Ted O'Brien (Fairfax, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to put on record my concerns with recent government decisions with respect to Brisbane 2032, the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games to be held in South-East Queensland. As the former Prime Minister's representative for the bid that secured the 2032 games as former special enjoy and a director of the organising committee, I remain enormously proud and supportive of Australia hosting the world's greatest sporting event. It was a bipartisan unity ticket that helped secure those games, and each of us has reason to be proud. On that note, I also congratulate the organising committee, which by my assessment is not only well led but doing some really great work in progressing their agenda.

However, it is not the responsibility of the organising committee to deliver on infrastructure for Brisbane 2032. That is the responsibility of government and that's where my concerns lie. There are three points of context. First, when the LNP's team Queensland—the senators and MPs in this place—supported, together with the South-East Queensland Council of Mayors, the bid for 2032, we made it crystal clear that the primary motivation was improved public transport, in particular rail, and that the first step in that rail plan would be a connection through to Maroochydore.

Second, in securing the games, all parties in the Australian bid team promised to honour the International Olympic Committee's new norms. We'd keep the cost of sporting facilities down by leveraging mainly existing facilities and avoiding any new, flashy, multibillion-dollar projects. The fiscal constraint was more than just a pitch to the IOC; it was also an agreement with the Australian public, particularly the people of Queensland, that their taxpayer money would not be used in a poor way.

Third, what clinched the deal was when the Australian Prime Minister, Prime Minister Morrison, proposed to Queensland Premier Palaszczuk a 50-50 partnership between the federal and state governments—a partnership that was subject to, among other things, a shared governance model maximising private sector participation, with a separate entity to be established to manage the end-to-end procurement process. That would put it beyond politics.

Now, these three points of context also represent three compacts, each of which has subsequently been breached. First, on transport infrastructure and specifically the new rail line connecting Brisbane to Maroochydore, the coalition, as its single largest infrastructure item for transport in last year's budget, allocated $1.6 billion to the $3.2 billion project—a price tag that had been forecast as part of a business case with the Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads plus 10 per cent for additional contingency. Since then, the Queensland Labor government has sought to publicly rubbish the very business case on which their own people had worked. Then the new Labor federal government decided to postpone any release of funding for that very project. If there were any suggestion that the Queensland government actually didn't want this project done, that was put to bed when they stood with the local council and decided that Maroochydore would not be used as a place for a sporting event—the basketball preliminaries—removing one of the key arguments for having the rail line to Maroochydore. That was only in recent months.

Then, of course, we have the idea of there being no new, flashy facilities. We raised our eyebrows when the state government thought the Gabba upgrade would cost $1 billion. Now we find out it's going to cost $2.7 billion. That's not the only multibillion-dollar venue that's going to be created through this.

As for a shared governance model, that's no longer happening. As for maximising participation for the private sector, that's not going to happen either. There's not going to be a separate entity; it's all going to be run out of the Queensland government. We have a series of agreements, to which I was personally a part, all of which are being changed, breached. I give a warning to all governments: don't breach the faith with the Australian people on this one. Don't do it. (Time expired)