Premier Steven Miles backs push for Australian Institute of Sport’s move to Queensland
Steven Miles has brutally sledged Canberra amid a push for the Australian Institute of Sport to be moved to Queensland.
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Steven Miles has backed a push for the Australian Institute of Sport to be moved from the national capital to Queensland, declaring “Canberra’s an awful place”.
The Courier-Mail today revealed former Australian Institute of Sport chair John Wylie and director Andrew Fraser were calling for state and federal leaders to abandon the ageing facility in Canberra’s northern suburbs and relocate it to Queensland ahead of the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
The pair urged the federal and state government to unite and move the “past its use-by date” Australian Institute of Sport from Belconnen to Brisbane before the 2032 summer Games.
It’s a bold bid the Queensland Premier said he emphatically supports.
“I think everything should move from Canberra to Brisbane – Canberra’s an awful place,” Mr Miles said.
“Who would want to go to Canberra?
“Why would we send our best athletes to Canberra when they could be here in Queensland experiencing the superior weather here, the great lifestyle and, of course, the fantastic economy which means that they can have jobs for those who are still working.”
When pressed on the practicalities of the proposal, Mr Miles said the logistics were a matter for the federal government but said the large number of elite sporting talent in Queensland meant the relocation was sensible.
“Queensland does make up the bulk of our Olympics team and our Paralympics teams – Queenslanders outperform all of the other states,” he said.
“Whenever I talk to athletes, they would prefer to be training here in Queensland than in Canberra, and I don’t blame them – I hate going to Canberra too.”
Canberra’s Australian Institute of Sport was conceived following the disappointing performance at the Montreal Olympic Games in 1976.
The 2021 announcement of Brisbane as the host of the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games prompted mounting calls for the institute to be moved to Brisbane.
In response, an independent review commissioned by the federal government, led by Sport Inclusion Australia CEO, and Brisbane 2032 Organising Committee director, Robyn Smith, this month recommended the Australian Institute of Sport remain in Canberra.
Sport Minister Anika Wells, a Queenslander, argued relocating the facility would compromise athlete preparation for the Brisbane 2032 Olympic Games.
Mr Wylie and Mr Fraser, a former state Labor treasurer and current Griffith University chancellor, said the perfect location for the new home of the Australian Institute of Sport should be where the current Queensland Academy of Sport is located – on the site of the 1982 Commonwealth Games at Nathan.
“Rather than focusing on the need for maximum capacity seating in a stadium for a two-week event, let’s build world class, enduring sporting facilities and build enough permanent seating augmented with temporary seating,” the statement said.
“Imagine a design redolent of the original Athenian Olympic amphitheatres.
“It would look like no other Olympics, and with sporting and athlete requirements as the guiding design principles it would be loved by the athletes and the investment utilised well into the future.”
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