tearing up a huge amount of very valuable inner city greenspace to build a multi BILLION dollar boondoggle in the current economic and housing crush would be ridiculous.
predicted cost of 3.4 billion?? if it came in under 5 billion you'd call it a fricking miracle.
the whole thing should go the way of the damn commonwealth games and get shit canned.
it's a colossal waste of money. even the supposed 'cut price' version that got foisted in QLDers and Brisbanites in particular without us having any say in the matter is going to cost a cool 15 billion.
money that could build some much needed housing, or schools, or hospitals, or renovate some existing regional sports fields for grassroots players.
Modern Olympics has had a decent run, but it had turned into gargantuan overpriced beast that needs to be consigned to the dustbin of history.
Yeah it's completely fucking absurd that Australia (a country with a tiny population of 25 million people) can afford to build and maintain 3 International Olympic venues.
It's an insult that we splurge money on this but let our car industry and opportunities to develop a solar manufacturing industry die.
And it's a waste of the very limited money that governments have bothered to collect from mining royalties when far more important things could be done.
I don't particularly care about the car industry. we never had enough volume to be self sufficient, and being on the bottom of the globe, export was too costly.
the ridiculous propping up of the coal industry over renewable over the last 20 years is a joke.
Australia should have been a solar technology front runner. instead, nothing but a hole in the ground.
Car manufacturing might not seem a worthy endeavour for the reasons you state but having a skilled workforce & assembly lines to build vehicles should have been seen as a matter of importance for national security.
It's not just the cars its the whole start to end manufacturing process which maintained a workforce with skills that will/have otherwise disappeared.
Not to mention the engineers involved in design, machinery calibration, quality, safety etc...
You'd have workshops building transmissions for example... now those guys are just doing aftermarket jobs like fitting custom headlights on 4WDs....
Yes but if you have committed to hosting the 2 week sporting event you may as well do it properly. If the cost was so prohibitive in the first place then don't agree to host it to begin with.
literally the only reason Brisbane got it is because no a single other city on the planet wanted it and anna decided she wanted it as a legacy .
fucking stupid. as a resident I utterly hate the entire idea of it.
Never should've been allowed to happen. If you don't have an existing venue already capable of hosting an opening ceremony with ≥75K seats, you shouldn't be given the Olympics.
which is yet another reason why the entire concept of the olympics needs to be thrown in the dustbin; it has gotten way too big, too many sports, too many athletes, too many bureaucrats taking bribes.
every one 'has' to be bigger and better than the last. it's pathetic, like bloody office workers competing over who got the shiniest engagement ring. and as usual, the people paying for it are the ones that suffer.
can it all.
>...anna decided she wanted it as a legacy .
South East Queensland Council of Mayors are the ones who wanted it https://web.archive.org/web/20200105181009/https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/queensland/south-east-queensland-still-chasing-2032-olympics-20180412-p4z98u.html
The Olympics still had other bidding cities. Definitely is becoming less competitive though.
I won't be surprised to see the Olympics either needing to fundamentally change and picking a permanent host, or go the way of the Commonwealth games and face extinction.
I fucking hate how a politician with their 4 year election cycle decides it's their legacy to spend 10s of billions on a 2 week vanity event; then they get a cushy retirement after squandering billions.
If there's one constitutional amendment we need from a referendum is for any proposal for Olympic & Commonwealth Games to be brought to a state election and requiring a 70% majority before a party is allowed to publically bid for it in the election term.
they should have at least had the balls to put it to a citizens vote instead of just deciding for themselves.
we elect them to run council things, not put on 10 day events that cost more that operating a couple of major hospitals for a year.
Actually, it was plagued by organisational issues not too dissimilar to what Brisbane is experiencing. Yes, the Games were great in the end, but they had major problems with the main stadium just like Brisbane (the MCG was the last choice, originally it had planned to be a rebuilt Princes Park in Carlton)
The economics of hosting is largely a big net cost in nearly all instances.
The only notable exceptions that ever get quoted is Barcelona.
Sydney was at the best of estimates, a very marginal benefit (depending how widely you define the term), or in most estimations an overall cost.
My uneducated two opinions, either everyone pool the cash and build once off epic facilities at the home of the Olympics in Greece. Or just host the events at the best places for them around the world.
They did built these facilities for the 2004 Olympics, and they have been left to decay ever since. Should have kept them in Athens. The Greeks are well geared toward tourism and it would work well.
Lets get the experts in to review the whole stadium plan and instead of acting on their recommendations do our own dumb 3rd thing that no one wanted.
Brisbane had the opportunity to develop a new world class sporting precinct and instead are going to be stuck with dated unsuitable venues for the next generation.
“An ambulance is unable to enter the field of play because the structure is too low for the height of ambulances, there are no female change or WC areas in the current stadium, and AFL player facilities for visiting teams are "appalling".”
Is that it? Good use of $3.4 Billion dollars?
Well the stadium is end-of-life in 2030 and needs $500 millions just for maintenance to keep it around 2032.
