Speaking underneath a sparkling Sydney sky as he opened the venue earlier,Perrottet conceded the struggles that had weighed on the project were not lost on him.
“This has been a long journey. But today we open a world-class stadium for our world-class people,” he said.
“We lost a lot of political skin. We almost lost an election on the construction of this stadium ... so there are always challenges with building great venues and great infrastructure. But you’ve just got to push through and do what’s right.”
Women now have almost six times as many toilets to choose from – 600,up from 113 – while the number of wheelchair and companion-accessible seats has increased from 28 to more than 500 at the new stadium.
While the project in 2019 was slated to cost $790 million,Perrottet said it was well worth the additional spend to attract events and performances NSW was losing to other states,arguing the stadium was now “the envy of the world”.
Less than four weeks after publicly sparring with the premier over funding for local stadiums and the NRL grand final, rugby league tsar Peter V’landys said he was reserving judgment on the new Allianz stadium for now.