Opinion: Indigenous cultural centre another costly distraction from Games

We’ve heard enough about legacies. What people want now is proof we can stage the Olympics, writes Mike O’Connor.

Former premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, pictured with Brisbane Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner in Tokyo in 2021, allegedly made Indigenous reconciliation part of the state’s Olympic bid.

Another day and another project promoted as adding to the legacy of the 2032 Olympics, its proponents hitching a ride on a five-ringed bandwagon already dangerously overloaded with experts and coat-tuggers.

This time it’s for an Indigenous Cultural Centre, which it is being claimed would be popular with international visitors, with South Bank or Kurilpa Park – Musgrave Park to most – at South Brisbane suggested sites.

The Crisafulli government inherited a business case for the project from the Miles government which spent $3m on it, one which is said to put construction costs of the centre at around $300m.

Given that any costings arrived at under the previous government have proved to be what could most kindly be described as elastic, it would be a brave soul who placed any faith in that figure being accurate, it being far more likely to be the tip of a large financial iceberg.

Cameron Costello, deputy chair of the Brisbane 2032 Legacy Committee, who is also head of the First Nations Tourism Council, has said that such a centre could be uniting for Queensland in view of the failure of the Voice to Parliament referendum and the newly elected state government’s termination of the truth-telling and treaty inquiry.

The suggestion that we need to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in order to feel united will be news to all those Queenslanders who didn’t feel that they lived in a state of disunity.

Brisbane 2032 Legacy Committee deputy chair and First Nations Tourism Council head Cameron Costello

The reality is that the referendum was a democratic process which saw the people speak their minds, and the truth-telling inquiry was closed down because that was what the Crisafulli government said it would do if elected and people voted for it on that basis.

Any suggestion that as a state we should somehow suffer a burden of collective guilt which can be lifted by building a cultural centre is, I would suggest, a bit of a stretch.

Aboriginal leader Mick Gooda has weighed in on the debate, suggesting that former premier Annastacia Palaszczuk promised the International Olympic Committee that there would be treaties with Indigenous people in Queensland as part of her pitch to get the Games for which nobody else put up their hand.

“I think this government doesn’t know the commitments that Annastacia made to get the Olympics, an important part of her pitch in Japan was that there would be treaties with Indigenous people in Queensland, and now they’ve wiped it,” he said.

“I’m hearing from both the Australian Olympic Committee and the International Olympic Committee, they’re a little bit concerned about what happened when they repealed that legislation.

“So I think it is now up to the current government to do something that actually says they’re committed to reconciliation because that was a big selling point for Queensland to get the Olympics.”

The Olympics are a sporting contest and not a platform from which to promote political and social agendas and it hardly falls within the remit of the AOC or IOC to intrude upon government policy, regardless of what promises, ill-advised or otherwise, the former Premier may have made.

Aboriginal leader Mick Gooda

If Olympic officials are concerned at policies which have been endorsed by Queensland voters, then I would suggest thar it is something with which we can live.

LNP powerbroker David Goodwin has called on the government to resist what he describes as “infuriating calls” for money to be spent on costly unproductive assets which create ongoing expenses.

“The real conditions of Indigenous people are not advanced one millimetre by Indigenous museums. Indigenous families are better served by productive industry that can offer real employment and opportunities for Indigenous families,” he said, while Tourism Minister Andrew Powell has said the government was still considering whether it could support the project, with a decision expected soon.

The state and federal governments already spend significant sums on Indigenous culture and tourism aimed at promoting employment and business opportunities, encouraging entrepreneurship and exposing visitors to Indigenous culture, a far more effective use of taxpayer funds than creating a bricks and mortar edifice.

If tourists wish to explore Indigenous culture they should visit the Queensland Museum, which boasts of its “commitment to ensuring the vibrant living culture and history of First Nations peoples’ stories, perspectives and heritage are authentically represented, celebrated and shared”.

We’ve heard enough about legacies. What people want now is proof we can stage the Olympics.

Based on progress to date, you’d have to wonder.

LNP powerbroker David Goodwin