Brisbane 2032 Games: Anthony Albanese won’t guarantee 50:50 funding

While in Queensland Anthony Albanese has delivered some sobering news to a state government banking on support for the 2032 Games and vital infrastructure.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has delivered the state government an economic reality check on its dreams of rivers of gold, as he refused to be locked into splitting the bill on health or the 2032 Brisbane Olympics and Paralympics.

Mr Albanese, speaking exclusively to The Courier-Mail, also signalled moves on the Gabba needed to be right – and this could be refurbishment or the state government’s controversial proposal to tear it down and rebuild it.

The state government had been banking on splitting the infrastructure bill for Brisbane 2032 with their federal counterparts 50:50, as promised by the Coalition in April 2021.

And Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and Health Minister Yvette D’Ath, through the year into the May election, had called on the federal government to go halves on the state’s health spend – in what would be a $1.5bn a year windfall for Queensland.

Mr Albanese, making a pit stop on the Sunshine Coast to spruik the no-frills October budget, gave the strongest indication to date that neither of these wishes were likely to be fulfilled. But the state government can bank on support for its $62bn Queensland Energy Plan, with Mr Albanese set to tell Labor faithful at party conference on Saturday that the federal government was in “their corner on this, a partner in the work ahead”.

Annastacia Palaszczuk and Anthony Albanese at Brisbane’s Cross River Rail in August

His comments come amid a post-budget roadshow in which the government has spruiked the need for restraint on cash handouts and spending to prevent making inflation worst and adding to the cost of living crisis.

The Reserve Bank of Australia this week hiked interest rates for the seventh time in a row while warning inflation would hit 8 per cent by the end of the year and hang around longer than expected.

The former Coalition government, in the final days before Brisbane was named preferred bidder by the International Olympic Committee, agreed to go halves on the cost of infrastructure on the proviso it had equal say in the planning of the 2032 Games.

But Mr Albanese highlighted that the previous federal government had never signed on the dotted line on a promise to split the bill.

It is understood federal ministers, behind closed doors, have signalled the 50-50 split was far from a done deal, but Mr Albanese’s comments are the strongest indication yet.

He said the government was working “co-operatively” with the state to decide which “specific” Games projects it would fund.

“Federal funding for the Sydney Olympics was nothing like 50:50, but we’ll discuss cooperatively with Queensland,” Mr Albanese said.

And the infrastructure pieces will need to have a “long-term” and “transformational” impact on Queensland. Whether or not tearing down the Gabba and rebuilding it – a project set to cost $1bn on initial estimates and potentially involve bulldozing a school – fits that bill will be a matter for the state government.

“We’re not running the Brisbane Olympics,” Mr Albanese said.

“To get the right piece of infrastructure for the long-term for Queensland, whether that is refurbishment or rebuilding (of the Gabba), that is a decision for the Queensland government.

“There is no doubt the Gabba will be central to the Olympics … so it’s absolutely vital that it be got right.”

Anthony Albanese with Natalie Jarrott and Lou Youngman from Maroochydore Surf Club on the Sunshine Coast on Friday. Picture: Adam Head

Queensland, in a team effort with other Labor states, had earlier this year demanded the Coalition government pick up 50 per cent of the public health system bill in a pre-election wedge. Ms Palaszczuk on Friday praised the federal government’s efforts on health reform so far and noted she would “continue to raise 50:50 funding” alongside other premiers.

But Mr Albanese said it was the “wrong focus”.

He listed the pressures on the health system and moves the federal government had already made to start addressing them – including reforms to the aged-care system, and initial funding for urgent care clinics in a bid to take pressure off emergency departments.

“The problem with the health system isn’t the proportionate makeup of federal and state, it’s that the health system at the moment has cost shifting, it has duplication, it has some (policy) distortions,” Mr Albanese said.

“There isn’t an infinite amount of money, there isn’t 50/50 funding in the NDIS, for example. Some of the funding debate is simplistic and doesn’t look at what the solutions are; you need a system that provides incentive for care to be done in the best way for patients.”

Mr Albanese said that the private and public health systems needed reform so they could work with “Medicare at its centre” – an overhaul that he said the federal government was seeking to achieve.