'Clearly political': Why the Canberra stadium debate has returned for the federal election

It's his turf in Canberra's south, and it's a long way from the Civic field of dreams ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr has been promising for the past 13 years.

Using federal money to invest in a 10,000-seat venue in Wanniassa is hardly a game-changer for Canberra as a sporting and event destination.

It also does nothing to reopen the doors at the decommissioned AIS Arena, which has forced the Canberra Capitals to play in a "tin shed".

"Closing the AIS Arena has set women's sport back 20 years," says Capitals director Carrie Graf.

But Seselja's announcement, which doesn't yet have designs or a specific funding commitment, did signal something. The Canberra stadium and arena debate is in play at the federal level for the first time.

The next couple of months will determine whether the all federal election talk is a genuine step towards new infrastructure, or just another sorry chapter in what has been - until now - Barr's stalled campaign.

"At least there's movement at the station," Graf says. "And it's clearly political. The city needs it, an urgent need for infrastructure that's affordable, particularly with the closure of the AIS Arena.

"It's critical and this is the time now for actions. We need action. We need someone to step up to the plate and go, 'Yeah, this is right'."

The sporting infrastructure need shouldn't come as a surprise. Canberra Stadium was built in 1977 and had a major upgrade for the 2000 Olympic Games, but is now the oldest rectangular professional sports venue in Australia.

The AIS Arena was opened in 1979 and was known as "The Palace" in the Canberra Cannons' glory years. Just like the Cannons, the glory years are gone.

Even so, the arena's role as a critical part of Canberra's sporting infrastructure has only recently become apparent after Sport Australia, a federal government agency, closed its doors to sports and events two years ago.

The ACT government said it was blindsided. The reality, though, is it highlighted the government's reliance on two federal assets as its two biggest venues.

Barr identified the stadium aspect of this years ago. It's easy to forget the ACT Chief Minister has been stadium-hopping around the world for more than a decade. Dunedin, Wellington, Singapore, Melbourne, Adelaide and even Parramatta.

He has floated ideas for a "super stadium", a rectangular stadium, one with a roof, one without a roof, two at Bruce, a 45,000-seat FIFA World Cup venue, one at Exhibition Park, one in Civic with a hotel, and now Seselja's Viking Park.

The lack of an upgrade, or at the very least a meaningful commitment, has cost the city dearly. The women's soccer World Cup and men's rugby World Cup will bypass Canberra, there's still no A-League men's licence for the nation's capital, and ACT Brumbies and Canberra Raiders fans still shiver through winter.

Along the way, Barr has blamed the federal government's AIS redevelopment inaction for delaying his plans, has said the money had been soaked up by Mr Fluffy costs and the light rail project from Gungahlin to the City and on to Woden, and recently said the ACT government is now paying for the COVID-19 pandemic.

But will a federal election campaign change things, or will all this talk just dissolve into empty promises?

"No federal party has much interest of campaigning in Canberra," says ANU political expert Jill Sheppard.

"I don't think that there's much of a chance that Zed actually loses his seat, but there's undoubtedly pressure.

"We're talking about things that we've never [considered at a federal level] because it's potentially a close contest.

"The fact we're talking about [the stadium issue] at all, it's more of a reflection that Zed probably feels a bit shakier than he did at the last election."

Stadium political football isn't a new game when it comes to elections. Seselja opposed the Civic project in the lead-up to the ACT election in 2012, when he was the ACT Liberal leader.

The NSW government proposed to spend $2.5 billion on two stadium rebuilds three years ago, but scaled back the projects to reduce funding to $1.5 billion.

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The plan to build a "Riverbank" arena in Adelaide is one of the most divisive issues of the South Australian election this weekend. The $662 million proposal is the centrepiece of Liberal Party leader Steven Marshall's campaign, but Labor leader Peter Malinauskas says his party would spend that money on health.

Seselja successfully dodged the issue before the 2013, 2016 and 2019 elections, only saying he agreed Canberra needed a new stadium but never offering a real commitment to pursue it.

Katy Gallagher, who was ACT chief minister when Barr hatched the plan at a press conference on May 26, 2009, has been able to avoid it as well. But not this time.

"Infrastructure will rightly be a key issue at this election," Gallagher says.

"Federal Labor is engaging in constructive discussions with the ACT government about how we can bring Canberra's infrastructure back up to speed in the short term, and achieve outcomes that deliver for our community in the long term.

"Canberrans deserve an arena with the amenities to attract major sporting and music events - and they also deserve the economic benefits and job creation that flow from them.

"The national capital deserves to have major infrastructure facilities just like other state capitals do around the country, and it's just a shame that the Liberals and Nationals have wasted the last 10 years and have shown they don't really care about investing in our city.

"Senator Seselja's commitments this week are too little, too late and show that he is more interested in trying to patch up a political problem ... rather than providing a genuine solution to the problems at hand."

The threat posed by independent Senate candidates David Pocock and Kim Rubenstein has put pressure on what have become known as safe seats for both the Labor and Liberal parties.

