The demolition of Sydney’s Allianz stadium will go ahead before the election, the NSW treasurer has said, after the land and environment court dismissed a challenge by a local community group.
Justice Nicola Pain ruled against Local Democracy Matters and Waverley Council on all three of the grounds they argued to claim the consent permitting demolition was invalid.
The injunction was extended until 2pm on Thursday so that Local Democracy Matters could consider an appeal.
The NSW treasurer, Dominic Perrottet, said that if the injunction was lifted, demolition of Allianz would proceed before the election.
“This is the government’s position. We are going to rebuild the stadium,” he said.
The opposition leader, Michael Daley, branded such a move the height of arrogance from an out of touch premier.
“If the premier wants to ramp up the arrogance and send in a bunch of bulldozers and wrecking balls it will be on her head on election day, I can tell you that,” he said.
The Greens MP David Shoebridge said the election would be a referendum on the demolition of the stadiums and called for citizens to “put themselves between the stadium and the wrecking ball”.
The government’s plan to spend $1.5bn redeveloping Sydney’s two major stadiums has been extremely controversial – Allianz is 40 years old and the Homebush stadium was built for the 2000 Olympics – prompting calls for the spending to be redirected.
Under the redevelopment plan, Allianz will be demolished and rebuilt at a cost of $730m. Soft demolition such as removal of the seats has already begun under a planning approval granted by the government just before Christmas.
In the dying days of the hearing before the land and environment court, Infrastructure NSW indicated it planned to begin removal of the roof on the stadium, prompting Pain to issue a further injunction pending her decision.
It is unclear when the demolition will resume.
The opposition leader, Michael Daley, has said that if Labor wins the NSW election, it will not fund the project and instead expects the Sydney Cricket and Sports Ground Trust to borrow the funds if it wants to rebuild the stadium.
On Tuesday, in a fiery radio interview with the broadcaster Alan Jones, who also a director of the trust, Daley said he would sack the trust board, including Jones, if he became premier.
He accused the trust of ripping out the sprinkler system “under the cover of darkness” in a bid to bolster the case for the redevelopment of the stadium.
An angry Jones said the trust had briefed Daley about the stadium’s shortcomings, which included flammable seats, narrow internal and external concourses and non-compliance with the current building codes.
Daley said he was not concerned about his stoush with Jones.
“He opened the door and I walked right in,” he said.
