‘Go for broke on Olympic stadium’, former WA premier Colin Barnett tells Brisbane
Former WA premier Colin Barnett says the template that delivered Perth’s acclaimed Optus Stadium will also work for Brisbane’s troubled 2032 Olympics venue build.
The man who commissioned the nation’s newest and most lauded multi-use stadium as a public-private partnership, former West Australian premier Colin Barnett, has challenged Brisbane Olympics organisers to “build something magnificent” for the 2032 Games and beyond.
Mr Barnett said whoever won next month’s Queensland election should pursue the PPP model that delivered the 60,000-seat Optus Stadium in Perth under a deal with his Liberal-led government to save taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars in construction costs.
“It was a cheaper way to do it,” he said of the $1.3bn project, completed in 2018. “But probably the most significant thing was that it meant … the builder had ongoing responsibility for maintenance of the site.
“There was a really strong incentive for them to make sure that the construction was as good as it could be and within budget.”
Steven Miles’ Labor government in Queensland has resisted calls to tap private funding for the multi-billion-dollar Olympics venue build co-funded by the federal government, headlined by the stadium to host the track and field competition.
Instead, Mr Miles rejected the recommendation of a review he had set up into the troubled Games infrastructure program for a new $3.4bn stadium at Victoria Park in Brisbane’s inner-north and went with the cheaper option of upgrading the Queensland Sport and Athletics Centre, constructed for the 1982 Commonwealth Games.
Liberal National Party leader David Crisafulli, confirmed as the runaway favourite to win the October 26 election in Saturday’s exclusive Newspoll for The Weekend Australian, this week blasted the QSAC plan as “horrendous” and said its prospects of proceeding were “zilch”.
Mr Barnett said the WA government had shifted 40 per cent of the $894m upfront construction cost of the Perth stadium to a consortium headed by megabuilder Multiplex under the PPP contract. The add-ons of a pedestrian footbridge over the Swan River and a new train station took the total outlay to $1.3bn.
But Queensland State Development and Infrastructure Minister Grace Grace has insisted that the “numbers don’t stack up” for a PPP on the Brisbane Olympic stadium or a new $2.5bn arena for the swimming in 2032, partly because of changes in the way state debt is calculated.
A recent Queensland Treasury discussion paper found that PPP use had declined Australia-wide from a peak of 23 projects between 2005-08 to just seven in the 2021-23 financial years.
“Accounting standards over time have clarified the treatment of PPPs, highlighting there are limited circumstances where a liability is not included in debt or net debt,” the report said.
However, the Tasmanian government remains on the hunt for investors in Hobart’s new AFL stadium, after capping its contribution to the project at $375m, less than half the anticipated cost of up to $830m.
Adrian Dwyer, chief executive of industry think tank Infrastructure Partnerships Australia, whose organisation’s research was cited by Queensland Treasury, said it was “curious” that the PPP option had been dismissed prior to a full scoping of the Brisbane Olympics stadium.
“One of the reasons PPPs are well suited to stadiums is that they’re not just built for the two weeks of an Olympics,” he said. “They have a life where there’s a substantial operational component and a substantial commercial component.
“The extent to which you can build that in at the front-end, both from a whole-of-life cost and an operational perspective and, crucially, defray the upfront cost … that’s a really sensible thing to consider.
“Actually, the analysis should be built around: if not, why not.”
Mr Barnett, in office in WA for eight years until 2017, said the Queensland government should follow Perth’s lead and go for a “magnificent” new stadium on a new site: “Build something spectacular. Don’t make it too big. And I would explore a greenfield site … because the stadium in Perth has become an entry statement for the city.”
Ms Grace responded on Friday, saying: “We’re always open to private sector proposals but we’re yet to see any which stack up for 2032 Games venues.”
Shorten: NDIS ‘showing signs of blooming’ despite rising costs
NDIS expenses were $150m below expectations in the September quarter, despite the number of participants with approved plans increasing to more than 680,000 and payments costing taxpayers $11.5bn.
Unions, miners in Pilbara IR fight
Unions have launched an extraordinary attack on BHP, Rio Tinto and the Minerals Council of Australia.