Sydney is an amazing city, blessed with stunning watery vistas, plenty of surfable beaches, an historic area in the centre and national parkland within easy reach of most suburbs.
It’s missing one vital component though: A world-class sporting venue with easy access to all.
“But, but, what about the Sydney Football Stadium?” I hear you ask.
Too small. It’s only half the capacity of an MCG, Stade de France or Wembley.
“But what about the huge Olympic Stadium out at Homebush?”
‘Out at Homebush’ is part of the problem, and the fact that it’s a shit stadium is the other. Unless one lives in Doesn’tMatta/Parastabber, you’ve got an hour’s journey to get to a stadium unique in its attribute of not actually having a single good seat anywhere in the damn place.
The timing is right too. We’ve entered the phase of the mining boom where employment decreases dramatically, not to mention the fact that the boom has peaked as have the commodity prices. We’re going to need to stimulate the economy and find something to do for all those construction workers and lorry drivers. The Keynesians love this shit, spraying money randomly into the economy to stimulate growth.
I don’t know about you, but I’m fed up with getting nothing tangible from these money printing exercises. Instead of lining the pockets of the bankers and their mates, why don’t we actually build something useful this time?
And this is what I propose. The Sydney Harbour Stadium.
At a high level, this is what we’ll get for our stimulus;
- A world class 120,000 seater stadium built to the north of Clark Island.
- A “rollable” pitch to be moved out to the east of the stadium when not in use to ensure full sunlight on the grass (hello Millennium Stadium)
- A new dedicated underground railway station linking up with Wynyard and terminating at Clark Island.
- A new ferry wharf to the north west of the stadium connecting with Circular Quay and Manli ™.
There are plenty of precedents for this type of construction project. Here’s two examples;
Hong Kong airport
Dubai property crash islands
Imagine the excitement of jumping on a quick ferry ride to a major international sporting event held in the middle of the world’s most beautiful natural harbour. Spectators would quickly arrive and depart using multiple ferries to different harbour locations and the train would connect with the existing rail network.
The footage of the game would be the best advert for Australian tourism (another industry in dire need of stimulus) ever shown on TV. Away matches in Sydney would be the highlight of every international team’s fixtures and their fans would always consider those fixtures as the first choice for travel.
Thousands of construction workers would be employed following their redundancy from the mine projects.
And best of all, Goldman Sachs don’t get a penny.