Games infrastructure and co-ordination authority chair Stephen Conry made declarations over ‘perceived conflicts of interest’

Stephen Conry insists he lodged declarations to address any ‘perceived conflicts of interest’ between his former high-flying corporate job and heading the agency charged with getting the 2032 Games build back on track.

Queensland’s Olympic projects delivery authority chairman and former JLL CEO Stephen Conry. Picture: Glenn Hunt

The chairman of Queensland’s avowedly independent Olympics project authority helped develop and promote the plan for a key Games venue now being evaluated by his agency.

Stephen Conry was chief executive of commercial real estate group Jones Lang LaSalle Australia when it announced a deal in 2019 to “advance” the original concept for Brisbane Arena, the $2.5bn hall earmarked for the Olympic swimming in 2032.

This was not publicly acknowledged at the time he was appointed to the Games independent Infrastructure and Coordination Authority in November to conduct a 100-day review of the troubled venues program for new Liberal National Party Premier David Crisafulli, though Mr Conry insisted he had lodged declarations covering any perceived conflicts of interest.

Ethics experts said care was needed to avert integrity issues that could undermine public confidence in the review’s keenly awaited findings.

Mr Conry is also on record while still at JLL, a big player in the multibillion-dollar office leasing market, emphatically backing the plan for Brisbane Arena put forward by Brisbane-based events promoter Harvey Lister.

Mr Conry told radio 4BC on August 22, 2021 that the 17,000-seat auditorium first proposed by Mr Lister as a tricky build above Roma Street railway station in the CBD was a “great idea” that was “desperately needed” by the city.

The Weekend Australian is not suggesting any impropriety on Mr Conry’s part in relation to his past advocacy of the project or JLL’s involvement in its early development – merely that he has stated a preference for it.

A source inside the delivery authority said Brisbane Arena had barely featured in the review to date and was expected to be green-lit when the findings were made public on March 8. The project was “not getting the scrutiny it demands”, the source warned.

In a statement issued on Mr Conry’s behalf on Friday, GIICA said he had registered declarations in accordance with standard board practice on his appointment, pursuant to the Brisbane Olympic and Paralympic Games Arrangements Act, to “cover any perceived conflicts of interest, including the Brisbane Arena concept”.

“During a long and distinguished career based in Queensland, Mr Conry was involved with firms working on many of the state’s biggest projects and concepts,” the statement continued.

“Well before his retirement from JLL three years ago, the company provided consulting advice in the early development of the then Brisbane Live proposal in 2019. Mr Conry was not involved directly in that work and it has no bearing on completing his current responsibilities as GIICA chairman.”

But state Opposition Leader Steven Miles, the former Labor premier defeated by Mr Crisafulli in October, stepped up his criticism of how the seven-member body headed by Mr Conry was selected by the LNP. Mr Conry is personally close to former premier Campbell Newman, and donated $12,679 to the LNP in seven instalments between 2019 and 2021, Electoral Commission of Queensland records show.

Mr Newman made a point of thanking Mr Conry and his family for their support in his first speech to state parliament in 2012.

Mr Miles called on Mr Crisafulli and Deputy Premier Jarrod Bleijie, who has oversight of the Games build as Minister for State Development, Infrastructure and Planning, to detail the selection and vetting process. “While each (board) member is qualified in their own right, the veil of secrecy in which they were chosen has marred the authority’s independence,” Mr Miles said.

“It’s time the LNP revealed what selection process was undertaken and if any conflicts were disclosed to ensure the decision-making of this authority is not undermined.”

Applied ethicist Simon Longstaff said that while he could not comment directly on Mr Conry’s situation, it was critical to public confidence in positions such as his at GIICA that potential conflicts of interest were disclosed.

“As a matter of prudence when trust is at stake, you typically would expect that a person would make a point of disclosing anything that a citizen might wish to know in terms of evaluating the recommendations they make,” said Dr Longstaff, executive director of The Ethics Centre in Sydney.

“You would do it in advance to avoid any possible risk that the recommendations might be undermined by the perception that there had been a conflict, even if it wasn’t there.”

An artist’s impression of the proposed Brisbane Arena. The new major event venue will be one of two Brisbane 2032 Olympics and Paralympics aquatic venues.

AJ Brown, a specialist in public integrity and accountability at Griffith University, said Mr Conry’s past activism for Brisbane Arena was problematic. “While it is to be expected that members of the board would have a variety of past and current interests, it’s obviously more desirable if members have not been active protagonists in support of particular solutions,” said Professor Brown, a member of the Queensland government’s Public Sector Governance Council and chair of Transparency International Australia.

“This past involvement increases the pressure on the other six board members to show that the final decisions are truly independent and objective.”

Defending Mr Conry as a highly- regarded Queensland business leader who also had served as ­national president of the Property Council of Australia, a spokesman for Mr Bleijie said all members of the GIICA board had a “duty to manage any real or perceived conflicts of interest, like any other government-appointed board”.

Brisbane Arena is the most important and most expensive 2032 Olympics venue to be proposed after the yet-to-be-settled main stadium, and will be funded by the federal government for a capped price of $2.5bn through a $7.1bn cost split with Queensland.

The swimming competition was to be conducted there in a drop-in pool.

Mr Lister styled the project as Brisbane Live when he floated it more than 15 years ago, capturing the local public’s imagination. As chairman and chief executive of ASM Global Asia Pacific, operating one of the nation’s largest stadium and events management businesses, he professes to retain intellectual property over the project.

JLL in 2019 trumpeted the engagement of its strategic consulting team by Mr Lister’s then company, AEG Ogden, to “support the development of a market-led proposal” to deliver the arena in the Roma Street Station precinct.

But mounting concern about cost overruns on the technically challenging build – the auditorium was to have been erected on a platform over the tracks while trains continued to run – last year forced Mr Miles to relocate the project to the nearby Roma Street Parkland.

Mr Conry and the GIICA board have the discretion to move the arena again or ditch it. One school of thought holds that the arena funds could be redirected to the new 60,000-seat Olympic ­stadium tipped for Victoria Park on the northern fringe of the CBD and widely expected to be backed by the 100-day review; another is for the hall to be shifted to a cleared site adjacent to the ageing Gabba ground formerly occupied by the state government’s printer.

“It has a life of its own and is not getting the scrutiny it demands,” the GIICA source said of Brisbane Arena. “The only question seems to be whether it will remain at the Roma Street gardens or go to the old GoPrint site at the Gabba.”

Victoria Park appeared to be the “proposal of least resistance”, the source said – though the question begged how the $3.4bn-plus development would be funded.

GIICA refused to be drawn on the speculation, with a spokesperson saying: “We will not pre-empt outcomes that may arise out of the review by providing commentary on any of the venues.”