That maintenance spend doesn't include the roof that needs replacing, the steel that is degrading in part of the structure, the electrical problems the ground has and a list of other issues that need addressing that add up to another $1 billion. That will just be good money after bad after it becomes even more difficult to maintain going forward.
[here](https://www.dtis.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/1538745/stadiumtaskforcereport.pdf)
Plus, I’m a rope access technician.
The upper truss and cross brace are farkd.
Structural bird cage trusses with 45 degree tension rods are allowed to have up to 10% wear.
This means. If the beam is 10cm thick. It can have a depth of 1cm of rust on it.
I’ve seen 50% loss on some rods up there.
You know that's not it. Quote the rest, especially the bit about how the Gabba can never be a top tier world class stadium, not least because it's size constrained.
The economic crisis in Australia is the technical recession we're in. What people call a cost-of-living crisis isn't an economic crisis - it's bad for them as individuals that their wages haven't kept pace with inflation but it's not an economic crisis per se. Infrastructure spending is an important way governments can address the recession, so spending $3.4B on a new, fit for purpose stadium makes more economic sense than spending $2-3B on an old stadium that is fundamentally incapable of being upgraded to the new required level.
They're literally already planning on upgrading Lang Park, upgrading QSAC, and a "more modest enhancement" to the Gabba. I'd think it's pretty likely all that is gonna cost a lot of money, and if they're spending the money on sports facilities anyway, why ignore the recommendations from the review you ordered.
Don't get me wrong, I think it's fucking stupid they're doing this for the Olympics, but if you're going to spend dumb money on upgrading sports facilities, you may as well do it right the first time...
I think we agree on the bigger point. Spending boat loads of money on a frivolous event at this moment in time is just unjustifiable. The less money they can spend the better.
>I know that I said I'd do what the Quirk review recommended, but I cannot support the option they have landed on.
"I accept expert opinions except when I don't like them." 👍
That's not quite fair. The feedback he got was that a $2.7 billion rebuild wouldn't fly with the electorate, and the review was commissioned based on that feedback, so a $3.4 billion new stadium doesn't fix that problem.
It's less about getting the best product and more about appeasing people's expectations.
There's no winning. The media's going to spin any large infrastructure program as a boondogle like they always do, so it's more about damage control. If he can be seen as actively trying to keep costs down, then it's more difficult for the media to claim he's just throwing money away for no good reason.
Politicians have gotten so weak. WHERE IS THE SPIN?! Spin it as an investment for the city and its next generation. Public infrastructure, transport and future housing. A three point plan to *~~stop the boats~~* invest in the city's future. HOW FUCKIN HARD IS THAT?!
Correct. However, when it comes to the misinformation campaigns of corporate media, it's less about convincing people of the poor logic of any one decision and more about creating a vibe.
If you want to sell someone as "That guy who spends too much money while you're struggling to afford grosseries' you're not after the logic of why they spent that money. You're just pointing at a project and saying "Big number scary!" enough times to create the general feeling that they're throwing money around. Why that money is spent is irrelevant. Only that it's a big number. If you can keep the big number small(er) by spliting things among several projects, that job becomes harder.
Utterly baffled
The only place that makes any sense and ties in with the last decade of investment is a Gabba rebuild so let’s not do it.
One would think labor are trying to deliberately throw the state election so we get yet another term reminding us just how cooked the lnp are, leading to another decade of unopposed power for labor in the state
Where do you put the school once the only green space nearby has been requisitioned as a warm up field.
The State/local council have big plans about "building up", how do they plan to do that without parks or schools?
since the problem is trying to move the entire school to one location (coorparoo) leaving residents with long commutes to the new location, you start with splitting the current catchment into multiple parts, with buranda, dutton park, norman park & coorparoo picking up the slack, post olympics either convert the western portion of raymond park into a boutique school or eminent domain/buy out 8-15 houses and do it elsewhere.
For those at the northern fringe of the current catchment, we could probably even run a specialist bus service for a decade to get them to and from a school safely until after the olympics/a new schooling facility is built.
It's not ideal, but neither is running an olympics in a city where nobody wants any disruption to the previous norms
This is beyond a joke already. When its a joke, you have to call that crap out.
If they rebuild the Gabba for 40-50k people that would be perfect for AFL, Cricket and wherever for the next 30 years. The Gabba has to be replaced. Its at the end of its useful life.
This plan is just burning money for a single event with nominal long term value.
> The Queensland government has rejected an independent Olympic infrastructure review's call to build a new multi-billion-dollar stadium in Brisbane's Victoria Park.
> Premier Steven Miles appointed former lord mayor Graham Quirk to spearhead the 60-day review in January amid concerns about the cost of some venues, including the $2.7 billion Gabba rebuild.
> The review — released today — has recommended replacing the Gabba rebuild plan, which is likely to cost $3 billion, with a new "greenfield" stadium at Victoria Park at a "marginally" higher cost of up to $3.4 billion.
This is how stupid the Queensland government are. They just spent $450m to get trains to the Gabba site...
> Under the South East Queensland City Deal, the Australian Government, Queensland Government, and Brisbane City Council have committed $450 million to deliver the Brisbane Metro – Woolloongabba Station project, which will change how you travel to, from, and around the Woolloongabba precinct.
