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

By my count, it's 3,341 days until the opening ceremony of the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games, otherwise referred to as Brisbane 2032. When we decided to bid for this historic event, we did so as a nation and as the state of Queensland—especially South-East Queensland—with a big vision in mind. That vision was consistent with the International Olympic Committee and their new norms, which basically say the days are gone where you host an Olympic Games with a view to ensuring you meet the prescriptive list of requirements from the IOC; rather, the day has come where you, as host, decide what is in your best interest as a location, and you leverage the games to deliver on that vision. For South-East Queensland, we know we are a booming population. We are a lifestyle capital. The population continues to grow. But, with that, we have issues of congestion.

Part of our vision for hosting the 2032 Games was to leverage the greatest event on the planet to invest in infrastructure. At the centre of that was to be rail connectivity right across South-East Queensland, with the starting point—which was agreed to, by the way, by three tiers of government—being between Brisbane and the Maroochydore CBD, that beautiful greenfield development site that will be the newest CBD in the Southern Hemisphere. Part of this is it's going to require money. What we said as three tiers of government was that this was our window to deliver on that vision. It's 37 kilometres between Beerwah and the Maroochydore CBD. As many people in my part of the world know, the rail line goes up the north coast. There's an opportunity to branch off at Beerwah and go all the way up the coastal strip, 37 kilometres. We had done, years before, a thorough study in conjunction with the Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads. It was fully costed at $2.9 billion. When you added a 10 per cent contingency it was $3.2 billion. When you cut it in half, the federal government said it would deliver on a $1.6 billion package to see that rail get built. That was the former coalition government. We were proud of that, and we were able to unite the Sunshine Coast community, regardless of their political stripe. Everybody knows there's no greater transformative project for our region than that rail line. But then there was a change of government—

See this speech in context