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The long-promised $810 million rebuild of Sydney’s Olympic stadium at Homebush has been canned, with the state government instead funnelling the money into a new jobs creation fund. But the controversial relocation of the Powerhouse Museum is still on.
Phil Rothfield, Sports Editor-at-Large, The Sunday Telegraph Subscriber-only |May 31, 2020 12:00am
Phil Rothfield, Sports Editor-at-Large, The Sunday Telegraph Subscriber-only |May 31, 2020 12:00am
Premier Gladys Berejiklian has abandoned the promised $810 million rebuild of Sydney’s Olympic stadium at Homebush, a victim of the state’s COVID-19 financial disaster.
Instead the NSW government has announced a new $3 billion fund for job-creating projects across the state to generate an extra 20,000 positions.
An artist’s impression of the rebuilt ANZ stadium. Picture: Supplied
The promised $1.1 billion Powerhouse Museum move to Parramatta will still be delivered, but ANZ Stadium will remain untouched.
ANZ was to be converted into a 70,000-seat state-of-the-art venue with a rectangular playing field to host Sydney’s showpiece major events including State of Origin, NRL grand finals, international sporting events and rock concerts.
The $3 billion infrastructure and job fund will be used for smaller, shovel-ready projects “touching every corner of the state”, according to the government.
The 70,000-seat state-of-the-art venue was to include a rectangular playing field. Picture: Supplied artist’s impression
The Premier said the moves would fire up the economy, with $100 billion now being invested in the state’s infrastructure.
“This guaranteed pipeline of $100 billion will be our best chance of supporting the hundreds of thousands of people who have already lost their jobs in NSW,” Ms Berejiklian said.
“We are now not only guaranteeing our infrastructure pipeline, we will be looking for opportunities to fast-track projects to provide jobs as early as we can.”
The government said the ANZ Stadium rebuild was originally a sensible project backed by the people of NSW at last year’s election, but was abandoned because of the current health and economic climate.
The Powerhouse Museum relocation will create more than 1100 construction jobs in Western Sydney, 2400 indirect jobs and keep hundreds employed once it opens.
Deputy Premier John Barilaro said the fast-tracking of projects would support jobs across NSW and the government was in the process of identifying them.
“The communities of NSW have been through an incredibly tough period with continued drought, horrific bushfires and now COVID-19 and the best path to recovery is creating jobs,” Mr Barilaro said.
“An unprecedented crisis calls for an unprecedented recovery and redirecting funding from Stadium Australia to job-creating infrastructure builds is the right thing to do for the people of NSW.”
The ANZ Stadium decision leaves Sydney without a major event venue to match Perth’s new Optus Stadium, Adelaide Oval or Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane.