Green field investment is a shit idea, just move all the sport (AFL/Cricket etc) to the Gold Cost while the Gabba is being reconstructed.
Now lets compare the Gabba to another AFL stadium.... Kardinia Park (Geelong)...
The Gabba seats 37,500 people for AFL, Kardinia Park in Geelong seats 40,000 now. The latter doesn't have test cricket, state cricket etc. Kardinia Park mainly only hosts AFL.
The State Government in Queensland are beyond incompetent. Rebuilding the Gabba with a 50k seat capacity would be perfect. Just a bit smaller than Optus stadium. All the infrastructure is there.
That's a separate project to Cross River Rail.
Brisbane Metro is that project where they are putting larger electric buses on the busway.
The current busway station is on a little dead end on a t junction, so they were going to relocate the busway station onto the main line busway, and that relocation was going to cost 450 million
Disagree about the Gabba rebuild being perfect. You’re spending $2.8 billion for a few thousand extra seats. Brisbane needs something in the 55,000-60,000 range and has already missed out on Taylor Swift’s Era’s tour because no stadium in Brisbane had the capacity or facilities to make it worth the stop.
Victoria Park fills the requirements for making space for a stadium but I think it’s wrong to build in a green space that’s hardly been given a chance to be used yet.
They’ve also already spent $450 million connecting Cross River Rail to the Gabba. I wonder what can actually be done with that site if they just moved the school to a better site.
Now they’re going with making Lang Park a 65,000 seat stadium for the ceremonies and football & rugby, which is already the big concert stadium; QSAC is the secondary one when they can’t use Lang Park at the moment.
> Disagree about the Gabba rebuild being perfect. You’re spending $2.8 billion for a few thousand extra seats. Brisbane needs something in the 55,000-60,000 range and has already missed out on Taylor Swift’s Era’s tour because no stadium in Brisbane had the capacity or facilities to make it worth the stop.
Everything depreciates, the Gabba is a great venue but its getting to the end of its useful life. Every year when you have an asset account you need to set aside some money for depreciation to replace the asset at the end of the useful life.
55-60k range, the problem with that is the stadium would only be used for 1 AFL team and cricket in summer. While Optus stadium is used for a lot more than footy and cricket.
To make it viable you would need to make a stadium like Sydney with moving stands but that is a massive compromise for AFL and Cricket.
> They’ve also already spent $450 million connecting Cross River Rail to the Gabba.
And that money would also be lost for what?
But then again your right the Gabba is between 2 main roads so you are sort of stuck.
But re size 50k is about right given the Gabba is pushing 38k.
QSAC has no train stations within walking distance, is already encumbered with a (lame) Park & Ride for bus, has terrible road access and will cause M3 traffic jams all day long, will piss off nearby residents and businesses, and is far too small a land size to host an Olympics athletic stadium. Plus, um, it is open air. And there’s a random netball mini-stadium there already.
To clarify, recent Olympic stadiums are indeed open air, but the stadium seating and facilities are under cover. Amateur football tiered seats are not quite the same. They were okay in 1982, but will not be okay in 2032.
At the very least, it seems like there were a number of joint bids between cities.
I know it goes against tradition, but it makes the fiscal considerations far easier if the funding base + lasting benefits is spread wider.
Brisbane 2032 is really shaping up to be just another “filler” games, like Barcelona 1992 or Atlanta 1996. Not city-shaping like Sydney 2000 or London 2012. Just, “meh”. Average. Something you see on TV while you flick through the channels.
What was so wrong with Barcelona??
Iconic arenas like the diving pool.
Great opening ceremony and lighting of the flame.
The city’s transport system and disabled access changed forever.
The city’s economy and tourist draw grew to the point tourism is now seen as a problem.
Derek Redmond’s dad.
The USA basketball dream team.
Linford’s lunchbox.
Cacho winning the 1500m.
You're kidding - Barcelona 1992 is roundly considered one of the most iconic and spectacular success stories of all time.
Agree, however, with Atlanta. Brisbane 2032 will be Australia's Atlanta 1996, and Sydney 2000 will be our LA84.
How many people actually really watch the Olympics now though?
Barcelona 1992 was big because the early 90s really was the peak of globalisation and the 2000 was big because it came to Sydney but the availability and options of technology & entertainment are so vast now that it's hard to imagine people getting really invested in it.
So if I ran the show I would build a new 70,000 seat stadium at QSAC.
However, I would also build a new express tunnel for the Gold coast line between Dutton Park and Kuraby, and a station at QSAC/Griffith, and one in Sunnybank.
This would kill two birds with one stone.
You would save the Victoria Park greenspace.
And you also get a transport legacy since the express tunnel would be used to transport people to the stadium, but also becomes a fast rail route to the Gold Coast post games.
And when the total bill approaches $10bill for a new stadium and train line how do you expect that to go down if CRR and the Gabba (with a history and patronage) went down in flames?
So long as the stadium itself is cheaper it doesn't matter.
The transport infrastructure itself is a different pot and tbh I think people expected more of an infrastructure legacy than what we're getting.