That major-party confidence is the reason why Canberra hasn't been able to secure stadium funding for more than a decade, while watching places like Townsville, Adelaide, Perth, Parramatta, Penrith and even Manly get light years ahead the capital in the sporting infrastructure world.

It's why the Australian Sports Commission, a federal agency, closed the AIS Arena without consultation with the ACT government, or Seselja, even though it leaves the capital without an indoor sport and major concert venue.

To put it simply, Canberra has never been a battleground that needed defending.

"Canberra absolutely suffers because it doesn't have a marginal seat at the federal level," Sheppard says.

"This is why the Canberra Capitals are going without a finals venue, because there's no political will to reopen a federally funded court for them.

"The better arena for this debate is the Legislative Assembly level because ... promises can be held to account. [A new stadium] is going to have be driven at an ACT level."

Pocock is hitching himself to designs for a new stadium and convention centre in Civic.

"It's insane how we have allowed ourselves to get into this position where we can't actually hold big conferences. We can't hold big sporting events," Pocock says.

"We've seen a lot of talk, but no one's been actually willing to go in there and talk to both the territory and federal government about making this happen."

Rubenstein is taking a stand for female athletes by highlighting the closure of the AIS Arena as "the real issue".

"Zed Seselja and David Pocock have decided it is time to undertake a stadium-measuring competition," Rubenstein says.

"It's time to get our priorities straight. The reality in the ACT is that the issue of new sporting facilities pales into insignificance when measured against Canberra's mounting housing crisis.

"That is not to say there isn't a need in Canberra for more sporting facilities. The real sporting infrastructure issue in the ACT is in all levels of women's sport."

Seselja's response was to make his own announcement about the future of Viking Park - a suburban venue with about 1000 seats and a car park at one end of the field.

"I think [it] would be a great offering for rugby and potentially for other sports as well," Seselja says.

So for all of the talk, what do we really know? The capital has fallen behind every other major city in Australia when it comes to professional sporting infrastructure.

The ACT government pays $350,000 to lease Canberra Stadium from the sports commission. As part of the agreement, the government is responsible for maintenance and upgrades.

The main grandstand - the Mal Meninga Stand - is nearing the end of its 50-year lifespan. The concrete foundations will not crumble immediately, but the 2027 clock is ticking.

The AIS Arena is closed for events, after an internal audit deemed the fire safety system and some of the seating no longer safe for sport, concerts and functions.

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"Canberra needs both - an arena and a stadium," Graf says. "They're not competing against each other. But a 10,000-seater at Tuggeranong doesn't fit the gap for what we need."

Its closure has forced nine-time WNBL champions the Capitals to relocate to the smaller city convention centre. Booking clashes at the convention centre, however, will force them to play finals at Tuggeranong - an appropriate venue 25 years ago, but not now.

It quite literally takes the Capitals back to the dark ages, when women's sport was a sleeping giant, in the late 1990s. The Capitals will have to bring in their own broadcast-quality lighting just to meet television standards.

The University of Canberra - which owns the Capitals - has its own plans to build a $150 million, 11-court indoor arena at Bruce that would also boast a 10,000-seat showcourt. Graf, now the university's director of sport, says it needs ACT and federal funding to get off the ground.

"Our proposal is more than just an arena," she says.

"Indoor sports in our city can't grow, at an elite level or community level. And it's not just sport, it's music as well. There's nothing to host 10,000 people.

"There is certainly a female element to this, that women's sport will end up in a tin shed like we have [at Tuggeranong]. We're going back in time 20 years ... this city has been relatively progressive in the support of women's sport, but we're going backwards."

While ACT government officials have been talking about a stadium, cities like Geelong, Townsville, Perth, Adelaide and Parramatta have built and opened new facilities.

Canberra, in the meantime, has been on a never-ending rollercoaster of excitement and then disappointment since Barr's announcement of a $750,000 stadium masterplan in 2009.

That day he detailed a range of options to improve Canberra Stadium and Manuka Oval, ranging from the basic $60 million play to the $300 million deluxe vision.

By 2010 there was a new plan to build a 45,000-seat stadium next to Canberra Stadium to host FIFA World Cup games as part of Australia's bid for the 2018 or 2022 tournament.

The bid failed, so the government pivoted again. In 2012 the government had all but settled on a stadium with a roof in Civic, on the site of the Civic pool and largely based on the undercover stadium in Dunedin to be finished by the end of the decade.

The Mr Fluffy clean-up bill came in 2014, the light rail project followed at the 2016 ACT election, and the stadium project stopped while others - light rail and now the Canberra Hospital expansion - continued.

There's been a push from the private sector. Grocon's unsolicited $800 million bid to redevelop Manuka Oval was eventually rejected, while Barr has resisted privately funded approaches for a Civic stadium.

But ultimately they have all led sports fans down the path to nowhere, with Barr declaring last year: "You will not be seeing [a stadium plan] until the second half of the 2020s at the earliest."

The federal conversation gives hope for cautious optimism. But without some sort of collaboration, the field of dreams will remain just that. A dream.

So even though there's federal government chatter, maybe don't hold your breath.

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