'Dripping with arrogance': Sydney Stadium dismantled despite injunction
Updated
Live footage of the Sydney Stadium at Moore Park shows the interior being dismantled by diggers and bobcats despite ongoing legal challenges over its demolition.
Opposition Leader Michael Daley questioned the extent of the tear-down in the face of an injunction that is not due to be lifted in the Land and Environment Court until this afternoon.
“I’m not an engineer but they’re not ripping wallpaper off in there,” he said.
“The injunction hasn’t run out yet and you can hear the bashing and smashing and destruction and crashing behind us now.
“There’s a bit of explaining to do.”
Frustration flares with return of stadium issue
A week ago the Liberals felt the state election would be a relatively easy yet close win for them, but now they’re worried.
And privately many are fuming that they are now talking about stadiums just two weeks before the election.
Labor has managed to put stadiums back on the agenda this week after Opposition Leader Michael Daley declared, live on Alan Jones’s own radio show, that if he becomes premier he will sack the board (including Jones) from the Sydney Cricket Ground Trust.
Mr Daley knows that 82 per cent of voters don’t like the Government’s stadiums policy, but it’s largely been off the agenda since the Government changed its original plan and decided it would only knock down and rebuild Moore Park, and not Sydney Olympic Park.
He’s now put it back on the front page.
Labor is also aware it’s hard for it to win in a small-target campaign. The Liberals have plenty of money and are splashing it everywhere on schools, transport and hospitals.
Mr Daley is taking a stand and he wants voters to see there is now a clear difference between the parties and the leaders.
Analysis by state political reporter Brigid Glanville
When asked whether he believed today’s demolition works breached the injunction, Mr Daley said he had no way of knowing.
“This is the whole point — no-one knows what’s happening inside there,” he said.
“I can’t answer the question because I’m not allowed in.”
Mr Daley called on Premier Gladys Berejiklian to halt all demolition works until after the election on March 23.
“Why can’t they just wait?” he said.
“There are 16 days to go until the election, there is no reason why this stadium should be demolished right now as it is.
“Only a Government dripping with arrogance would proceed to knock down this stadium against the wishes of the people with 16 days to go.”
Ms Berejiklian said the Opposition Leader was only concerned with cancelling major projects.
“I’m very, very concerned that the leader of the Opposition has one policy at this election and that is to cancel projects,” she said.
“We can’t afford to have NSW go backwards.”
The injunction will be lifted at 2:00pm unless community group Local Democracy Matters can successfully argue for it to remain in place.
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