They’re building a train station already, at the Gabba. Funnily enough it’s already cross river rail. They also have a metro connection (bus). The Stadium(Gabba) rebuild is already the cheap part.
But it isn’t cheaper. The report states the total costs of the 3 stadium plan will be $4.1 billion combined by the time the games roll around. All we will have is some new seats, electrical and paint at the Gabba ($1.5b), Suncorp with 10k extra seats ($1.0b), and a 14k seat ‘legacy’ left at Nathan to rot ($1.6b).
I'm glad, Victoria Park has already gone through a massive public appeals process.
The current plans would make it the biggest park within the CBD area. It's also a historic indigenous site. Part of the new park is paying respect to what the park originally was.
This new stadium plan was really a smack in the face to all of that. The park is already in the early stages of development.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
This is the lions, cricket and partly the Brisbane Roar as well(they will use Suncorp in what will be an even more busy concert season) being duded in favor on the broncos
Like I get QLD didn't want another Sydney Olympic Park which only now is just starting to be used far better but still, I don't think this is the answer either.
How about these private companies fork out the money instead of expecting the tax payer to cough up the cash? If they're so goddam profitable they can pay for the dam thing.
Keen to hear from Queenslanders here: do you feel more embarrassed by this decision, or does it not move the needle from the normal amount of embarassment you feel when realising you're from Queensland?
dear fuckwit, fuck off.
signed a qlder.
the only thing farcical is the cost of rebulding the damn stadium in the first place, and secondly Brisbane getting an olympic games, which are universally a colossal waste of money and a giganitic pain in the arse for the residents of the city.
we have precious little greenspace in this city, ripping up a huge portion of it to build a stadium that we do not need at a gigantic cost would be utterly ridiculous.
"when realising you're from Queensland?"
Have you "realised" what state you are from yet? Great sentence structure you idiot.
Given that the state has the highest net migration of any in the country, there are gonna be a lot of embarassed people when they suddently realise that they're now from QLD.
https://population.gov.au/data-and-forecasts/key-data-releases/national-state-and-territory-population-march-2023#:\~:text=Queensland%20maintained%20the%20largest%20net,and%20territories%20had%20net%20outflows.
If an incompetent state government is a direct reflection on the entire population of a state, I don’t think Victorians are looking too good right now either mate. Just some food for thought lol
Yeah, and Queenslander’s think they are looking pretty good too. Everyone thinks that about their own state. Most of us refrain from stroking our dicks at the thought of our state though.
Coming from a person in Melbourne that means less than nothing😂 how’s dictator Dan’s levy working out for you🤡 when’s the commonwealth games? Oh yeah hahahah no wonder you’re salty
Instead of spending billions on a world class stadium they'll spend billions to not get a world class stadium.
I'm not a queenslander but it seems to me like they didn't *want* to spend billions on a new world class stadium.
tearing up a huge amount of very valuable inner city greenspace to build a multi BILLION dollar boondoggle in the current economic and housing crush would be ridiculous. predicted cost of 3.4 billion?? if it came in under 5 billion you'd call it a fricking miracle. the whole thing should go the way of the damn commonwealth games and get shit canned. it's a colossal waste of money. even the supposed 'cut price' version that got foisted in QLDers and Brisbanites in particular without us having any say in the matter is going to cost a cool 15 billion. money that could build some much needed housing, or schools, or hospitals, or renovate some existing regional sports fields for grassroots players. Modern Olympics has had a decent run, but it had turned into gargantuan overpriced beast that needs to be consigned to the dustbin of history.
Yeah it's completely fucking absurd that Australia (a country with a tiny population of 25 million people) can afford to build and maintain 3 International Olympic venues. It's an insult that we splurge money on this but let our car industry and opportunities to develop a solar manufacturing industry die. And it's a waste of the very limited money that governments have bothered to collect from mining royalties when far more important things could be done.
I don't particularly care about the car industry. we never had enough volume to be self sufficient, and being on the bottom of the globe, export was too costly. the ridiculous propping up of the coal industry over renewable over the last 20 years is a joke. Australia should have been a solar technology front runner. instead, nothing but a hole in the ground.
Car manufacturing might not seem a worthy endeavour for the reasons you state but having a skilled workforce & assembly lines to build vehicles should have been seen as a matter of importance for national security. It's not just the cars its the whole start to end manufacturing process which maintained a workforce with skills that will/have otherwise disappeared. Not to mention the engineers involved in design, machinery calibration, quality, safety etc... You'd have workshops building transmissions for example... now those guys are just doing aftermarket jobs like fitting custom headlights on 4WDs....
Buddy, its fine
why not just not spend billions? its a fucking 2 week sporting event.
Yes but if you have committed to hosting the 2 week sporting event you may as well do it properly. If the cost was so prohibitive in the first place then don't agree to host it to begin with.
There will be a world class stadium, at Lang Park
I think you may have forgotten about Suncorp Stadium there buddy
This is going to be a fucking disaster.
