Editor’s view: Athletics legacy? Pfft, this is politics

Premier Steven Miles’ Olympics stadium proposal is actually to burn $1.6bn of taxpayer money literally replacing what is already a world-class track-and-field facility.

OK, let’s try explaining what is being proposed by Premier Steven Miles for the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games in another way: He plans to spend $1.6bn of taxpayer money building a new 14,000-seat venue exclusively for track and field, a massive outlay that he says is worthwhile because it will deliver a legacy for the sport of athletics.

But here’s what he is actually proposing – to burn $1.6bn of your money literally replacing what is already a world-class track-and-field facility that has hosted 11 Australian athletics championships and that annually already welcomes 527,000 participants and spectators for local school and community carnivals.

That facility – the Queensland Sport and Athletics Centre (QSAC, the old QEII stadium at Nathan) boasts a multimillion-dollar, 10-lane running track installed just seven years ago that is overlooked by two covered grandstands and 10 other stands that together deliver a capacity of 48,000 spectators.

Inside one of those grandstands is a state-of-the-art, high-performance training centre and gym facility – the home of the Queensland Academy of Sport – which was upgraded four years ago at a cost to taxpayers of $10m.

Queensland Sport and Athletics Centre, Mount Gravatt.

Just next door to it is a second world-class track-and-field facility, also boasting a 10-lane track – open to the public. It also boasts its own covered grandstand (capacity 2100) and the National Throws Centre of Excellence – the nation’s leading training facility for discus, shot put, javelin and hammer, decathlon and heptathlon athletes.

And so when Premier Miles says – as he did again yesterday – that “it is vital there is an athletics legacy for the Games”, what he is saying is that his idea of being a good steward of public money is to spend more than a billion dollars delivering a “legacy” that literally already exists for a sport that even at its Olympic trials here draws sparse crowds.

Nobody in their right mind could competently argue that this is a good idea, as Premier Miles tries to. But yesterday, he was at it again – using as evidence he is not alone an Athletics Australia statement from March that backs it. But you would expect them to support this plan, as anyone who is told they are about to be the beneficiaries of $1.6bn of public spending surely would!

That statement points out QSAC is already Queensland’s “second-most visited stadium”, behind Suncorp Stadium. But the reality is that’s because the vast majority of its 782,000 annual visits are made by those attending community and school sports carnivals (with the remainder of those “visits” being a generous repeated-counting of the athletes who train there).

If Premier Miles really cared about a legacy for athletics in this state, he would not waste $1.6bn on “upgrading” a facility that has been extensively upgraded over the past decade – and so already boasts first-class amenities that are well used.

Premier Steven Miles, Minister Grace Grace speaks to the media explaining he will ignore the key finding in the Brisbane 2032 Olympic Games venues review. Pic: Lyndon Mechielsen

If he actually wanted to deliver a legacy for athletics, he would use the cash building training facilities across the entire state. It costs about $1m for a basic eight-lane running track – and so for $1.6bn, he could install a synthetic track at every single one of the state’s 1811 schools.

Further, if his motivation was actually to back elite sports, the Premier would also be scrapping his existing plans to hold the swimming events in a temporary pool at the new Brisbane Arena at Roma Street Parkland in favour of a “legacy venue” for swimming too – a sport that is far more popular here than athletics, and that we are more competitive internationally in.

No, this $1.6bn QSAC debacle is simply a way for Mr Miles to avoid having to wade, in the shadow of the upcoming state election, into the controversial topic of the actual need for a new inner-city stadium – a project whose cost would be well and truly covered by the venues allocation that is already included his own state budget, and offset by economic benefits into the future.