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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 5 Hansard (5 May) . . Page.. 1333 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

ACT taxpayer to continuing expenditure as a result of contracts entered with the Raiders, the Brumbies and the Cosmos on the basis of crowd projections that, it is reported to us through the media, appear to have fallen far short of the mark.

We have seen revelations in the Canberra Times this week that the basis of the Government's redevelopment was average crowd projections for Raiders games of 18,000, for Brumbies games of 16,000 and - I do not have the figures in front of me - for Cosmos games of 10,000. They were projected usage rates for 1999. Of course, there were enormous projections in relation to other possible usage, including entertainment, none of which yet have come to pass.

The projection in relation to the Raiders was an average of 18,000 a game. We can do the extrapolations for this year so far, and at this stage of the season the Raiders are averaging 12,000. That is a very good result for the Raiders, a reasonable result. Had the Raiders been asked about an average projected crowd, they probably would have picked something around the 12,000 mark. But the Raiders would never in their wildest dreams have imagined average crowds of 18,000. It has just never been achieved. Yet the contracts, the arrangements and everything to do with the redeveloped Bruce Stadium depend on those sorts of projections and the costings that one can then extrapolate from them.

Where did the Government get its projections from? How were they tested? If the soccer projection provided by the Government's consultants was indeed as reported in the Canberra Times, an average of 10,000 a game, then that is just gross. I understand that the average Cosmos crowd last season was in fact about 3,000. We have overstated it by about 300 per cent, if those are the facts. Hence the purpose of this motion. We need the details of this.

We need to go back to the start. We may need to go back to the basis on which CRI, Graf Consulting and others were initially engaged in 1996 and the work they did for the Government in the lead-up to the proposal for the Sydney Olympics, consequent on which came the arrangements in relation to the redevelopment of the Bruce Stadium. In 1996 the Government was already talking about a $27m bill for the redevelopment. That was the figure that the Chief Minister stuck to hard and fast. That was before we got the Olympic Games. The redevelopment was announced after that. CRI did the preliminary work. CRI did the lead-up work. We applaud the fact that we were successful in attracting some Olympic soccer here, but we need the details of that and the cost exposure to us. We need to know what our exposure is under the arrangements that we entered into with SOCOG.

But we need to know the fundamental questions about the tendering process as well - the selection of CRI, their expertise, the selection of Graf Consulting, their expertise and how well time has treated the work that they did. Then came the decision that we would get the Olympic soccer, a decision apparently based on average crowds of about 24,000 in a stadium which now has a capacity of 25,000. We will need to fill the stadium to the rafters for every Olympic soccer game before we can break even. We need to know the basis on which those decisions were made.

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