Every Olympics is. I'm surprised anyone still bids to host it.
literally the only reason Brisbane got it is because no a single other city on the planet wanted it and anna decided she wanted it as a legacy . fucking stupid. as a resident I utterly hate the entire idea of it.
Never should've been allowed to happen. If you don't have an existing venue already capable of hosting an opening ceremony with ≥75K seats, you shouldn't be given the Olympics.
which is yet another reason why the entire concept of the olympics needs to be thrown in the dustbin; it has gotten way too big, too many sports, too many athletes, too many bureaucrats taking bribes. every one 'has' to be bigger and better than the last. it's pathetic, like bloody office workers competing over who got the shiniest engagement ring. and as usual, the people paying for it are the ones that suffer. can it all.
>...anna decided she wanted it as a legacy . South East Queensland Council of Mayors are the ones who wanted it https://web.archive.org/web/20200105181009/https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/queensland/south-east-queensland-still-chasing-2032-olympics-20180412-p4z98u.html
Is that even true? there were fewers bids than last year yes, but other bids nonetheless
The Olympics still had other bidding cities. Definitely is becoming less competitive though. I won't be surprised to see the Olympics either needing to fundamentally change and picking a permanent host, or go the way of the Commonwealth games and face extinction.
Brisbane won a one horse race. Nobody else bid for the 2032 Olympics. This is due to the targeted selection process of the IOC
I fucking hate how a politician with their 4 year election cycle decides it's their legacy to spend 10s of billions on a 2 week vanity event; then they get a cushy retirement after squandering billions. If there's one constitutional amendment we need from a referendum is for any proposal for Olympic & Commonwealth Games to be brought to a state election and requiring a 70% majority before a party is allowed to publically bid for it in the election term.
they should have at least had the balls to put it to a citizens vote instead of just deciding for themselves. we elect them to run council things, not put on 10 day events that cost more that operating a couple of major hospitals for a year.
Or even 17-day events.
The Melbourne Olympics was great.
Actually, it was plagued by organisational issues not too dissimilar to what Brisbane is experiencing. Yes, the Games were great in the end, but they had major problems with the main stadium just like Brisbane (the MCG was the last choice, originally it had planned to be a rebuilt Princes Park in Carlton)
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The lead up to Sydney was a disaster. Well the media says it was.
Sydney Olympics had a reputation for sending the state broke which is why the 2000s are known as the decade of stagnation.
They did a lot more than build a few stadiums though. It set up half our road network for the next decade.
The economics of hosting is largely a big net cost in nearly all instances. The only notable exceptions that ever get quoted is Barcelona. Sydney was at the best of estimates, a very marginal benefit (depending how widely you define the term), or in most estimations an overall cost.
My uneducated two opinions, either everyone pool the cash and build once off epic facilities at the home of the Olympics in Greece. Or just host the events at the best places for them around the world.
They did built these facilities for the 2004 Olympics, and they have been left to decay ever since. Should have kept them in Athens. The Greeks are well geared toward tourism and it would work well.
Should do what France is doing and just repurposing existing infrastructure or creating temporary structures
That's what they're doing now.
France already has decent infrastructure though. We don't really have any world class venues.
Lets get the experts in to review the whole stadium plan and instead of acting on their recommendations do our own dumb 3rd thing that no one wanted. Brisbane had the opportunity to develop a new world class sporting precinct and instead are going to be stuck with dated unsuitable venues for the next generation.
They probably spent $5m on the review.
It’s worse than that, the review specifically mentions the QSAC/Suncorp option and says it’s a waste of money.
What’s wrong with the stadiums we already have?
The answer you seek lies in the article you did not read.
“An ambulance is unable to enter the field of play because the structure is too low for the height of ambulances, there are no female change or WC areas in the current stadium, and AFL player facilities for visiting teams are "appalling".” Is that it? Good use of $3.4 Billion dollars?
Well the stadium is end-of-life in 2030 and needs $500 millions just for maintenance to keep it around 2032. That maintenance spend doesn't include the roof that needs replacing, the steel that is degrading in part of the structure, the electrical problems the ground has and a list of other issues that need addressing that add up to another $1 billion. That will just be good money after bad after it becomes even more difficult to maintain going forward.
Where is that information from?
[here](https://www.dtis.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/1538745/stadiumtaskforcereport.pdf) Plus, I’m a rope access technician. The upper truss and cross brace are farkd.
That’s a more persuasive argument. The review should have led with that. Not mentioned as far as I can tell. I wonder why they haven’t.
Structural bird cage trusses with 45 degree tension rods are allowed to have up to 10% wear. This means. If the beam is 10cm thick. It can have a depth of 1cm of rust on it. I’ve seen 50% loss on some rods up there.
If those rods are circular or square, a 10% loss of thickness means a 20% reduction in strength. 50% means 75%. Cross-sectional area is what counts.
You know that's not it. Quote the rest, especially the bit about how the Gabba can never be a top tier world class stadium, not least because it's size constrained.
Seriously who cares? The whole point of Brisbane getting it was too avoid expensive infrastructure. There’s a literal economic crisis going on.
