Tasmanian Premier calls for solid timeline for Tasmania getting its own AFL team

Tasmanian Premier Peter Gutwein has called on the AFL to provide a solid timeline for when Tasmania will get its own team, threatening to end the state’s financial support for Hawthorn and North Melbourne occasional fixtures in Hobart and Launceston.

Premier Gutwein is reported to have written to AFL Chief Executive Gillon McLachlan this week with an “ultimatum” to the AFL about a timeline for a standalone Tasmanian team.

Premier Gutwein’s letter threatened that without a solid timeline, the Tasmanian Government will end negotiations and financial support for Hawthorn and North Melbourne playing AFL Premiership fixtures in Hobart and Launceston.

Ending financial subsidies to the Hawks and Kangaroos was a recommendation from a Tasmanian taskforce into establishing a new AFL side in the state released in February last year.

The taskforce also found that Tasmania had the capacity to fund a team and there was significant community interest in having one established.

While local Tasmanian interests have backed the plan, the threat to withdraw financial support for Hawthorn and North Melbourne is seen as high risk.

While the call for a Tasmanian AFL could be successful, it the Melbourne teams depart the state would suffer a $30 million dip in winter tourism income.

In addition, on ABC Radio on Friday, Hawthorn President Jeff Kennett questioned the viability of having a team based permanently in Tasmania.

While Kennett supported the call for more clarity around the situation he questioned whether the AFL could afford a new team given the revenue implications of the COVID-19 pandemic, stating “my heart says yes to a Tasmanian team at some stage. My economic mind says the last thing I want is a Tasmanian team that's going to fail.”

Independent economist Saul Eslake, who has been a long-time advocate for a Tasmanian team, said it was well established that the Tasmanian Parliament was willing to help support a team.

Eslake stated "why should Tasmanian taxpayers pay to subsidise games between, on the one hand, Hawthorn and North Melbourne and, on the other, non-Victorian interstate clubs which would lose money if they were staged (in Melbourne)?"

Eslake said the economic benefits of having an AFL team based in Tasmania would be wide-ranging, telling the ABC “the first one is that we would - assuming we were treated with the same respect as every other team - host 10 or 11 games here rather than four or six.

"Some of them would be against big drawing teams like Collingwood, or Essendon, or Richmond. Rather than against teams that have no followers outside of their home states.

"Therefore, all of the benefits that have been identified from hosting four games at York Park and two at Bellerive, they would be magnified."

On Thursday evening the City of Launceston endorsed a $208 million Future Direction Plan for the city's UTAS Stadium, an upgrade that will enhance the hosting capabilities of the venue.

It has also been reported that AFL Northern Territory has been sitting on a taxpayer-funded report it commissioned to map out a local bid for a Darwin-based AFL club for nearly 18 months.

Image: North Melbourne playing at Hobart's Blundstone Arena (top) and concepts, released this month, for a redevelopment of Launceston's UTAS Stadium (below, credit: City of Launceston/Philp Lighton Architects.)