Steven Miles reveals new details about phone call to Olympics boss days before stadium rejection

Steven Miles has revealed key new details about his phone call to Olympics boss John Coates just days before controversially rejecting a new stadium at Victoria Park.

• Legacy ‘sidelined’ as key body on six-month hiatus

Steven Miles has dismissed mounting concerns Queensland will be left without a major Olympic Games legacy and revealed new details about his phone call to John Coates days before rejecting a new stadium at Victoria Park.

The Premier on Monday defended the growing questions over his decision to ignore Graham Quirk’s infrastructure review and instead spend $1.6bn upgrading the Queensland Sport and Athletics Centre next to a significant koala hotspot.

He insisted the transformational legacy benefits promised to Queenslanders when the state won the Games in 2021 would happen, but be “different”.

“It’s wrong to say that this outcome doesn’t deliver legacy – it does,” Mr Miles said of the QSAC proposal.

“It’s just a different kind of legacy.

“If you look at the statements that the athletics peak bodies have said, the prospect of having a fantastic ongoing athletics legacy is a big opportunity for that.

“That existing facility is our third most-used venue and this allows us to deliver them a new track warm-up facilities and grandstand.

“It will be the first Olympics for some time, where the athletics track isn’t just ripped up after the Games.”

Queensland Premier Steven Miles with Health Minister Shannon Fentiman. Picture: Tertius Pickard

It comes after The Courier-Mail revealed State Development Minister Grace Grace was yet to convene a meeting of the government’s legacy committee and had no plans to until May.

The committee last met in November – when former minister Stirling Hinchliffe was responsible – and it had only met twice in the past year.

QSAC was dismissed early in Brisbane’s bid to host the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games and not discussed again until International Olympic Committee vice-president John Coates raised it in January.

Mr Miles, who faced criticism last week for declaring QSAC was selected on Mr Coates’s suggestion, on Monday said he was a critical stakeholder.

“I wanted to talk through with him his submission as well as the process then of negotiating with the IOC to agree on that outcome,” he said.

“I was deeply conscious that in making these changes, we are changing what we have contractually committed to the IOC to do, so it was really important that whatever we settled on, we were going to be able to agree with the IOC.”

Premier Steven Miles has revealed new details about his phone call with Olympic boss John Coates. Picture: John Feder

Mr Miles said moving to cancel the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games was “never a serious prospect” or actively considered, but acknowledged members of the Labor caucus had raised it.

“It would be surprising if we had a group of 51 members of our caucus, no one ever said should we really go ahead,” he said.

“I’m not going to deny that no one has ever asked that question or made that suggestion.”

He also repeated a previous claim the QSAC decision was made to get the “best value outcomes for Queenslanders”, despite Mr Quirk’s review finding the $1.6bn spend “does not represent value for money and has limited legacy opportunities”.

“We want to see benefits for the state but we also want to see the best use of taxpayer funds right now on the priorities that they have,” Mr Miles said.

“We’re really serious about doing it that way.”

He declined to say what role he had back in 2021 in Annastacia Palaszczuk’s dismissal of calls for an Independent Delivery Authority to drive Games-related infrastructure.

“Ultimately they were decisions of our cabinet and we all take responsibility for the decisions that are made there,” he said.

“I took individual responsibility as a minister for the infrastructure delivery program that I was responsible for.”