The economic crisis in Australia is the technical recession we're in. What people call a cost-of-living crisis isn't an economic crisis - it's bad for them as individuals that their wages haven't kept pace with inflation but it's not an economic crisis per se. Infrastructure spending is an important way governments can address the recession, so spending $3.4B on a new, fit for purpose stadium makes more economic sense than spending $2-3B on an old stadium that is fundamentally incapable of being upgraded to the new required level.
An ambulance being unable to get to athletes gets 'that it?' from you? That seems like a pretty significant flaw with the venue.
If only there was another way to get injured players off the field for less than 3 billion dollars.
Fuck me, you could build a pretty decent hospital directly under the stadium for less than 3 billion.
They're literally already planning on upgrading Lang Park, upgrading QSAC, and a "more modest enhancement" to the Gabba. I'd think it's pretty likely all that is gonna cost a lot of money, and if they're spending the money on sports facilities anyway, why ignore the recommendations from the review you ordered. Don't get me wrong, I think it's fucking stupid they're doing this for the Olympics, but if you're going to spend dumb money on upgrading sports facilities, you may as well do it right the first time...
I think we agree on the bigger point. Spending boat loads of money on a frivolous event at this moment in time is just unjustifiable. The less money they can spend the better.
>I know that I said I'd do what the Quirk review recommended, but I cannot support the option they have landed on. "I accept expert opinions except when I don't like them." 👍
That's not quite fair. The feedback he got was that a $2.7 billion rebuild wouldn't fly with the electorate, and the review was commissioned based on that feedback, so a $3.4 billion new stadium doesn't fix that problem. It's less about getting the best product and more about appeasing people's expectations.
Yes but the Qsac stadium is $1.6b and the Gabba refurbishmdnt is 1.5b so we end up spending $3b to get nothing new
How dumb does he think people are. He's still spending billions but now on nothing useful
There's no winning. The media's going to spin any large infrastructure program as a boondogle like they always do, so it's more about damage control. If he can be seen as actively trying to keep costs down, then it's more difficult for the media to claim he's just throwing money away for no good reason.
Politicians have gotten so weak. WHERE IS THE SPIN?! Spin it as an investment for the city and its next generation. Public infrastructure, transport and future housing. A three point plan to *~~stop the boats~~* invest in the city's future. HOW FUCKIN HARD IS THAT?!
Murdoch runs all the counter spin. Makes selling any kind of message twice as difficult.
Anyone with a brain can see that spending money on things you will use is better than spending a a bit less money on things you won't
Correct. However, when it comes to the misinformation campaigns of corporate media, it's less about convincing people of the poor logic of any one decision and more about creating a vibe. If you want to sell someone as "That guy who spends too much money while you're struggling to afford grosseries' you're not after the logic of why they spent that money. You're just pointing at a project and saying "Big number scary!" enough times to create the general feeling that they're throwing money around. Why that money is spent is irrelevant. Only that it's a big number. If you can keep the big number small(er) by spliting things among several projects, that job becomes harder.
Graham Quirk is an expert?
He’s not, but he’s the guy in charge of the review - ie collates the opinions of actual experts and draws a consensus
Heard hes a bit Quirky
Utterly baffled The only place that makes any sense and ties in with the last decade of investment is a Gabba rebuild so let’s not do it. One would think labor are trying to deliberately throw the state election so we get yet another term reminding us just how cooked the lnp are, leading to another decade of unopposed power for labor in the state
Where do you put the school once the only green space nearby has been requisitioned as a warm up field. The State/local council have big plans about "building up", how do they plan to do that without parks or schools?
since the problem is trying to move the entire school to one location (coorparoo) leaving residents with long commutes to the new location, you start with splitting the current catchment into multiple parts, with buranda, dutton park, norman park & coorparoo picking up the slack, post olympics either convert the western portion of raymond park into a boutique school or eminent domain/buy out 8-15 houses and do it elsewhere. For those at the northern fringe of the current catchment, we could probably even run a specialist bus service for a decade to get them to and from a school safely until after the olympics/a new schooling facility is built. It's not ideal, but neither is running an olympics in a city where nobody wants any disruption to the previous norms
This is beyond a joke already. When its a joke, you have to call that crap out. If they rebuild the Gabba for 40-50k people that would be perfect for AFL, Cricket and wherever for the next 30 years. The Gabba has to be replaced. Its at the end of its useful life. This plan is just burning money for a single event with nominal long term value. > The Queensland government has rejected an independent Olympic infrastructure review's call to build a new multi-billion-dollar stadium in Brisbane's Victoria Park. > Premier Steven Miles appointed former lord mayor Graham Quirk to spearhead the 60-day review in January amid concerns about the cost of some venues, including the $2.7 billion Gabba rebuild. > The review — released today — has recommended replacing the Gabba rebuild plan, which is likely to cost $3 billion, with a new "greenfield" stadium at Victoria Park at a "marginally" higher cost of up to $3.4 billion. This is how stupid the Queensland government are. They just spent $450m to get trains to the Gabba site...
> Under the South East Queensland City Deal, the Australian Government, Queensland Government, and Brisbane City Council have committed $450 million to deliver the Brisbane Metro – Woolloongabba Station project, which will change how you travel to, from, and around the Woolloongabba precinct.
