Queensland’s 2032 Olympics will not be held in a brand-new stadium, with both major parties now ruling out the Victoria Park and Gabba rebuild options.
The opposition leader, David Crisafulli, broke his four-day silence on Thursday, promising there will be no new stadium. The LNP leader also ruled out cancelling the Games.
That means the multi-billion dollar Victoria Park plan recommended by Graham Quirk on Monday is dead, no matter who wins the October election.
Crisafulli clarified that he also does not support a knock-down and rebuild of the Gabba, which is also the position of Labor.
His plan is to appoint an independent infrastructure authority on the first day of a new conservative government, to report back by February 2025, 100 days later.
The body will independently select the athletics site.
Crisafulli said it will have four terms of reference.
“One, it will prioritise roads and rail infrastructure necessary for the games. Two, it will use existing venues. Three, it’ll achieve this with a funding envelope no greater than what is currently on the table. And four, it needs to present legacy opportunities for all Queensland,” he said.
He said the no-stadium pledge reflected the promise made to Queenslanders when then-premier Annastacia Paluszczuk first won the games in 2021.
“When we signed on to the bid, there was a figure nearing 90% of existing venues. That’s what Queenslanders bought into,” he said.
“I want to restore faith in the process.”
The Brisbane Arena project is not included in the pledge for no new stadiums, because it had federal government financial support, Crisafulli said.
The pledge leaves essentially two options as to where to hold athletics.
The current plan is a $1.5bn upgrade the Queensland Sport and Athletics Centre, which was used for the 1982 Commonwealth Games. That was announced by the Labor premier, Steven Miles, on Monday.
The stadium is more than 13 kilometres south of the Brisbane CBD, and nowhere near a train station. The transport minister, Bart Mellish, revealed in parliament on Thursday that most people will get there by bus.
“This may include a bus layover facility at the venue and extensive traffic management plan for the duration of the games,” Mellish said
The athletics could also be held on the Gold Coast at Carrara Stadium, which hosted the opening and closing ceremonies at the 2018 Commonwealth Games and the athletics.
The Quirk review criticised both options. It said upgrading Qsac would cost up to $1.6bn and “does not demonstrate value for money” and estimated a Carrara upgrade would cost $461m and also require relocation of a large part of the Brisbane athletes’ village and prove a “lower quality stadium” with “a lesser experience for spectators and athletes”.
The panel’s view is that the investment of up to $1.6bn in Qsac does not demonstrate value for money and is very hard to justify.
Crisafulli refused to pick from the two or provide a third option.
“Let’s have a look. That’s the that’s the benefit of an independent infrastructure delivery authority,”
he said.
“Let’s have a look at what’s not just the best legacy play, what’s our best opportunity to get world class traffic.”
Miles already plans to create an independent authority. He told parliament on Thursday that legislation to do so would be brought before parliament as early as next month.
Thomas Sigler, an urban economist at the University of Queensland said the loss of the Gabba and Victoria Park stadium plans represented a greater benefit to the community than their cost.
“I’m supportive of either one. And personally, I don’t care about the stadium itself, it’s about the urban planning effort. And it’s about the fact that the Olympics are a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to do something larger than life. And we’re about to miss it all because of political squabbling,” he said.
He said either the Suncorp or current Gabba stadiums would not be large enough to host athletics and Qsac was the worst possible option of a number of bad options.
“No one would deny that Brisbane is a sports crazed city. Almost no one would deny that we need another stadium of global magnitude,” he said.
“We don’t get globally scaled events. We don’t get concerts. We can’t host Coldplay. We can’t host Taylor Swift.”
