Taxpayers to spend $7.1 billion on infrastructure for 2032 Brisbane Olympic Games

A whopping $2.7bn will be allocated to redevelop the Gabba as Brisbane’s Olympic stadium, with planning, and logistics also winning significant funding.

An artist’s impression of the new Gabba, which will host the Brisbane 2032 Olympics and provide an update experience for cricket and AFL fans. Picture: File

Brisbane’s 2032 Olympic Games will cost taxpayers $7.1 billion over the next decade, the Queensland Budget papers show.

The cost, to be split between the federal and Queensland governments, includes $2.7 billion to redevelop the Gabba as the main Olympic stadium.

The Brisbane Arena will cost $2.5 billion and 16 venues will be built or upgraded at a cost of $1.9 billion.

The budget papers forecast $1.9 billion will be spent over the next four years.

Starting in 2024/25, $154 million will go to Economic Development Queensland to fast-forward delivery of public infrastructure, including land for the Brisbane Athlete Village.

The revitalisation of Woolloongabba will include an active travel corridor to South Bank and the CBD, with the rebuilt Gabba stadium to anchor a major urban renewal project connecting Cross River Rail and the Brisbane Metro. Graphic: File

The Budget has poured in an extra $100.3 million to be spent on Olympic planning over the next four years.

Planning through the Brisbane 2032 Coordination Office is projected to cost $13.6 million per year.

The budget papers show the office will plan and design venues and athlete villages, as well as transport, environment, First Nations involvement and security issues.

“The office … will work closely with the Organising Committee for the Brisbane 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games to ensure government meets its contractual commitments and targets with the International Olympic Committee,’’ the Budget papers state.

The Queensland Government will also contribute $44 million towards the University of Queensland’s proposed Paralympic Centre of Excellence.

The centre would train para-athletes in the lead-up to the Games, with the potential to become a long-term home for Paralympics Australia.

The funding will pay for an international standard sports venue, a wheelchair and prosthetics workshop, and testing and rehabilitation facilities.

Construction, which will depend on a federal government contribution, is expected to start in 2025/26 with completion two years later.

Public safety and security arrangements for the 2032 Games will receive an extra $7.5 million over the next four years.

The Olympics funding is part of a record $89 billion in infrastructure spending over the next four years, which Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk boasted would be “Queensland’s Big Build’’, with two-thirds of money spent outside the Brisbane region.

Capital works spending will total $20.3 billion in 2023/24.

Nearly $10 billion will be poured into the health system to provide 2200 more hospital beds over the next six years.

Seven health clinics – dubbed “satellite hospitals’’ – will be built in southeast Queensland at a cost of $380 million.

Queensland taxpayers will spend $6.3 billion for the Cross River Rail – the largest transport project ever undertaken in Queensland, linking trains below the Brisbane River – with $1.5 billion in financing through a public-private partnership.

The budget also pours money into upgrading the M1 Pacific Motorway, the Bruce Highway, the Coomera Connector, and building the third state of the Gold Coast Light Rail.

Water infrastructure will be upgraded in regional areas, including stage two of the Haughton Pipeline, the Rockwood Weir and the South West Pipeline.

Infrastructure Minister and deputy Premier Steven Miles said Queensland was in a “golden decade of opportunity’’.

“Queensland is the fastest growing state, with more population growth than we’ve seen in a long time,’’ he said.

“We are ensuring Queenslanders have the essential services they need’’.

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