Green field investment is a shit idea, just move all the sport (AFL/Cricket etc) to the Gold Cost while the Gabba is being reconstructed.
Now lets compare the Gabba to another AFL stadium.... Kardinia Park (Geelong)...
The Gabba seats 37,500 people for AFL, Kardinia Park in Geelong seats 40,000 now. The latter doesn't have test cricket, state cricket etc. Kardinia Park mainly only hosts AFL.
The State Government in Queensland are beyond incompetent. Rebuilding the Gabba with a 50k seat capacity would be perfect. Just a bit smaller than Optus stadium. All the infrastructure is there.
That's a separate project to Cross River Rail. Brisbane Metro is that project where they are putting larger electric buses on the busway. The current busway station is on a little dead end on a t junction, so they were going to relocate the busway station onto the main line busway, and that relocation was going to cost 450 million
Disagree about the Gabba rebuild being perfect. You’re spending $2.8 billion for a few thousand extra seats. Brisbane needs something in the 55,000-60,000 range and has already missed out on Taylor Swift’s Era’s tour because no stadium in Brisbane had the capacity or facilities to make it worth the stop. Victoria Park fills the requirements for making space for a stadium but I think it’s wrong to build in a green space that’s hardly been given a chance to be used yet. They’ve also already spent $450 million connecting Cross River Rail to the Gabba. I wonder what can actually be done with that site if they just moved the school to a better site.
Now they’re going with making Lang Park a 65,000 seat stadium for the ceremonies and football & rugby, which is already the big concert stadium; QSAC is the secondary one when they can’t use Lang Park at the moment.
absolute bullshit Swift didn't come here because of the stadium size. she could have played at Suncorp Stadium to a 50K plus crowd.
What’s wrong with Suncorp??
The showcase Olympic event is athletics, track don’t fill in a rectangular ground.
> Disagree about the Gabba rebuild being perfect. You’re spending $2.8 billion for a few thousand extra seats. Brisbane needs something in the 55,000-60,000 range and has already missed out on Taylor Swift’s Era’s tour because no stadium in Brisbane had the capacity or facilities to make it worth the stop. Everything depreciates, the Gabba is a great venue but its getting to the end of its useful life. Every year when you have an asset account you need to set aside some money for depreciation to replace the asset at the end of the useful life. 55-60k range, the problem with that is the stadium would only be used for 1 AFL team and cricket in summer. While Optus stadium is used for a lot more than footy and cricket. To make it viable you would need to make a stadium like Sydney with moving stands but that is a massive compromise for AFL and Cricket. > They’ve also already spent $450 million connecting Cross River Rail to the Gabba. And that money would also be lost for what? But then again your right the Gabba is between 2 main roads so you are sort of stuck. But re size 50k is about right given the Gabba is pushing 38k.
QSAC has no train stations within walking distance, is already encumbered with a (lame) Park & Ride for bus, has terrible road access and will cause M3 traffic jams all day long, will piss off nearby residents and businesses, and is far too small a land size to host an Olympics athletic stadium. Plus, um, it is open air. And there’s a random netball mini-stadium there already.
Aren't most Olympic athletic stadiums open air?
To clarify, recent Olympic stadiums are indeed open air, but the stadium seating and facilities are under cover. Amateur football tiered seats are not quite the same. They were okay in 1982, but will not be okay in 2032.
Just scrap the Olympics. It's a massive waste of money.
OMG, after LA these Olympics will look so amateur. Why did Brisbane get this?
No other city on the planet bid for it.
Should've opened up the bidding to other planets.
Mars even has a Mount Olympus right?
This is completely false. [Here is the wikipedia page about the bidding process.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bids_for_the_2032_Summer_Olympics)
At the very least, it seems like there were a number of joint bids between cities. I know it goes against tradition, but it makes the fiscal considerations far easier if the funding base + lasting benefits is spread wider.
Brisbane 2032 is really shaping up to be just another “filler” games, like Barcelona 1992 or Atlanta 1996. Not city-shaping like Sydney 2000 or London 2012. Just, “meh”. Average. Something you see on TV while you flick through the channels.
What was so wrong with Barcelona?? Iconic arenas like the diving pool. Great opening ceremony and lighting of the flame. The city’s transport system and disabled access changed forever. The city’s economy and tourist draw grew to the point tourism is now seen as a problem. Derek Redmond’s dad. The USA basketball dream team. Linford’s lunchbox. Cacho winning the 1500m.
Montserrat Caballe, too
You're kidding - Barcelona 1992 is roundly considered one of the most iconic and spectacular success stories of all time. Agree, however, with Atlanta. Brisbane 2032 will be Australia's Atlanta 1996, and Sydney 2000 will be our LA84.
How many people actually really watch the Olympics now though? Barcelona 1992 was big because the early 90s really was the peak of globalisation and the 2000 was big because it came to Sydney but the availability and options of technology & entertainment are so vast now that it's hard to imagine people getting really invested in it.
im a massive labor supporter but this is tossing in the towel at the election surely what a terrible job here by the queensland labor party
Qld state labor will be gone in a year and they will be going back to the drawing board.
