That's a huge claim , anything to back it up?
This is incorrect. Ayres remains minister for sport to this day , what happened was he was stripped of stadium decision making.
Agree here , there's certainly some powerful interests at play.
You're right. It was the $1.6 billion in stadia funding that was removed from his portfolio. I've been living abroad for the best part of a year so keeping up with state politics can be a bit tricky. My bad.
It's true that there isn't the kind of hard proof that would stand up in a criminal court. But on the balance of probabilities, I could say with a reasonable amount of confidence that the original Moore Park plan was a result of members of the government bowing to external pressure from their "friends".
A very short and simplified timeline:
2012 -Stadia Strategy - Puts a strong focus on the importance of stakeholder consultation.
2012 to 2015 - Stadia Strategy Steering Committee formed in secret comprising of John Brogden, Tony Shepherd (SCG Trust), John Quayle (Venues NSW), and Daryl Kerry (ANZ Stadium). At this point it is beginning to look like the "extensive stakeholder consultation" promised in the Stadia Strategy was just going to be getting the venue managers to decide whose assets deserve a spruce up. Or more.
2015 - Stadia Strategy Implementation Report by SSSC - Claims that after stakeholder consultation including with councils, clubs, sports bodies, etc they had developed a set of priorities headlined by a new 55,000 seat stadium at Moore Park. This was to be the basis of Stuart Ayers funding allocation.
The problem was, the "extensive consultation" never took place so was never made public.
During this period, I was made privvy to the existance of a powerpoint presentation given by SCG Trust consultants to the SSSC claiming that they had in principle support from South Sydney and St George Illawarra to play 11 and 6 games respectively at a new Moore Park Stadium - This is untrue.
Also, in the months following the release of the Stadia Strategy Implementation Report, it was very difficult to find, perennially having its URL changed. It wasn't until ABC published it as a pdf circa October 2015 that it could be found with any level of consistency.
I know this because I was doing a project on democratisation and stakeholder in engagement in planning as part of my Master of Urban and Regional Planning. Trust me, it's a bitch having to fully reference the same document over and over just because the URL has changed between access dates.
Then in about Feb or March 2016, the conversation went a bit like this.
NRL Clubs: This sucks
Government: Well you made your own bed. This plan is the outcome of serious stakeholder consultation.
NRL Clubs: No one spoke to us.
Government: Yes. Brogden, Shepherd et. al. They told us they spoke to you.
NRL Clubs: WTF.
Government: Well they spoke to your governing body then.
NRL Clubs: Ohhhhh heeeeelllllz no!
To give an idea of how much effort went in to the SSSC's process, they literally didn't even do a fan survey on transport types on game day. They were already too interested in legally bypassing ANZ Stadium's post-olympic non-compete agreement. This part is all on public record.
