Max Chandler-Mather (Griffith, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Moreton is over there interjecting, and, clearly—is it the case, then, that the Labor Party support destroying a local public school for a four-week sporting event? It's disgraceful. It's not only the school but also Raymond Park, which is home to a local football club and community garden, and which hundreds of people use every day. Never mind the fact that the IAC has said that they don't need to destroy the Gabba stadium and they could just use the existing athletic track at the Carrara Stadium. This is billions of dollars in public money that is being used to destroy a school and a public park for a four-week sporting event.

I want the parents of East Brisbane State School and the broader area to know that we stand with them. We are going to fight as hard as we can to get the federal government to drop its support for this disastrous decision and, at the very least, renegotiate an Olympics infrastructure plan that puts the parents of East Brisbane State School and the broader community of Brisbane first. They must renegotiate a plan that is what was promised in the first place, which is an Olympics that has a low impact on the city.

The joke of it is that we keep hearing that this is going to have a long-term benefit for Brisbane. Right now, the long-term benefit for Brisbane is the destruction of a public school, the destruction of a public park, years of disruption and a huge infrastructure project that isn't going to give the benefit that Brisbane needs. What Brisbane really needs, by the way, is more public schools, more hospitals and more investment in local infrastructure, community parks, and public and affordable housing. Instead, we're getting this disastrous decision, going against the wishes of over 90 per cent of the local area. I think it's demonstrative of the fact that the Labor government will go around talking about how they care about public education and community infrastructure but in the same breath they will make a decision like this.

Now their decision is to move East Brisbane State School entirely out of its existing catchment. Coorparoo Secondary College is a wonderful school, but when you're telling East Brisbane and Kangaroo Point—two of the fastest-growing areas in inner-city Brisbane—that they're not going to have a public school, what does that say about how much Labor cares about public education? What does that say about how much Labor cares about community infrastructure and public parks? Again, this is all for a four-week sporting event and could cost upwards of $6.7 billion, based on the blowout costs. Imagine what $6.7 billion could do for Queensland. We now know that what Labor wants to do with it is destroy a school and a park. It's disgraceful.

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