‘Half-baked and half-arsed’: federal inquiry takes aim at 2032 Brisbane Olympics planning
Senators have taken aim at the Queensland government’s approach to Olympics infrastructure planning, as a federal committee hears the Miles government held two reviews into the 2032 Games at once.
The Liberal and Nationals-led federal inquiry held hearings in Brisbane on Wednesday, largely focusing on venue planning.
The state government recently rejected a recommendation of a 60-day review it commissioned that it should cancel the planned multibillion-dollar
Gabba rebuild and instead host athletics at a new stadium in Victoria Park. The opposition leader, David Crisafulli, also confirmed no new stadium would be built for the Games if the Liberal National party wins government in Queensland’s October elections.
Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie questioned Games supremo, John Coates, about reported remarks from Queensland public servants that Olympics planning had proved “half-baked and half-arsed” and that decisions had not been made due to endless political bickering.
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Brisbane won the Olympics in 2021, but has yet to break ground on any project, she said.
Coates refused to answer a question based on a “rumour”, but earlier said he was “relaxed about where we’re at” with regard to infrastructure.
The committee repeatedly aired their frustration that Brisbane 2032 Olympic Organising Committee head, Andrew Liveris, had so far refused to attend any hearings and asked Coates to put their demand on their agenda at the next meeting. Because the body is under the state government, the federal committee cannot force him to attend.
As one of his first acts as premier, Steven Miles ordered former Liberal lord mayor Graham Quirk to conduct a venues review, but ignored its key Victoria Park finding.
Quirk told the committee the threeperson panel had no idea the state government had been working for weeks on their own process.
“That was a complete blindsiding for us. We knew that the government didn’t have an appetite for a stadium. We knew that about a week out, but we didn’t know that they’d been doing work,” he said.
Quirk later told media: “If they weren’t interested in the stadium, it would have been good to have known that.”
Coates revealed to the committee that he had known about a parallel review process under way within the state government, and had held multiple meetings with the infrastructure minister, Grace Grace, Miles and department figures. The government ultimately endorsed his preferred option of holding the games at Queensland Sport and Athletics Centre (Qsac), in Brisbane’s south, which would be cheaper.
“I couldn’t say that I was involved in all of that being bundled together in some shadow process. I wasn’t involved in that,” he said.
The director-general of the department of state development and infrastructure, Graham Fraine, was also grilled about the parallel review.
He could not recall whether it was Miles’s office or Grace’s office or someone else who had commissioned the public service advice.
“No one can remember who asked the department to look at Qsac. Did it come from your minister, the request?” McKenzie asked.
“Senator, in the interest of not wanting to mislead you, I am happy to take that on notice,” Fraine said.
Fraine clarified that they had been asked to identify options if the government didn’t want to build a new stadium. The department spent a couple of weeks on the task before it was sent to Grace as advice, he said.
He told the inquiry Coates had provided input in an “informal” capacity.
The current plan is to upgrade the Gabba, Suncorp Stadium and the 49year-old Qsac, and to construct several temporary facilities.
In a press conference on Wednesday, former Liberal government sports minister and senator for Tasmania Richard Colbeck said the Gabba proposal had come out of the blue.
Asked if he thought it was a “thought bubble” from former premier Annastacia Paluszcuk, he said: “I would say that the evidence to date is that is exactly all it was.”