sword and seizing majority government power. It’s only because of minority government, and the opportunities for accountability and transparency it creates, that the whole joke has been exposed to sunlight in the first place. It’s an object lesson in the fact that wherever Big Sport goes, poor process and vast waste of money follows, with taxpayers damned to foot the bill for years afterward.