Comment: Expert rightly exposes flaws in Palaszczuk’s Olympic plan

It’s nearly two years since Brisbane won the 2032 Olympics bid but the Premier is wearing her promises of accountability about its delivery like a cheap perfume, writes Des Houghton.

The boy from Sandy Creek near Warwick on the Darling Downs grew up shooting ducks on the Condamine River and riding his pony around the family cattle property.

And this week Sir David Higgins, Chief Executive of the London 2012 Summer Olympics Delivery Authority, fired shots over the heads of the political elites charged with delivering the 2032 Brisbane Olympic and Paralympic Games.

They are shots that will be heard all the way to the International Olympic Committee headquarters in Lausanne in Switzerland.

In an interview published in the news pages today, Sir David expresses grave doubts that the highly politicised delivery model chosen by Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk will work.

Higgins was not going in search of controversy. It found him.

It’s now up we media hounds to impolitely ask: Could Palaszczuk’s decision to control the build-up to 2032 be a naked power grab designed to boost her troubled government’s declining popularity?

Sir David Higgins. Picture: Richard Dobson

Perhaps there was a clue to her thinking when she spoke in parliament this week. She unwisely linked her government’s Olympic strategy to her state government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games are the biggest transformational events this state is likely to see,” she told the House.

“Our strong response to the pandemic has provided Queensland with the strongest economy in the nation. 2032 provides us with the light on the hill to deliver the infrastructure and jobs that will drive us forward for the decades to come.’’

Palaszczuk may see a light in the hill, but there was darkness below.

The Premier told the House the accounting firm Deloitte had recommended she run a “a Brisbane 2032 Coordination Office”.

There were scant details about how the “co-ordination office” would run, and what powers it would be given.

And there were howls of laughter from the Opposition when Palaszczuk said the Deloitte report “recognises the state government’s existing expertise in delivering infrastructure like roads, schools and hospitals”.

The Deloitte report was not tabled in parliament that I could see, and the premier’s press secretary refused requests to hand it over.

Yet again, the Premier is wearing her promises of openness and accountability like a cheap perfume.

Sir David Higgins’ words, “It’s not going to work, is it”, will ring alarm bells around the state, around the nation and around the sporting globe.

For context, his comment was: “That (authority) at the moment is going to be run by the Premier co-ordinating five different government departments! That is going to be a challenge.

“It’s not going to work, is it.”

Exactly what Palaszczuk’s co-ordination committee will co-ordinate remains a multibillion-dollar mystery, in my opinion.

Artistic render of the revitalisation of Woolloongabba. Image supplied by the Department of the Premier and Cabinet.

I thought the Olympic spirit was about fostering camaraderie and igniting optimism.

Yet the business case for the Gabba stadium remains cloaked in secrecy. The transport plan is hazy. Then came The Australian’s report that the Queensland government was trying to “lock in a secret deal” over the Roma Street site.

It’s nearly two years since Brisbane won the bid, and I think it is lamentable that we still don’t seem to have a workable plan.

Sir David repeatedly told me in an exclusive interview that the State Government had to work at arm’s length from the formal organising committee for the Games to succeed.

It seems the Premier has ruled out a bipartisan approach.

Why?

Jarrod Bleijie, the shadow minister for Olympic and Paralympic Infrastructure, taunted Palaszczuk in parliament:

“This morning when I asked the Premier who will chair this body she said, ‘Not you!’

“Well, guess what? I do not want to because we on this side know that the Olympic and Paralympic Games is not about our egos. It is not about the politicians, it is about the people of Queensland.

“That is why we want it to be an independent body, not through the eyes of the Premier who wants total control.

“We all saw the front page of the paper the other day: ‘Hands off my Olympics’. I have a message for the Premier: this is not your Olympics; this is not the Labor government’s Olympics …”

Bleijie said there was a risk the Games would be known as the AAA Games “the ‘All About Anna Games’.

“Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk will not let an independent body deliver this infrastructure because she does not want to give up control over the expenditure.”

The last words from the boy from Warwick who dared to speak out: “You have to have an approach where an Opposition clearly knows what it going on, so when they get in they are not going to say, we just inherited a mess.’’