Palaszczuk government pondering changing the 2032 Brisbane Olympic Games to traditional indigenous name of Meanjin

The Brisbane 2032 are struggling to find their “brand” to sell the Olympics, but will a political push to rename Brisbane to the traditional name Meanjin solve this problem?

International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach and Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk at the Sofitel Hotel, Sydney in 2022 discussing the Brisbane 2032 Olympic Games. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Jeremy Piper

Eyebrows were raised when Cindy Hook, the chief executive of the Brisbane 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games, told the International Olympic Committee in Lausanne on Wednesday that people in Queensland and Australia do not know what “the Brisbane brand” is.

If the locals are uncertain, what do the big international companies think? For they are the ones that will help bankroll the commercial stream of $US1.7bn to underpin a huge component of the $5bn 2032 Brisbane Olympics and Paralympics budget.

With stereotypical associations of sharks, heat, beaches and sport, the Brisbane image mirrors other Australian cities, certainly in terms of international perception. Interstate patrons might recall the Gabba, the humidity, or even Brisbane Expo which sparked a major re development of the Brisbane River decades ago.

Brisbane Olympics chairman Andrew Liveris wants to hone in on the Queensland capital apart from the better known cities of Sydney and Melbourne because of its “lifestyle superpower”.

But will identifying with a relaxed, easy going, sun-kissed Games be a big enough attraction to pull in the dollars?

Technically, Brisbane officials can’t sign major deals until well after the Paris Olympics next year, but the organisers are looking at whether to buy the rights from the IOC to go to the market early. Mr Liveris hinted that some of the big global players involved in the AUKUS submarine build might be suitable partners.

Yet some hesitancy about tying up early deals – instead focusing on getting the groundwork right in the next two years – could lie in a whisper doing the political halls of Queensland parliament that was aired on 4BC radio this week: that the Greens and Indigenous groups are encouraging the Annastacia Palaszczuk government to officially change the name of Brisbane to its Indigenous precedent, Meanjin.

Notwithstanding the political uproar about this, if the state ­government wanted to move halfway, it could push to add “Meanjin” to the Games title. The 2032 Olympics could be known as the Brisbane-Meanjin Olympic and Paralympic Games, instantly propelling Indigenous causes and history to the forefront of the ­billions of viewers.

Indigenous Turrbal and Jagera peoples inhabited the Brisbane area, and Meanjin is derived from the Turrbal word for “spear”, reflecting on Fisherman Island’s ­geography to the east of the city. Brisbane was named after astronomer and former NSW governor Sir Thomas Makdougall Brisbane in 1834, replacing the earlier name of Edenglassie.

Changing Brisbane’s name would be momentous, and require much more detailed consultation with Queenslanders, but the government is understood to have been emboldened from the lack of controversy surrounding the recent name change of Fraser Island to K’Gari, the traditional name given to it by the Butchulla people. Ayers Rock was changed to Uluru without any pain.

The political positioning of both parties about this topical issue in the lead-up to the next state election in late 2024, as well as the result of the voice referendum this year, may well impact on the timing of releasing the Games’ “look”: the logos, colours, tag lines and advertising images, and potentially how attractive the Games are to a swag of different sponsors to swell the bottom line.

While any name change would be costly, the Games officials have from day one strongly linked their organisation to Indigenous causes, especially young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander athletes. Is their “brand” staring them in the face?