Game on: What will the Gold Coast really get from the 2032 Brisbane Olympic Games

Reports suggest the 2032 Brisbane Olympics will deliver billions of dollars of infrastructure. How much will the Gold Coast get? It all depends on political games.

• Shock move: red light to light rail development
• Main Beach population to increase four times by 2040

REPORTS suggest the 2032 Brisbane Olympics will deliver billions of dollars of infrastructure. How much will the Gold Coast get? It all depends on political games.

We know our population of 710,650 will reach one million by 2041 – some say 2034.

We also know whatever pollies promise, there will be an infrastructure lag.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk announced three new Coast rail stations in the lead-up to the 2017 election. Four years later and only early works at the Pimpama, Helensvale North and Merrimac sites.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk — how much will the State give to the Coast out of the Brisbane Games. Pic Adam Head

Opposite Merrimac is Skyridge, the Coast’s new $1.5bn suburb at Worongary. Drive along on the M1 and you can see land being cleared for new homes.

A source told your columnist: “They have had about 10,000 enquiries after putting 330 blocks on the market. It was imagined to be a 15-year plan. It’s possibly now a five to 10-year plan.”

Maps and artist impressions of Skyridge, the $1.5 billion Worongary development formerly known as Pacific View Estate

Council required the developer to provide infrastructure upgrades as the project progressed. But how will the state government respond to the student pressure at Worongary school?

Let’s look further north at Pimpama, where data shows the average population growth rate between 2015 and 2020 was 25.5 per cent. The railway station is needed now.

New images showing the planned Pimpama railway station on the Gold Coast.

Same story just south at Coomera, where the state, with its planned new health precinct, is ticking off environmental boxes. However, it is yet to start the six-year-build of two 12-level hospital buildings, two five-level carparks and several other similar-size buildings.

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Council insiders say Mayor Tom Tate has sent off several letters to the state to speed up the building of the $1.5bn Coomera Connector. The first stage of the second M1 between Nerang and Coomera will take 10 years to build, and take 60,000 vehicles off the M1.

So let’s update an Olympic tally board of sorts on what’s being touted as Coast “gold”.

Buildings planned for the Coomera hospital and health precinct in the northern Gold Coast.

The cableway has no obvious proponent and the state does not seem eager to get on board and approve big pylons in the Springbrook National Park.

Labor has shown little appetite for the expensive ride of extending heavy rail to the border.

But there’s confidence inside council, despite the delays to Stage 3 from Broadbeach to Burleigh, about light rail reaching the airport and border before 2032.

Transport chiefs recently assured light rail to Burleigh being finished by 2024-25.

“The plan is to follow straight on with the work after Burleigh,” a council insider says. “That gives us six to seven years to get to the border. I think the big issue will be how the (political) games are played.”

Plans for the Coomera Connector near The Shores at Helensvale.

From a distance, relations between Labor and the LNP’s Brisbane Mayor Adrian Schrinner seem less than smooth with the Palaszczuk government supporting the Gabba rather than Albion Park as the main Olympic stadium.

Despite Mayor Tate being LNP he has remained Team Coast, and he and the Premier, along with several Ministers, have enjoyed productive working relationships in which both sides have worked hard to avoid public spats.

2032 Olympic Games announcement celebration at Kurrawa-Pratten Parklands. Picture Glenn Hampson

Into this mix is the key appointment of 2018 Commonwealth Games Corporation CEO Mark Peters to a consultancy committee at council.

So Team Gold Coast – if it plays to its strengths, these strong trusted relationships forged during the Commonwealth Games – is positioned to win more than big brother Brisbane here.

Follow @PaulWestonGC