Premier’s pledge on push into big time

THE future of Hawthorn and North Melbourne’s Tasmanian tenancies hinge on the AFL’s desire to give the state a green light to join the big league, says Premier Will Hodgman.

In a rare show of unity from the three political parties for yesterday’s launch of the project team headed by businessman Brett Godfrey that will build a case for a Tasmanian AFL licence, Mr Hodgman said it was a unified drive.

“Those deals are really important and I have been in touch with Hawthorn and North Melbourne to say we will honour our agreements,” he said.

“They’ve still got some time to run and as to when we next get an understanding from the AFL about a licence of our own in the national competition, we want to continue to work with those clubs.

“We value the longstanding arrangements with Hawthorn in the North and now with North Melbourne in the South. It is important the task force has as one of its terms of reference discussions with those clubs to determine how they can continue to play a role here, what works for them and what serves our push to have a team of our own.”

The Hawthorn and North Melbourne deals both expire in two years.

Tasmania has already ticked numerous boxes in relation to the AFL’s expectation of getting its house in order.

“When I went to the AFL last year to get a sense of what we needed to do, they said you’ve got to demonstrate that you are unified,” Mr Hodgman said.

“Since then we have brought our footy community together and we’ve now got a task force and all political parties supporting our push.

“Now the job is for the task force to make a feasible business case that stacks up, gets governance and corporate structures in place, looks to sponsorship and the role Governments might play and also the corporate sectors, and make sure our pathways for young Tasmanians at all levels remain very strong.”