The States and Territories

In November 2015, Bill Shorten declared that, if elected, his government would provide $100 million towards the construction of a new Townsville football stadium. The Queensland Labor government would match the funding. The stadium would primarily serve as the home ground for the newly crowned NRL Premiership winners, the North Queensland Cowboys (Australian Labor Party (ALP) 2015). In the months leading up to the 2016 federal election, Shorten continued to promote his stadium proposal, challenging the Coalition to equal his commitment (Peel 2016). Business analysts criticised Labor’s plan, while the Coalition remained uncommitted (Ludlow 2016). During the fourth week of the election campaign, after the Queensland government announced it would increase its funding to $140 million, Malcolm Turnbull matched Shorten’s stadium promise as part of a broader ‘City Deal’ for Townsville. The State’s Assistant Minister for North Queensland welcomed this new bipartisanship, while criticising the time it took Turnbull to make his promise (Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) 2016; Liberal Party of Australia (LPA) 2016b).