Brisbane Olympics 2032 venues: David Crisafulli announces stadiums in Brisbane, Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast

Building Brisbane’s new main stadium at Victoria Park would not only be breaking an election pledge, it would also be “monumentally stupid”, federal Greens MP for Brisbane Stephen Bates says.

The cost of a new stadium at Victoria Park has been estimated at $3.4 billion, which Bates said would make it one of the most expensive stadiums in the world.

“The federal government should not commit a cent to a stadium in Victoria Park,” he said.

“These are the lungs of Brisbane city that council has spent years and millions of dollars turning into the inner-city’s first new park in over 20 years.”

Victoria Park was the home of an 18-hole golf course since 1931, and the council-owned site became public parkland in 2021 when the course closed to make way for a 45-hectare park.

Victoria Park is literally a divided green space, intersected by a rail line and the Inner City Bypass, with southern parts on the state heritage register and northern parts on the lesser, council equivalent.

While anti-stadium campaigners continue to proclaim the heritage value of the entire site, they recently lodged an application for the Queensland Heritage Council to recognise the cultural significance of the former golf course, including the landscaping around the fairways, to afford it a layer of protection.

The area was already due for an overhaul under a Brisbane City Council plan, and has been tipped as the site of a proposed 60,000-seat stadium.

The heritage council has yet to make a decision on the application, which would complicate but not prevent construction of a stadium.

The redevelopment of the nearby Gona Barracks and parts of the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital show how state-run development can proceed despite heritage listings.

Any stadium at Victoria Park would also require road upgrades and active transport boulevards to better connect it with Roma Street, Exhibition and Bowen Hills train stadiums, and within walking distance of Fortitude Valley and the CBD.

Hockey is one of Australia’s most consistent Olympic medal-scoring sports, and as it stands, will be played at the rugby union fields of Ballymore in Herston in 2032.

But Hockey Queensland chief executive Alison Lyons has been scathing about the $30 million plan for a temporary pitch for two weeks of competition.

“If Ballymore were a genuine and sensible option, then investors would have supported its redevelopment decades ago, but they haven’t,” she said.

“No-one wants to invest in a mud pit with atrocious transport connectivity where even local sporting clubs cannot get insurance due to the flood risk.”

Media reports this morning suggested that they would get their way, with the competition moved to the Gold Coast.

Queensland Rugby Union has been pushing for Ballymore to be kept as an Olympic venue.

“We just want to be contributing to the Olympics – if that’s hockey or it’s not and some other sport, it doesn’t matter,” chief executive Dave Hanham said earlier this month.

Read more in Cameron Atfield’s article.

Scott Emerson – transport minister in Campbell Newman’s LNP government, now a political strategist – has told breakfast television Brisbane needs appropriate stadiums when the world’s spotlight is here in 2032.

“I think the problem for Premier David Crisafulli is he did say repeatedly before the election that there wouldn’t be any new stadiums,” he said on Today.

“What everyone is expecting today is that there will be a new stadium at Victoria Park. I guess his argument will be we’ve got to do it right … All the previous Labor government had was all over the shop. It was three years of wasted planning.

“What will be interesting is if they scrap the Brisbane Arena, which is going to be funded by the federal government, and get that $2.5 billion reallocated to the other stadium and other facilities.”

Federal Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth, also on Today’s panel, echoed the prime minister’s hints that federal Labor was prepared to negotiate about where federal funding would go.

“The federal government will work with the state government. We need to make sure that for our contribution, we’re getting value for that, an investment [that] provides a lasting legacy for Brisbane beyond the games,” she said.

“We are ready to work across the board to make sure that this is the best games that Australia could possibly put on.”

There’s only a few hours until we officially find out where the Olympic main stadium will be, the future of the Brisbane Arena plan, and where the sports will be hosted.

The event, at Howard Smith Wharves, will start at noon, and Premier David Crisafulli will make the announcement at 12.20pm.

It will be live-streamed by Nine from 12.15pm, and we’ll include a live video in this blog.

We’ll also be live-blogging the announcement, a government press conference, reactions and analysis during the afternoon.

4BC’s Sofie Formica will host a panel from 2pm, with guests Harvey Lister and former mayor Graham Quirk.

It’s not just where to put the athletics that’s got people talking ahead of today’s announcement.

Reports Olympic rowing could be held on Rockhampton’s Fitzroy River have prompted an 11th-hour intervention from the sport’s governing body.

While the crocodiles in the Fitzroy have made headlines, the real concern is that it’s a flowing body of water, says Rowing Australia chief executive Sarah Cook.

“The main issue for rowing is fairness, so obviously if there’s stream, typically the deeper or the middle section of the river is going to flow faster than the sides of it,” she said.

“Because a rowing course is eight to 10 lanes wide, it would make the middle lanes faster than the outside lanes, which is why it can’t be used for an Olympic regatta or a Paralympic regatta.”

Cook said it was her understanding the 100-day review had recommended the Sydney 2000 course at Penrith, but Rowing Australia’s preference was for a new facility at a south-east Queensland dam, such as Wyaralong on Hinze Dam on the Gold Coast.

Read more in this story from Cameron Atfield.

A community group is promising to fight tooth and nail to prevent construction of a new stadium at Victoria Park.

The Save Victoria Park group was established in 2020, and has several high-profile backers including former premier Campbell Newman.

Speaking from the park on Tuesday morning, organiser Sue Bremner told ABC News 24 she would be protesting at today’s venue announcement at Howard Smith Wharves.

“I’m old enough to have been around in the Joh Bjelke-Petersen days. I’m wearing white shoes today because it seems like the Premier will take us back to those days,” Bremner said, referencing the infamous “white shoe brigade” property developers of the 70s and 80s.

“This is a heritage-listed park, and we should not be touching heritage listings in the 21st century … it’s just wrong.

“It is an outrage to have a stadium taking over a park. So we’re organising. We’re determined. We’re not going to go away. And that’s a personal message from me to the Premier.

“We don’t want to take legal action, but don’t write us off.”

Where do you think the main Olympic stadium for the Brisbane 2032 Games should be?

While the last three options – Mayne Railyards, Gabba West and Hamilton Northshore – have not been official policy, with Victoria Park back in scope, they were presented to the 100-day review.