To be fair to the good burghers of Dunedin (though I’m not feeling very charitable at this moment), they are not the only people in the world doing stupid things right now with other people’s money.

Sports stadiums seem to hypnotise local politicians. All around the world they lose their senses whenever a much-loved sports team asks for subsidies or grants for a fancy concrete and glass monument. In America the pressure is even greater because sports franchises there are mobile and threaten to jump to other cities if they don’t get their big toy. It happens too in Australia (the Telstra Dome in Melbourne and the ANZ Stadium in Sydney are both bankrupt) and Britain (Google “Wembley Stadium” and “delay” to find 44,800 links in 0.33 seconds for a laugh).

Dunedin City Council doesn’t even have the imminent threat of the Highlanders departing as an excuse. The Highlanders are unlikely to jump to Invercargill (even though I’m sure Tim Shadbolt would mount a campaign if he thought it might fly) or Canterbury, although the sharing of Lancaster Park/Jade Stadium/AMI Stadium/For Sale Stadium would be a great idea if everyone in Dunedin moved to Christchurch. Sure they haven’t had a test for a while, but did the world end? I seem to remember the last time the All Blacks played there (July last year) they lost. Not a good omen.

So why did Dunedin City Council vote 10 to 5 last night to push ahead with a $188 million covered stadium to replace Carisbrook stadium? It simply doesn’t make any kind of economic sense.

This will cost each Dunedin taxpayer $66 a year for the next 20 years or a total of $85 million. Tomorrow Otago Regional Council will vote on whether to provide a further $37.5 million.

Prime Minister John Key has said the central government is looking at whether to help the Dunedin City and Otago Regional Council bridge the $35 million funding gap. Why on earth is this going ahead?

Dunedin cannot support a covered 35,000-seat stadium. It would be filled once or twice a year at best, depending on whether it got any tests. It needs to be filled at least 15 to 20 times a year to make any sense.

Big stadiums, particularly covered or fancy ones, are just plain dogs in economic terms. They need very regular use from very wealthy sports fans. There are only a couple of stadiums around the world that actually pay their way. Typically they are filled every fortnight with football supporters in cities with region-wide populations of more than five million.

They include Manchester’s Old Trafford, Barcelona’s Nou Camp and Milan’s San Siro stadium. The rest simply don’t make sense. They are white elephants.

A look at the Carisbrook Stadium Trust’s own website shows it expects each test to generate $5.3 million per year. This thing is costing $188 million (guaranteed!). The trust says it will generate 600 new jobs. That’s $313,000 per job. Fantastic value for money. It would be easier to simply use the money to abolish fees for students at the university for a few years. That would work wonders.

Dunedin taxpayers should demand free tickets to all matches or simply stage a rates revolt.

Already $13.8 million has been spent building the case for this taxpayer-funded budget black hole. The city council has already spent $32 million for the land, which was $7.7 million over budget. These stadiums never, never, never cost anything less than twice the original estimate. They never, never, never ever make money or a even a remotely economic return.

It should stop right there. Build some houses on the land or something useful like a hospital.

And the revolt should start now in Dunedin.

It should be extended to the rest of New Zealand if John Key even considers feeding the rest of New Zealand’s taxpayers’ money into this glass white elephant.

I am sick of my money being wasted on politicians’ vanity projects. This is just the sort of “Bridge to Nowhere” we need to be wary of in any budget spend-ups being considered.

A final note. If any Dunedin politician or sports administrator asks for money for this project, they need to be turned right around and told to fund it completely from private money. The reason they can’t is because it is NOT FINANCIALLY VIABLE. End of story.

Last 5 posts by Bernard Hickey

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