It’s little wonder the feds ran from a Gabba commitment

With the cost of the Gabba rebuild increasing 170 per cent before a single shovel was taken out of storage, it is little wonder the federal government sprinted Usain Bolt-style from any funding commitments.

The state’s premier cricket and AFL stadium has been a funding sticking point of the 2032 Brisbane Olympic and Paralympic Games since Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk announced a $1 billion rebuild in April 2021, less than a year after a $35 million upgrade was completed.

The Queensland government wanted the Commonwealth to jointly fund the Gabba, but Prime Minister Anthony Albanese gave that idea the thumbs down.Credit: AAP

That Gabba commitment blindsided the Morrison federal government, which had signed on to the Games bid on the basis of some very different plans.

Prior to Palaszczuk’s surprise announcement, the plan as agreed between all levels of government was to construct a modular stadium on the site of the Albion Park Raceway, near the mouth of Breakfast Creek.

Post-Olympics, the stadium would have been downsized to a boutique stadium, taking pressure off Suncorp Stadium’s increasingly crowded calendar.

Perhaps spooked by Cricket Australia’s threats to pull content in Brisbane unless the Gabba had a significant upgrade, Palaszczuk unilaterally scrapped those plans. So, for a second time, the Gabba would be the main Brisbane beneficiary of an Australian Olympic Games, having been rebuilt in the lead-up to Sydney 2000 to host Olympic football.

By the time Palaszczuk finally signed a 2032 funding agreement with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in Brisbane on Friday, the Gabba’s estimated cost had increased from $1 billion to $2.7 billion.

An almost three-fold hit to taxpayers’ hip pockets.

“This is about a legacy,” Palaszczuk said, when pressed on the spiralling costs.

“This is about a stadium that is continuously used throughout the year and the whole PDA [Priority Development Area for Woolloongabba] linking in with the Cross River Rail is going to set this state up for the future.”

A valid point. The $2.7 billion is a figure that includes connections to Cross River Rail and the Brisbane Metro, along with other precinct improvements that will see it become another CBD for the city.

But it’s also a figure that raised more than a few eyebrows in Canberra.

As Palaszczuk rightly pointed out on Friday, costs are rising the world over as commodities become scarcer and supply chains are disrupted. Major private projects in Brisbane can attest to that: both Queen’s Wharf and Waterfront Brisbane have faced significant cost overruns.

But an extra $1.7 billion?

The prospect of Commonwealth money being endlessly shovelled into a Gabba-shaped pit would be hard to explain to voters in Sydney, Melbourne or Perth, which not that long ago built a new stadium with no federal funding.

So was that the reason the federal government excised the Gabba from its funding commitments?

“Not at all,” Albanese said on Friday.

“What that is, is an acknowledgement that we want to be responsible for the Brisbane Arena project.”

Yes, Prime Minister.

Of course the cost was a factor, as this masthead revealed last month. Why else would the federal government seek to quarantine itself from the Gabba, much to the chagrin of its Labor state colleagues, if not for its own protection?

Instead, they chose what they saw as a safer route — funding the Brisbane Arena (formerly known as Brisbane Live).

While the Gabba cost has skyrocketed, the Brisbane Arena precinct has gone from a $2 billion project when it was announced in 2016 to $2.5 billion in Friday’s announcement.

A 25 per cent increase over six years is significant, to be sure. But it pales against 170 per cent in less than two years.

So the Albanese government can talk up its nation-building bona fides, while insulating its coffers from the Woolloongabba money pit. Chalk it up as a win for Canberra, and a potentially sticky wicket for the Palaszczuk government.