The Allianz Stadium option the SCG Trust and Stuart Ayres dumped
Date: April 7, 2016 - 9:34AM
by
Jacob Saulwick
City Editor
Three years after the Sydney Cricket & Sports Ground Trust wanted to upgrade the "iconic" Allianz Stadium at Moore Park, the trust and the NSW Sports Minister's determination to dismantle the stadium is driving a bitter feud in Sydney's sporting world.
With the majority of NRL clubs preferring Allianz Stadium to be upgraded rather than replaced, minister Stuart Ayres and the powerful trust are insisting on knocking the stadium down.
But, just three years ago, the trust was promoting plans to refurbish Allianz Stadium into a "world-class contemporary fully covered multi-use venue".
"Allianz Stadium will become Australia's first fully covered naturally lit rectangular stadium with natural turf," a promotional video advertising the trust's 2013 master plan said.
"The new roof represents the latest in technology and innovation, while maintaining the iconic nature of the existing venue," says the video, removed from the trust's website but obtained by ABC Radio National's
Background Briefing program.
The irony of the emergence of the 2013 plan is that this is now the proposal Mr Ayres and the trust are determined to avoid.
Cross-section of the earlier upgrade plans for Allianz Stadium, a plan the SCG Trust and Sports Minister Stuart Ayres are now determined to avoid
Photo: SCG Trust
The earlier policy also accords with the current preference of Sydney's NRL clubs. Many of the clubs see their demographic future in Sydney's west, closer to ANZ Stadium at Olympic Park, and clubs are also worried about traffic and transport around Moore Park in the city's east.
Fairfax Media has previously reported that Premier Mike Baird asked the trust late last year to investigate a refurbishment of Allianz Stadium - along the lines of the trust's previous plans for the stadium, which it now disowns.
The reason for the trust and Mr Ayres' change of policy, it would seem, is that in 2013 it was not possible to promote the idea of a new stadium at Moore Park.
A "material adverse effects" clause with the owners of the ANZ Stadium at Olympic Park prevents a major new stadium from being built in Sydney.
But the government has now decided to buy the lease of ANZ Stadium, meaning that, when it does, there would be no restrictions on the size or scale of a new stadium.
"In 2013, the SCG Trust and the NSW government were constrained by the material adverse effects clause resulting from the agreement with ANZ Stadium," a spokesman for Mr Ayres said.
"The prospect of public ownership of ANZ Stadium has allowed the SCG Trust to reconsider their master plan and put forward a truly world-class stadium for the sports fans of Sydney," the spokesman said.
Mr Ayres has since threatened NRL clubs with the prospect of losing about a billion dollars of the government's $1.6 billion stadium funding if they do not sign up to the proposal that includes a brand new stadium at Moore Park.
"If we aren't able to reach a resolution, and I have said this to the NRL, the additional $1 billion the government has allocated ... is at risk," Mr Ayres
told The Daily Telegraph on Wednesday.
At a meeting on Friday, Sydney NRL clubs said they wanted about half the promised $1.6 billion to be spent on turning ANZ Stadium into a proper rectangular football venue. That would leave only about $400 million to be spent on an upgrade to Allianz Stadium, while a new stadium at Parramatta would also be built.
But the clubs' position is being resisted by powerful figures in the NRL hierarchy.
For instance, the NRL's head of strategy and investment, former Queensland Labor treasurer Andrew Fraser, and former Liberal staffer and NRL government relations chief Jaymes Boland-Rudder are understood to both back Mr Ayres and the trust's preferred new stadium at Moore Park.
Despite the 2013 promotional video's glowing account of what a refurbishment of Allianz would look like, Mr Ayres has been dismissive of the idea.
Speaking to Fairfax Media in February, Mr Ayres said Allianz Stadium "performs incredibly badly".
"The structure and shape of the stadium just no longer functions to anywhere near a modern standard."
Labor's spokeswoman on sport, Lynda Voltz, said of the emergence of the Allianz upgrade video: "You can't have a plan two years ago and now say that doesn't work.
"That defies logic," she said.
The dispute over whether more stadium funds are spent at Moore Park or in Olympic Park comes amid continuing uncertainty over where any new stadium would be built at Moore Park.
For instance
the Australian Rugby Union and the Waratahs have both backed a new stadium at Moore Park, but said they would prefer Allianz Stadium to remain standing while the new stadium was built.
That could only occur if the new stadium was built on land managed by the neighbouring Centennial and Moore Park Trust.
Doing so would be contrary to the government's own policy of requiring a new stadium to be built on SCG Trust land. And a change of policy would create a sure-fire political brouhaha, with
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull among a number of prominent locals who have previously resisted land grabs by the SCG Trust.
Ms Volz said: "The SCG Trust is still trying to get access to Centennial Park Trust land, otherwise they would stick to the plan they had, which is to refurbish the existing stadium."
Asked about the SCG Trust's change in policy on Allianz Stadium - from promoting to dismissing a refurbishment - a spokesman said the trust "continues to work closely with the Baird government and other stakeholders on the future of sporting infrastructure in NSW".
The SCG Trust board includes business figures Tony Shepherd and Maurice Newman, broadcaster Alan Jones, and former NSW premier Barry O'Farrell.
The 2013 plan for a redeveloped Allianz Stadium includes an "interactive LED facade mesh, providing Sydney's largest public video screen".
The plan also includes a new podium built around the outside of the stadium to house new retail facilities.
