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WA Premier Mark McGowan will not push for more general admission seating for AFL games at the new Perth Stadium, but has backed away from his claim a deal was finalised by the Barnett government.
On Monday, the Premier's office said the contract for seating arrangements at AFL games was sealed by the previous government and stadium operator VenuesLive in January, but not made public.
Only 7,000 general admission seats will be available — 3,000 less than the former government promised.
Today, the Premier said he had been misinformed about the contract being signed by the relevant parties.
"Some advice I was given, that was slightly incorrect," Mr McGowan said.
He said the former government had agreed to the seating arrangements in January, but the contract had not yet been signed by all parties.
Mr McGowan had been quick to lay the blame on the former government.
But he now says it will be too late to push for more general admission seating at this stage of the long-term negotiations.
"Whilst I might not be happy with some aspects of it, I think the situation is now pretty well fixed," Mr McGowan said.
"I am not going to try to disturb all those arrangements because ... I might further delay the occupation of the stadium and I want this thing to work."
The Government has not shied away from breaking contracts during its three months in office, almost immediately cancelling work on the Roe 8 highway extension after it was elected.
But the stadium seating arrangements are not high on the Premier's agenda.
"I've got to so many issues to deal with about creating jobs, managing the finances, making sure we have good education and health sectors, the exact structure of how many seats go to who at the stadium is not high on my list of priorities," Mr McGowan said.
In addition to the 7,000 general admission seats, 1,000 will be sold as part of tourism packages, nearly 1,400 will be stadium memberships and more than 600 seats will be complimentary for the clubs and VenuesLive.
In Opposition the Government had argued against the offer of exclusive stadium memberships, saying it would mean fewer seats for "ordinary punters".
The Premier also clarified speculation about the long delayed stadium footbridge being constructed in WA instead of overseas.
"It's a prospect that we will build the bridge here," Mr McGowan said.
"We just have to work out whether or not we can get the bridge from Malaysia and if we can't, what the best deal is to get it to Western Australia."
Transport Minister Rita Saffioti remained tight-lipped on what the cost blowout might be to break the overseas deal.
She said the Government was working to make sure it was safe to open the stadium early next year if the bridge was not completed.
Topics: arts-and-entertainment, government-and-politics, australian-football-league, sport, perth-6000, wa
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