Barnaby Joyce uses Brisbane Olympics win as example of acting on ‘vision’

The visionary state of Queensland has pushed Brisbane from a “big country town” to a future host of the Olympic Games in a single generation, Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce says.

The visionary state of Queensland has pushed Brisbane from a “big country town” to a future host of the Olympic Games in a single generation, Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce says.

Mr Joyce, in a rallying cry to the party faithful at the LNP state convention on the weekend ahead of a 2022 federal election, used Brisbane as an example of how identifying opportunity and acting on “vision” had turned the once big country town into a “city that has developed so much in our own lives”.

“From a big country town, to a great city, not just for Australia but in the world,” he said.

“And we have that vision in Queensland, and we need a government that has the capacity to take that vision a step ahead, a step ahead, to go forward.”

Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce says Brisbane securing the 2032 Olympics was visionary. Picture: Brendan Radke

Prime Minister Scott Morrison also spruiked the federal government’s involvement in Brisbane’s successful 2032 Olympic Games bid, reiterating the “50:50” agreement with the state meant the entire process would be “shared”.

“The Queensland Government called us and said they can’t do it on their own, they won’t be able to proceed with the bid, unless there is a partnership of this nature, so we committed to that,” he said.

“But we just didn’t commit the funding, we committed to a full partnership on all the decisions, whether it’s from who goes on the organising committee and the establishment of the Olympic co-ordination authority, all the way through to those other decisions that will be a shared process.”

It comes as Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk spent her birthday in hotel quarantine after arriving home from Tokyo on Sunday morning.

Originally published as Barnaby Joyce uses Brisbane Olympics win as example of acting on ‘vision’