Linda White (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I want to make a few comments on the interim report on Australia's preparedness to host the Olympic, Paralympic and Commonwealth Games and the committee process today. To begin with, I want to thank the secretariat of the rural and regional affairs and transport Senate committee. Juggling multiple, demanding inquiries takes real effort, but the Senate committee staff meet the challenge every time, so thank you.

Firstly, I want to address some of the commentary that has been made about Victoria's international reputation following the cancellation of the Commonwealth Games and the doubt that has been cast on Victoria's ability to host major events. As the committee heard, Melbourne is the only city in the world that hosts both a tennis grand slam and a Formula 1 grand prix. It hosts the Melbourne Cup and the AFL grand final and is the only city in the world that has six international standard sporting facilities on the fringe of the CBD.

As a former director of the Melbourne Cricket Ground Trust, I can tell you that there is no place in Australia or, indeed, the region that is more revered and sought after to host events than Victoria. Just last week, a quarter of a million people went to the AFL finals over three days. The AFL finals season is a huge event in itself. To argue that somehow Victoria's ability or reputation in pulling off large events has been irreparably damaged is to miss the point, because Victoria demonstrates that this isn't the case on a weekly basis and the culture of Victorians going to events remains unchanged.

It's also worth pointing out that the nature of hosting events like the Commonwealth Games is obviously changing. Clearly, hosting the Commonwealth Games at this point in time is difficult. We know this because, in addition to the Victorian decision, we saw the Commonwealth Games move from Durban to Birmingham in 2022 due to financial reasons and we also saw little appetite to take on the 2026 games initially. Of course, in the last month or so, we have seen Alberta step back from a future bid to host the games in Canada.

In relation to Victoria, the committee also heard about the impact that the compressed time frames for the games had on getting the planning right. There are also disruptive economic factors at play that are important and supply-side constraints that make planning and hosting more challenging than in the past. Supply-chain issues, shortages of essential building materials and a war in Europe, as well as domestic and global inflationary pressures, are all playing a part in making things more difficult, it seems, not just for Victoria but for many stakeholders involved in these events. It is important we acknowledge these pressures.

In relation to the Brisbane 2032 Olympics: with nine years to go and one of the longest lead times in recent Olympics history, it's important to highlight the evidence the committee received from the Australian Olympic Committee and the Organising Committee for the Olympic Games, which is that the International Olympic Committee is satisfied with the development, costing and progress of the Brisbane games so far. That is worth repeating: according to the International Olympic Committee in Switzerland, the Brisbane 2032 Olympic Games are on track. From that point of view, while I think there is some utility for the Senate to be examining Australia's capacity to host the games nine years out, as you would expect, consultation with the community is still ongoing and some details are yet to be finalised. That is not only normal but what you would expect for an event of this scale which is slated to take place in nine years time.

I also want to make a few observations about the development of the Gabba. That stadium in the heart of Brisbane is due to be the central focal point of the games. At the conclusion of the games, the Gabba will also function as a world-class sporting venue for Queensland. Given this dual purpose, it is not unreasonable by any stretch for the Queensland government to upgrade the stadium. My experience on the MCG Trust tells me that stadiums have a relatively short life span. It is an international infrastructural standard that is constantly improving itself, which means that you can't have the primary Olympic venue not being state of the art. What is more, you cannot use an old venue that has limited disability access, restricted change room use for women and inefficient seating capacity to host an Olympics. I also note that this plan to redevelop the Gabba fits with the IOC's New Norm approach to Olympic infrastructure, where hosts must only build new infrastructure where there is a demand for it post the Olympics to avoid the construction of any white elephants and the cost of upkeeping them.

On that New Norm and infrastructure point, I just want to draw out what I have found to be a central tension of this inquiry. On the one hand, national sporting organisations want state-of-the-art venues and infrastructure in which to train, compete and grow their sports. But, on the other hand, we have governments, as well as the International Olympic Committee and the Australian Olympic Committee, committing to the New Norm, which dictates that taxpayers shouldn't fund the construction of venues that won't have decent demand attached to them after the games. Both of these points of view are understandable, and the tension between them demands that we strike a genuine balance between them in the design, execution and planning of infrastructure for sporting events of the kind the committee is looking at.

Given that, it is a shame that the coalition senators on this inquiry have not actually engaged with the central questions. What do we build? When do we build it? For whom do we build it? On the other hand, the coalition has criticised the Queensland government for apparently misplaced infrastructure programs, which in fact develop venues that are needed in Queensland after the Olympics. They claim that the plans for venues are unwieldy and uncertain and that the support from the Commonwealth doesn't go far enough.

On the other hand, in relation to the Commonwealth Games in Victoria, the coalition go the other way. Despite the Victorian government pledging that $2 billion will be spent on the development of regional venues in consultation with councils and sports, according to the coalition rhetoric, Victorian sport infrastructure is being left behind and national sporting organisations in Australia will never recover. Critics can't have it both ways. It's difficult to claim that the Olympics in Brisbane is too showy and doesn't have enough behind it, and then in the next breath suggest that changes to the Victorian government's original plans for sporting infrastructure were too ambitious and too uncertain and therefore will be the ruin of community infrastructure and national sporting organisations in Victoria.

Of course, these things are never as clear cut as that. The fact is that regional Victoria will get legacy infrastructure under the Victorian government's withdrawal plan, and Queensland will get legacy infrastructure under the Olympic plan. National sporting organisations will get improvements and investments under both plans. It is a decent and fair balance that I think both the Queensland and Victorian governments have struck. In my view, they have found a way to balance the central tension of large-scale sporting event planning in the modern day—that is, resisting building new venues and infrastructure that turn into white elephants while still providing state-of-the-art venues and facilities for the years following.

Finally, I want to address another issue that came up in the committee process, which is the question of federal government funding for the Brisbane 2032 Olympics and infrastructure programs. There have been claims that the government is cutting Olympic infrastructure projects. This is not true. The government has guaranteed funding for 16 minor venues, plus the construction of the Brisbane area. This, of course, stands in contrast to the inaction of the previous government, who never committed to anything. In July 2021, former prime minister Scott Morrison promised to fund the Olympics fifty-fifty. Of course, as was often the case with the former government, money was promised and never delivered. In the life of the Morrison government, not a cent was allocated in a federal budget to the Brisbane Olympics. As usual, they announced billions of dollars in Olympic funding and then proceeded to never put the money in the forward estimates or appropriate a cent from Treasury to spend on the Olympic Games. What it actually took to get any money allocated to the Olympics in Brisbane was five months of a federal Labor government, a fact that the coalition find uncomfortable.

I'm looking forward to the last few hearings of this committee and the tabling of the final report. There is room for the Senate to look into these matters—however, I think the process is diminished by politicisation. If critics claim to care about sport, infrastructure and our international reputation then it is unhelpful to do nothing but wreck debates and politicise issues for political gain in a way that leaves no one materially better off   —not sports in Australia, not our reputation and not the Senate's understanding of the issues. It's a bit disappointing given that there are genuinely things to learn from this process and room to expand on the questions of how to deliver major events and get a great result in Brisbane in 2032. I know my Albanese government colleagues will do our best to answer these questions, so I look forward to the remainder of the committee process. I may be the last speaker, so I also seek leave to continue my remarks later.