Bipartisan support critical for Brisbane Olympic bid

Securing early support for Brisbane's potential Olympic Games bid from state and federal governments will be critical to the city having any chance of hosting the event, experts say.

While Brisbane's Lord Mayor Graham Quirk on Thursday was championing the city and south-east Queensland as an ideal host for the 2028 games, the Labor state and Coalition federal governments could only offer lukewarm support.

Matilda greeted the crowd at the Brisbane 1982 Commonwealth Games opening ceremony at QEII Stadium.Credit: Vic Sumner

Labor's Infrastructure Minister Jackie Trad said an Olympic bid was "good in theory", but Cyclone Marcia recovery efforts and the 2018 Commonwealth Games were the priorities.

Federal Sport Minister Sussan Ley said the decision to endorse a city's bid would be left to the Australian Olympic Committee.

"It's great to see world-class cities like Brisbane looking to promote Australia internationally and we'll wait and see if there's a realistic bid put forward," she said.

Cr Quirk will seek support for the Olympic bid from 11 other south-east Queensland councils early next month, however the final say on whether the bid proceeds rests with the AOC.

Wayne Peake, who served on the organising committee for the Sydney Olympic Games, said the 2000 bid was enthusiastically backed by former New South Wales premier Nick Greiner and prime minister Bob Hawke when it was being formulated in the late 1980s.

"Bob Hawke was a sports supporter in a big way. Nick Greiner was very active in the bid. It's vital, you've got to have the bipartisan political support to go anywhere," Dr Peake said.

University of Queensland sports historian Gary Osmond said while 2028 seemed a long way off, Brisbane needed to start gathering momentum for its bid now.

"I think the times are interesting, The fact is this is a new Labor state government which campaigned on a platform of no big spending promises. It was a very modest platform and they're going to be very wary about committing to a project like this," Dr Osmond said.

"A commitment is needed early from bidding cities so I think the state government will be very shy and the federal government will be as well for similar reasons – economic restraint, growing deficits and the lack of a surplus.

"It's very different from the previous times Australia bid."

Brisbane's former lord mayor Sallyanne Atkinson, who headed the city's push for the 1992 Olympics, said it was the role of a bidding city's leader to be the top promoter.

"It's a city bid, but it has to have the support of the national government. Australia's unusual in the fact that we have state governments, most countries don't," she said.

Brisbane's 1992 bid cost taxpayers about $5 million. Preparing and submitting a bid for 2028 games will cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

So was there any benefit in preparing a bid and losing? During the 1980s, Ms Atkinson believed there was, but she was no longer so sure.

"In world terms we were a small city not many people had heard of. We saw (the bid) as a wonderful opportunity to promote Brisbane," she said.

"I don't know that we need that so much any more but this time we'll be bringing in the Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast and surrounding areas."

Dr Peake had a different view.

"I don't know of anyone who's ever been happy or pointed to a benefit of a bid that failed. It's more a case of moving on and pretending it never happened," he said.

"With Beijing, the fact they made an unsuccessful bid and ran again helped their subsequent bids. I guess it's also the experience factor if you go again, but a lot of cities don't if they miss out the first time."