Editorial: Now let’s make new stadium plan happen

A proposed new boutique stadium at the showgrounds is the best option for Brisbane. Now starts the negotiations, but the clock is ticking, writes the editor.

An artist’s impression of the proposed new boutique stadium

As we have previously stated in this column, the development of the RNA Showgrounds site into a boutique 20,000-seat stadium to host AFL and cricket during the Gabba’s years-long Olympic rebuild is the best option for Brisbane.

So we welcome the Palaszczuk government’s decision to put $50m towards the estimated $150m cost of the project, with the hope that Brisbane City Council, the RNA, cricket and AFL will stump up the rest.

As Sport Minister Stirling Hinchliffe stated on Thursday, a refurbished showground would leave a lasting legacy for Brisbane, and isn’t that what the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games are all about?

However, there appears much work to do before any funding agreement can be signed off on, with the other stakeholders in the project left in the dark about the announcement until the 11th hour.

Now starts the negotiations, but the clock is ticking, with the Gabba demolition beginning in 2026.

This is the best option. Now the stakeholders just need to find a way to make it happen.

COVER-UPS WORSE THAN BLOWOUTS

Good on Queensland Labor senator Anthony Chisholm for calling out Transport Minister Mark Bailey’s continued reluctance to share the true cost of big projects with the public.

Twice in recent months Mr Bailey has been caught trying to hide the latest cost estimates of two of the biggest projects in his portfolio – the Gold Coast Faster Rail Project and the Queensland train manufacturing program.

We finally discovered this week that the Gold Coast project has blown out by $3.1bn – to $5.7bn in total – but only because the federal government published the figure, much to the embarrassment of a till-then ducking-and-weaving Mr Bailey. Mr Bailey’s response? Blame the feds for breaking an embargo rather than offering any considered explanation for the higher figure.

And in August, we reported that Mr Bailey had spent many weeks avoiding telling the public that the cost of the government’s flagship train manufacturing program had soared by $2.4bn to $9.4bn.

We understand the political embarrassment involved in having to admit to such big increases. But it is the public’s money and by now you’d think most politicians would have learnt that the cover-up is worse than the crime. (Not that we’re accusing Mr Bailey of a crime, just a rather-too-clever-by-half lack of frankness.)

Mr Bailey needs to take the advice of Senator Chisholm who said this week, in relation to the Gold Coast rail project, which is being part-funded by the federal government, “he should be upfront with the people of Queensland and actually say these things are costing more”.

“That’s what we’ve tried to do federally. The state government need to be upfront about that as well.” Indeed. But more than that, the Palaszczuk government needs to accept at least some responsibility for these multibillion-dollar cost increases, which also include the $960m blowout in the now $6.3bn Cross River Rail project.

We accept there are all sorts of external reasons why project costs blow out, and Mr Bailey seems to have listed most of them in his various defences of the new, higher prices – from Covid and the war in Ukraine, to changes in scope and weather events.

But Mr Bailey completely fails to acknowledge such state government initiatives as the Best Practices Industry Conditions Policy, otherwise known as the “CFMEU tax”, which sets a new “high floor” for construction wages and conditions for big publicly funded projects.

A recent report compiled by the Queensland Major Contractors Association, Construction Skills Queensland and Oxford Economics claims the new policy could boost construction industry wages by up to 30 per cent in the next five years, with a corresponding fall in productivity.

And even more galling is the blitheness with which Mr Bailey and Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk suggest that voters aren’t really all that interested in the final cost of big projects.

“People care about what infrastructure we’re going to build for a growing population. I don’t think they’re really interested in insider media questions about what time and place and what were you doing when you heard this figure,” Bailey recently offered in defence of his tardiness in sharing the latest project cost figures.

All we can say is that even if that were the case – and we’re not sure it is – surely the government itself should be intimately concerned with getting best value for taxpayers’ money.

But more importantly, there is an obligation to keep the public updated on what they are essentially paying for. They have a right to know.

Responsibility for election comment is taken by Chris Jones, corner of Mayne Rd & Campbell St, Bowen Hills, Qld 4006. Printed and published by NEWSQUEENSLAND (ACN 009 661 778). Contact details here

Originally published as Editorial: Now let’s make new stadium plan happen