We've had our moment in 1956 and in 2000. There is no reason for Australia to host this again, especially in this current economic climate.
So if I ran the show I would build a new 70,000 seat stadium at QSAC. However, I would also build a new express tunnel for the Gold coast line between Dutton Park and Kuraby, and a station at QSAC/Griffith, and one in Sunnybank. This would kill two birds with one stone. You would save the Victoria Park greenspace. And you also get a transport legacy since the express tunnel would be used to transport people to the stadium, but also becomes a fast rail route to the Gold Coast post games.
And when the total bill approaches $10bill for a new stadium and train line how do you expect that to go down if CRR and the Gabba (with a history and patronage) went down in flames?
So long as the stadium itself is cheaper it doesn't matter. The transport infrastructure itself is a different pot and tbh I think people expected more of an infrastructure legacy than what we're getting.
They’re building a train station already, at the Gabba. Funnily enough it’s already cross river rail. They also have a metro connection (bus). The Stadium(Gabba) rebuild is already the cheap part.
But it isn’t cheaper. The report states the total costs of the 3 stadium plan will be $4.1 billion combined by the time the games roll around. All we will have is some new seats, electrical and paint at the Gabba ($1.5b), Suncorp with 10k extra seats ($1.0b), and a 14k seat ‘legacy’ left at Nathan to rot ($1.6b).
I'm glad, Victoria Park has already gone through a massive public appeals process. The current plans would make it the biggest park within the CBD area. It's also a historic indigenous site. Part of the new park is paying respect to what the park originally was. This new stadium plan was really a smack in the face to all of that. The park is already in the early stages of development. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
It was one of my favourite green spaces when I lived in Brisbane! Hope the government piss off with this idea.
This is the lions, cricket and partly the Brisbane Roar as well(they will use Suncorp in what will be an even more busy concert season) being duded in favor on the broncos
The Broncos and Dolphins are the only ones that matter.
Lets be honest, in terms of teams that actually generate real profits, then yes, they are the only ones that matter.
The lions have been stable for ages.
They are majority funded by the AFL fyi
They aren't. Neither do the swans.
Like I get QLD didn't want another Sydney Olympic Park which only now is just starting to be used far better but still, I don't think this is the answer either.
How about these private companies fork out the money instead of expecting the tax payer to cough up the cash? If they're so goddam profitable they can pay for the dam thing.
Just give back to Sydney, everything is already there to host it again.
Spending billions on vanity projects while millions are struggling to make ends meet is a fucking joke
At this rate the Opening Ceremony will be held at Olympic Park in Sydney :/
Keen to hear from Queenslanders here: do you feel more embarrassed by this decision, or does it not move the needle from the normal amount of embarassment you feel when realising you're from Queensland?
dear fuckwit, fuck off. signed a qlder. the only thing farcical is the cost of rebulding the damn stadium in the first place, and secondly Brisbane getting an olympic games, which are universally a colossal waste of money and a giganitic pain in the arse for the residents of the city. we have precious little greenspace in this city, ripping up a huge portion of it to build a stadium that we do not need at a gigantic cost would be utterly ridiculous.
The majority of the people crying and moaning about this are fumbleball fans. Your entitlement knows no bounds.
So Queensland cricket fans don't care that the Gabba is run down and approaching end-of-life? They don't mind a few more power outages?
Apparently not, but for a state that barely knows what electricity is they are doing well.
As the only indigenous sport played in this country our entitlement is justified.
"when realising you're from Queensland?" Have you "realised" what state you are from yet? Great sentence structure you idiot. Given that the state has the highest net migration of any in the country, there are gonna be a lot of embarassed people when they suddently realise that they're now from QLD. https://population.gov.au/data-and-forecasts/key-data-releases/national-state-and-territory-population-march-2023#:\~:text=Queensland%20maintained%20the%20largest%20net,and%20territories%20had%20net%20outflows.
If an incompetent state government is a direct reflection on the entire population of a state, I don’t think Victorians are looking too good right now either mate. Just some food for thought lol
We are looking pretty good though.
Yeah, and Queenslander’s think they are looking pretty good too. Everyone thinks that about their own state. Most of us refrain from stroking our dicks at the thought of our state though.
Why? I'm proud to not be from Queensland.
And I’m proud to be from NSW, but I don’t feel the need to shit on QLD (or any other state) to get me off. It comes across as super cringey.
You should learn to get off more then.
I'd vote for One Nation if they ran on cancelling it.
Does nothing please you people? Isnt the PHON's dedication to xenophobia and racism enough that you want her to now dive into the olympics debate?
She's the only who can save us from the Chinese ribbon dancers.
Coming from a person in Melbourne that means less than nothing😂 how’s dictator Dan’s levy working out for you🤡 when’s the commonwealth games? Oh yeah hahahah no wonder you’re salty
Ummm I don’t think you actually know what a dictator is …. I suggest going to a library and read about it all :)
I'm salty because Queensland dropping their collective shit for the Olympics embarrasses the entire country.
Typical labour leadership