Alan Patching led the construction of the largest-ever Olympic stadium. It took 30 months to finish the designs for Sydney’s 110,000-seat Stadium Australia, build it, and hold its first major event.
“That’s not going to happen [in Brisbane],” Patching said. “The climate’s changed, the building environment has changed, [and] goodness knows how we’re going for resources.
“Practically, we’re getting awful close to the deadline.”
On Tuesday, the Queensland government will announce new plans for a main stadium and other venues for the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
There are still seven years until athletes arrive. But the announcement will mark the third stadium proposal since 2021, when Brisbane was announced as the host.
The 11-year head start envisaged by the International Olympic Committee has become a false start, hijacked by the vagaries of local politics, clashing interests and uneasy residents, who say they have largely been dealt out of planning processes.
The state is widely expected to support plans to build a new 60,000-seat venue at Victoria Park, taking a chunk of the largest public green space near the inner city.
And already, even before the announcement has been signed off by the state cabinet, significant opposition has formed. A group backed by dozens of community leaders – including former premier Campbell Newman, two former lord mayors and Indigenous elders – say they intend to brief barristers to block any proposal to build in the parkland.
Political tightrope
Soon after Brisbane was announced as the 2032 host city, the state government controversially announced it would redevelop the ageing Gabba stadium for athletics and the opening ceremony.
The plan was abandoned due to vehement local objections and the unpalatable $3bn redevelopment cost. The Australian Olympics power broker, John Coates, went so far as to say the entire Olympic movement was “on the nose” and risked losing community support in Brisbane due to the unpopular Gabba plan.
About a year ago, the Steven Miles-led Labor government devised a different plan: to redevelop the 80s-era Queensland Sports and Athletics Centre in the suburbs as a boutique Athletics stadium. The track is across the road from a cemetery and a discount white goods warehouse.
Scheduled to follow the Stade de France and the Los Angeles Coliseum, the QSAC plan was criticised by some as an “embarrassment”. It played into fears that, alongside Paris and Los Angeles, Brisbane might present as a second-rate city getting ready to host a second-rate games.
The new premier, David Crisafulli, went to the state election in October repeatedly promising “no new stadiums” but that he would convene a 100-day review of Olympic venues.
Liberal National party sources say Crisafulli will cite the recommendation of the venues review as cover for claims he broke an election promise, but at the same time, the state is understood to be considering ignoring another review finding to press ahead with construction of a $2.5bn indoor arena that would host swimming at the Olympics, and replace the city’s ageing suburban concert centre with a new CBD venue.
Instead, cabinet will on Monday consider building a purpose built swimming centre near Victoria Park, as proposed by Swimming Australia.
“If that’s the way they go, they’ve got a political tightrope to work,” a government MP said.
Promise and fear
Having scrapped the Gabba stadium plan because it was unpopular and too costly, Brisbane now appears to be about to build a more expensive stadium in the face of even more vehement opposition.
“The community [opposition] at the Gabba is going to pale in comparison to what is going to happen in Victoria Park,” says Mark Limb, an urban planning expert at the Queensland University of Technology.
“People are already drawn into their positions without having an official position to respond against yet.
after newsletter promotion
“People are craving a bit of rigour and trust in the process behind this stuff, but that’s what you get when it’s all behind closed doors.”
The group Save Victoria Park held a rally in Brisbane on Saturday.
“Do we really want to be known as the city that concretes over its historic parkland for a mega stadium?” says Sue Bremner, a spokesperson for Save Victoria Park.’
“We should be protecting our green spaces, not destroying them in the name of the Olympic and Paralympic Games.”
Limb says the situation points to a broader concern: a lack of consultation with locals about Olympic plans.
The Olympic movement’s “new normal” was supposed to allow the Games to adapt to the city, not force the community to upend itself for the Olympics.
Focus groups before the last election told both major political parties that people broadly wanted the Olympics; they just didn’t want to pay for them, especially with ongoing concerns about a lack of housing.
The 2032 Games loom for some locals with equal parts promise and fear. On one hand, there is the opportunity to write Brisbane’s name alongside the world’s great cities.
On the other, a gnawing collective feeling that Brisbane – asked to follow Paris and Los Angeles – could embarrass itself.
“Queenslanders no longer want to be embarrassed on the world stage,” the deputy premier, Jarrod Bleijie, said when launching the venues review.
Time running out
While there remains a lack of community consensus about Olympic plans, one thing is clear: four years of missteps, controversies and political brawling have left Brisbane with little leeway.
Both Limb and Patching say Brisbane is running out of time to genuinely engage the community about its Olympic plans.
“For most people in Brisbane, it seems to be the sense there’s a desire to get moving and push on and start making decisions,” Limb said.
“Seven years is a reasonable time to do things, but it’s starting to get to the real crunch point now, doing things properly and efficiently. I think they’ve realised they’ve missed this engagement opportunity.”
Patching was involved in Brisbane’s Suncorp Stadium’s construction and says they undertook a massive community consultation process. He said “ideally” there would be more of an opportunity for the public to shape plans for Victoria Park.
“The reality is that [after the venues review, which invited public submissions] the government can legitimately say ‘you’ve had your opportunity’.
“Do I think it’s enough? Probably not. Do we have time for it? I think it’s questionable.
“There’s still a few months of work before anyone appoints an architect. We’ve got seven years to go, and you want one year to be testing [the stadium]. I would not like to be taking a risk.”