The 2032 Olympic Games loom for Brisbane residents with equal parts promise and fear.
On one hand, there is the opportunity to write Brisbane’s name alongside some of the world’s great cities.
On the other, a gnawing collective feeling that Queensland might just stuff it all up.
As the Queensland government prepares to announce another plan for new stadiums – the third in four years since Brisbane was announced as the 2032 host – the real issue is becoming clearer.
No one has bothered asking Brisbanites what sort of Olympic Games they want to host. Or if they want the Olympics at all.
Before the 2024 state election campaign, both major parties held focus groups that found broadly similar conclusions. People in Brisbane supported the idea of hosting the Olympics (those outside the capital largely did not), but no one wanted to spend significant public money or construction efforts on games venues, at a time when housing supply had reached a critical point.
The International Olympic Committee also seemed to recognise the risk it might be “on the nose” if a host city pressed ahead with expensive, unpopular construction plans.
The state government’s solution last year – converting the suburban Queensland Sports and Athletics Centre into a boutique athletics venue – brought forth another, competing anxiety.
In Paris, games events were held with the backdrop of some of the world’s most recognisable landmarks. In Los Angeles, the Olympic flame would be set alight atop the LA Coliseum.
QSAC, built in the 1980s for the Commonwealth Games, was built next to a cemetery. Across the road is a self-storage business and a liquidated furniture outlet. There is very little public transport nearby.
These contrasting worries – not spending too much money on new venues; not embarrassing ourselves alongside Paris and LA – are unlikely to be resolved by building a bigger, better stadium. They need a deeper reckoning.
The moniker of “Olympic city” does not, by itself, transform a place. The “Brown Snake” is not the Seine (though it is roughly the same colour). Bowen Hills is not Beverly Hills.
One of the things Brisbaneites lover about the city is that it is something other than a global metropolis. Those not born in Brisbane – but who choose to live here – often do so because it is “not Sydney”.
Hosting the Olympics is only going to be successful if it reflects Brisbane; not some half-baked imitation of a larger city with a functioning public transport network and a clear understanding of its identity.
The International Olympic Committee has been clear – it wants the Olympics to adapt to the host city; not the host city to alter itself for the Olympics.
But what is missing is a clear vision – from political leaders, from both sides of politics, who have tied themselves in knots and put planning years behind schedule – about what a Brisbane games looks like.
Does it look like paving the inner-city’s largest green space to build a stadium so we are not, as the deputy premier Jarrod Bleijie said when launching the state’s latest venues review, “embarrassed” when compared to LA and Paris?
Brisbane’s reluctance to craft a games that is unique to the city – not just an imitation of a bigger one – speaks to a lack of political courage, vision and belief that our place is worthy of hosting the games.
The state of play
The premier, David Crisafulli, has placed a great deal of capital in the idea that he’s the sort of person who keeps his promise. On Tuesday, he’s likely going to break a big one.
During the election campaign – knowing there was reluctance about the idea of building a new stadium – the new premier promised he would not. Instead there would be a 100-day venues review.
LNP figures have long contemplated the situation. Crisafulli can argue his position was to support the review; the experts have said there is a need for a new stadium; and so he is acting responsibly by following their advice.
But at the same time, the premier is also lobbying to ignore another key part of the venues review team’s advice – that the state push ahead with plans to construct a $2.5bn inner-city arena.
Doing away with the arena would, as Crisafulli has argued internally, free up funding for the construction of a new stadium. It would also allow the state to talk about sporting legacy – building a purpose-built swimming centre, rather than an area with a temporary pool, would be a good outcome for the sport.
But all this is politically untenable. It’s not possible to fall back on “taking the advice of experts” when you also ignore their advice when you want to do something else. The “broken promise” claims will follow Crisafulli until the next election.
Few voters, particularly in regional Queensland, will buy the idea of a new stadium even if the government tries to argue it has saved money in other places.
Should the IOC – which gave Brisbane 11 years to plan – be nervous about the state of affairs? There is enough time to get things back on track. But there is also little sign that any of the things that have derailed the process so far – provincial politics and the public unease – are going away any time soon.
Opponents of the Victoria Park stadium plan say they’ve briefed barristers and could launch a legal challenge. They have amassed significant high-profile support. Local Indigenous elders say they oppose use of the wetland site, known as Barrambin.
There is little doubt the IOC – when it devised its “new normal” process and awarded the games to a smaller city like Brisbane – had envisaged something other than bulldozing parkland and building concrete over First Nations cultural heritage sites.
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