Opinion: Brisbane 2032 Games organisation needs shake-up

The original plan for collaborative organisation of the Brisbane 2032 Games has not happened, writes Mark Stockwell.

The 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games provide a tremendous opportunity to bring forward infrastructure; transport, sporting facilities, and housing that will be required for our growing city and region, not only for the Games, but into the future. The expenditure on this infrastructure will happen in the future, regardless of the Games. The Games present an opportunity to bring this forward.

These facilities will not only ensure a great Olympics and Paralympics in 2032 but will fire up South East Queensland sports events and tourism strategies.

Olympic and Paralympic cities are usually big cities like Paris, London, Tokyo and Beijing, where sporting infrastructure is already in place. The IOC New Norm strategy makes sense if one of these cities is hosting the Games.

Brisbane deserves a world-leading Aquatic Centre. We need a 60,000 – 80,000 seat stadium and Brisbane Live Arena. The athletes’ village should be located for key worker accommodation long after the Games are over.

What a great identity and lasting legacy for all of these facilities to be part of one precinct bringing the city alive!

I was involved in the early stages of Brisbane’s bid, representing the AOC while working with the South East Queensland Council of Mayors on the original feasibility and plan. When the opportunity arose to win the Olympics and Paralympics for Brisbane, there was a general feeling of “let’s win the rights to host the Games and then we will come back and review the plan in all its detail”. This has not happened, and in talking to most presidents of Olympic and Paralympic sports, this direct consultation never took place.

This is our time to develop the world’s best Aquatic Centre for Brisbane and the surrounding region. A venue that would stage the Games in 2032 and have lasting legacy benefits for all Aquatic Sports, the broader community, and the Queensland economy.

In fact, we should bid to host the World Aquatics Championships in 2031 and use this as a test event for the Games. This new aquatics centre facility, and an upgraded Chandler aquatics facility, can be used by swimming, diving, water polo, artistic swimming and Snow Australia.

This aquatics facility will also provide the perfect opportunity to decentralise the swimming program of the Australian Institute of Sport from Canberra to Brisbane. This makes sense, as six of the 11 high-performance centres for Swimming Australia and half of the Dolphins squad are located in South East Queensland.

Swimming is a sport for life. It is Australia’s largest participation sport. The plans for Brisbane Live Arena to host swimming with a temporary pool were established in the bid documents without any consultation or engagement with Swimming Australia. There has been no indication that the construction of a permanent aquatic facility has ever genuinely been considered by the government as an alternative venue to Brisbane Live Arena until now.

We should upgrade the Gabba for football at the Olympics, then for AFL and cricket, and link it into the new Cross River Rail station. A new stadium located in the right position will mean we will have two stadiums for half the price of what the Gabba stadium was going to cost.

Brisbane Live Arena, being built over the top of four rail lines in Roma Street, is not affordable in this location and needs to be moved to be located at ground level, near our CBD.

The athletes’ village, at its planned location at Hamilton Northshore, will be right under the flight path of Brisbane Airport, and at peak times will have 116 plane movements an hour overhead. The village location needs to be reviewed and located for key worker accommodation for our CBD, universities, and hospitals.

The 60-day review is an opportunity for ideas and options to be considered. The Brisbane Organising Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games needs to take ownership of the facilities’ plan for the Games, and an independent infrastructure authority needs to be established to deliver this plan.

There are many great ideas for the success of Brisbane 2032 among the business community of Brisbane and across Australia. There needs to be meaningful consultation with each Australian Olympic and Paralympic sport on their plan for their facility and how to grow participation for their sport in Australia and the greater Pacific and Asian Region.

Queenslanders support the Brisbane 2032 Olympics and Paralympics. I want to see this turn into overwhelming support.

The Tokyo Games brought joy to so many of us isolating in our homes watching our Australian athletes with pride. The Olympic and Paralympic movement brought the world together through Covid and can continue to bring the world together to compete in peace. Brisbane will be an important part of this.

Mark Stockwell is a former chairman of the Organising Committee for the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games and a former deputy chairman of the Australian Sports Commission