Southeast Queensland’s Olympic bid a vital tool in COVID-19 recovery

Sunshine Coast Mayor Mark Jamieson believes the southeast Queensland bid for the 2032 Olympics can be a powerful economic tool

Sunshine Coat Mayor Mark Jamieson is still committed to a bid for the 2032 Games Picture: Ashley Carter

Sunshine Coast Mayor Mark Jamieson believes the southeast Queensland bid for the 2032 Olympics and Paralympics can become a powerful economic tool when the region begins its recovery from the COVID-19 ­pandemic.

The Olympic bid has been put on hold for the past two months by the “candidate leadership group” to give the federal and state governments and the regional councils the chance to address all the challenges that have arisen from the coronavirus crisis.

However, once the crisis has eased, Jamieson — one of 10 regional mayors who have coalesced around Brisbane to bid for the Games — sees the Olympic bid not merely continuing but serving a vital role in the recovery.

Speaking on the Ready Set Tokyo podcast, he admitted that work on the Olympic project has been “stalled” but insisted the Council of Mayors were still fully committed to chasing and securing the 2032 Games.

He said the rationale for securing a third Olympics for Australia, following the 1956 Melbourne and 2000 Sydney Games, was to bring forward investment in transport and digital infrastructure for the region, as well as to position it globally as a destination for tourism, trade and investment.

“Our recovery from the pandemic will require the acceleration of infrastructure investment, a focus on job creation and strategies to reboot our tourism industries in the short to long term, and we see those strategies as very much aligned with our rationale for the 2032 Games,” Jamieson said.

“We have 11 councils including the five largest councils in Australia so we have not too many seats at the table, which allows us to make critical decisions for our region. We speak on behalf of one in seven Australians who live in southeast Queensland.

“But the whole state of Queensland, indeed the nation, will be the beneficiaries of the Games being staged here in 2032, not only to do with the training venues that will need to be developed in advance but the flow-on tourism and investment that will come prior to the Games and follow after the Games.”

Australian Olympic Committee president John Coates, who proposed in March that work on the project be suspended until the crisis had passed, believes that the International Olympic Committee could decide on the 2032 host city by as early as 2022.

Given the low numbers of infections in Australia and the generally impressive fashion in which it has dealt with COVIS-19, Jamieson believes those factors will be taken into account by the IOC when it makes its decision.