Brisbane 2032: Warning to avoid the legacy mistakes of Sydney 2000 Games
A major business leader has warned Brisbane not to repeat the incredibly costly mistake the organisers of the Sydney Olympics made in underestimating one vital element.
Brisbane must learn from the mistakes of Sydney 2000 and plan a path as one united region to reach a global footing that will last long into the afterglow of the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
That was the war cry from some of the city’s most influential decision-makers and shapers at The Courier-Mail Future Brisbane summit at The Star Brisbane on Friday.
Cochrane Entertainment director Tony Cochrane AM, Queensland’s major events special envoy, said there was no other choice but to brand South East Queensland as Brisbane and urged the room not to waste time debating it.
This story is part of The Courier-Mail’s annual Future Brisbane series that advocates for a better city and region. Read all the stories in the series here.
Future Brisbane is a Courier-Mail advocacy series supported by TechnologyOne, Brisbane Airport, The University of Queensland, Brisbane City Council, NBN, ANZ, Walker Corporation, RACQ, Carnival, Port of Brisbane, Suntory and Transurban.
“That’s how the Olympics are going to be known, that’s how they’re going to be stamped, whether we like it or not,” he said. “I don’t see it as any different to LA.
“LA is a series of villages from in the north, you’ve got Santa Barbara in the south, down to San Diego. All of those places have their own individual feel and style.
“It doesn’t matter, but they coexist quite happily as LA.”
Mr Cochrane described the moniker “South East Queensland” as a “geographer’s salad”.
Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner said billions of eyes would soon be on Brisbane and declared, “let’s use it”.
“It’s not about any council or any area losing their identity, it’s just about promotion,” he said. “Do we promote ourselves as South East Queensland, or do we promote ourselves as Greater Brisbane … it’s a no-brainer. South East Queensland is not going to fly as a global brand.”
Premier David Crisafulli said Brisbane would be promoted as the home of the 2032 Games, but individual local government areas must also be celebrated.
“By all means, promote a brand that says Brisbane as home of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, but celebrate the magic of the Gold Coast and how wonderful and how different the Sunny Coast and Noosa is,” he said. “I want people to know, no matter where they live, they’re respected and they’re valued.”
But Mr Cochrane said Brisbane must learn from the mistakes of Sydney 2000, where organisers underestimated the work needed to build the profile and branding to remain a global city post-Games.
He said Sydney’s night-time economy was killed after the Games finished and it was only just starting to be fixed 20 years later.
“The Sydney experience was terrible,” he said. “They thought, we’ve got the Olympics, we don’t need to do anything. We have to really project ourselves, and we’re very capable of doing it.
“We have to become known as a world-class city where people come for events, a world-class state … and we have to have the confidence and the courage to really have a crack.”
Urbis managing partner James Tuma said cities around the world that had a “sense of coherence” and talked about themselves in a singular way outperformed others.
“They have higher gross regional product,” he said.
“They attract higher concentrations of talent. They specialise in industries better and so … there is a significant opportunity here for us.
“The question here for us is how brave we want to be about this idea of being one region.”
Walker Corporation group executive of development Peter Saba said Brisbane was the city that would “splash up on the screens” in 2032, but that would still help sell the rest of the region.
“We want people to come to Queensland, not for one week for the Olympics,” he said.
“We want them to stay a month, and we want them to experience all the successful precincts across our region.”
Brisbane Airport CEO Gert-Jan de Graaff said he had been selling the city to the world for almost 20 years and said the beauty of it was in the diversity the region offered.
“We’ve got a vibrant city, we’ve got beautiful beaches, we’ve got quiet places like the Scenic Rim and so I think that’s actually what makes us attractive,” he said.
Australia’s most prominent demographer Bernard Salt AM, who recorded a video message for the event, said the South East needed to be already thinking about the post-Olympics from 2032 to 2050.
“My argument is that we need to be pitching and fusing this conurbation to more global opportunity that is created by the Olympics,” he said.
Mr Salt said a “culture of entrepreneurship” needed to be cultivated for success.
“We should, as a people, be in a position to admire those who build a business from scratch, that employ people that pay taxes, (are) good to the environment, that do the right thing, to model good behaviour,” he said.
“Why could we not celebrate that in somewhere like South East Queensland?
“I think that we need to be very focused and unified as a people, and to be proud of that our city, South East Queensland, is different to a Melbourne to a Sydney, and in many respects because of its lifestyle purpose, you could argue that it is better configured to deliver a better quality of life in years to come.”
REA Group senior economist Eleanor Creagh said that quality of life would be driven by how the region handled its booming population.
She said housing affordability and connectivity had deteriorated but more density would increase supply and drive cost curves down.
“That comes with things like unlocking land supply, decreasing red tape, decreasing the cost to build, targeted migration with respect to trades that we need more of,” she said.
Mr Tuma said the environment was “ripe” for modern construction to be something the region became renowned for.
“You could actually build the market certainty required to really invest very deeply in innovation in this space and actually come out of it leading the world,” he said. “It’s just another point of fame for an already amazing region.”
Sunshine Coast Mayor Rosanna Natoli said the people who would visit and move to the South East in future would care more about how seamless it was to get around than any specific council area.
“They care about the transport working,” she said.
“They care about whether or not the venues are ready. That’s what they want.”
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