Brisbane Olympics: John Coates backs Labor pair to get 2032 Games over the line
Olympics powerbroker John Coates insists the infrastructure build for the 2032 Brisbane Games can be better managed by two state government ministers than an independent agency.
Olympics powerbroker John Coates insists the multibillion-dollar infrastructure build for the 2032 Brisbane Games can be better managed by two state government ministers than an independent agency promised less than two years ago.
The former Australian Olympic Committee boss said the Olympic Co-ordination Authority set up for Sydney 2000 and revived in the Brisbane Games’ bid had turned out to be unnecessary.
Mr Coates said a delivery mechanism that was “fit for purpose” for Sydney and the London Olympics in 2012 would be “another layer of bureaucracy sitting over the top” if the OCA model was adopted in Brisbane.
Credited with securing two Olympics in a generation for Australia, he now sits on the Brisbane organising committee, OCOG, as well as the International Olympic Committee’s Games Optimisation Group.
“This is a very, very different task,” Mr Coates said before an OCOG board meeting on the Gold Coast on Friday. “We have got … most venues already under the control of the state. We don’t need a body to go in and have the authority to appropriate them like Sydney and London.
“London was 32 boroughs, appropriating the rowing course from Eton College – all of those things – and Sydney had to deal with new development authorities … This is far simpler and can be managed by the two ministers principally.”
Instead of an OCA, Annastacia Palaszczuk’s Labor government has brought the work in-house to a co-ordinating office for infrastructure to be overseen by Deputy Premier and State Development Minister Steven Miles and Sport Minister Stirling Hinchliffe.
“We’re very satisfied that this is far more streamlined and a very functional way of managing the process,” Mr Coates said.
Asked if it was a mistake to have included an OCA in the Brisbane bid submission to the IOC in 2021, Mr Coates said: “There will be many things in the original bid where we have found subsequently potential savings and efficiencies that will be implemented. So I wouldn’t call it a mistake, but we’ve moved on and there’s a better way of doing it.”
Former prime minister Scott Morrison’s special envoy to the 2032 Games and former OCOG director Ted O’Brien criticised the new arrangements in parliament a fortnight ago, warning the infrastructure program was “all going to be run out of the Queensland government” in breach of the original federal-state agreement on funding and shared governance.
Anthony Albanese has since reworked the deal to extricate the federal government from the controversial $2.7bn rebuild of the Gabba stadium, committing Canberra to fund the $2.5bn Brisbane Arena that will be used for the Olympic swimming and up to $935m for a suite of smaller projects. The revised intergovernmental agreement on the Games, published this week, shows the commonwealth outlay of $3.43bn for sports venues will be capped.
Ms Palaszczuk slapped down criticism of the $1.7bn blowout for the Gabba, now a state project, saying on Friday: “Stop the whinging.”
The Premier said the increase from the initial price of $1bn she quoted in 2021 happened during “project validation”, due to a surge in costs driven by the war in Ukraine.
“Can I just say this about the opposition, too – stop your whinging. Stop your whinging,” she said with Mr Coates looking on, alongside his successor as OAC president, Ian Chesterman, OCOG president Andrew Liveris, Gold Coast mayor Tom Tate, federal Sports Minister Anika Wells and Paralympics Australia president Jock O’Callaghan.
“This is going to be a fantastic Games, a fantastic legacy, and frankly we got the Games because all three levels of government have been committed to working towards these Games.”
She said the cricket and AFL stadium in central Brisbane was “reaching its end of life anyway” and would have been redeveloped regardless of the Games.
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