A Labor Party member was accused of hypocrisy after she was photographed in the corporate box of a $828 million stadium she fiercely opposed.
MP for Coogee in the NSW Parliament Marjorie O’Neill was recently spotted at Sydney’s new Allianz Stadium, just down the road from her beachfront seat.
This was exploited by her adversaries, with NSW Sports Minister Alister Henskens boasting in Parliament, “She has been in the corporate box not once, not twice, but three times in the last three weeks.”
“They talk one thing but practice another; they are hypocrites,”
However, Ms. O’Neill justified her attendance at the games, including the Roosters’ match against the Rabbitohs, despite having opposed the construction of the stadium.
Labor MP Marjorie O’Neill is shown in a corporate box at Sydney’s Allianz Stadium, the construction of which she opposed.
“I am a devoted Roosters fan who rarely misses a game,” she told Daily Mail Australia.
I am unable to choose the stadium my team plays at.
Reportedly, opposition leader Chris Minns had urged MPs against attending the August opening ceremony due to his party’s earlier opposition to the new ground.
Ms. O’Neill attended the inaugural NRL game hosted there just days later.
In March 2019, on the eve of the last state election in New South Wales, Ms. O’Neill called on the Coalition government to scrap the new stadium.
She wrote on social media, “This neighborhood is opposed to a new stadium.”
Previously, Labor MP Marjorie O’Neill opposed the new Allianz stadium, as evidenced by the attached tweet.
In a statement released on Wednesday, Ms. O’Neil stated, ‘My views on Allianz Stadium have been crystal clear and widely articulated for years – the government should have merely renovated the stadium instead of demolishing and rebuilding it.
That would have saved hundreds of millions of dollars that might have been spent on schools and hospitals across the state, such as Randwick Girls and Randwick Boys High Schools and Sydney Children’s and Royal Women’s Hospitals in my area.
Ben Fordham, a radio commentator, was amused by Ms. O’Neill’s stadium presence on Wednesday.
‘Oh, Marjorie. Couldn’t you have waited for a moment? The door has just opened. I haven’t been to it yet,’ he remarked.
‘I can’t wait to go, don’t get me wrong, but I’ve been busy and a lot has been happening.
But Marjorie has certainly had a lot of free time. Despite having a history of opposition, she has managed to squeeze in three visits.
Regarding the rumored prohibition on Labor MPs attending the stadium, Fordham stated, “Marjorie either didn’t receive the memo or couldn’t resist that corporate food.”
Merivale, the company of hospitality dynamo Justin Hemmes, caters the new stadium.