House debates

Thursday, 25 February 2021

Statements by Members

Queensland: Olympic and Paralympic Games

1:35 pm

Photo of Shayne NeumannShayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs and Defence Personnel) Share this | | Hansard source

I want to congratulate everyone who lobbied hard so that South-East Queensland would be the preferred candidate for the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic bids. We have work to do, but this would be fantastic for South-East Queensland, where one in seven people in this country live. It means 130,000 direct jobs and hundreds of thousands of indirect jobs, and in the regions. This is a great opportunity for South-East Queensland and I call on all levels of government to fund infrastructure.

For regional Queensland this would be really important. I think of the Bruce Highway, the Cunningham Highway and the Warrego Highway. These are important connectors into South-East Queensland, so it's very important that all levels of government get behind these. Also, as the Premier said today, we would see sporting events held in the regions. She specifically mentioned Ipswich and football, and I'm looking forward to our football being played at the North Ipswich Reserve. I think this is a great opportunity for all levels of government to fund the North Ipswich Reserve upgrade. It would help with an A-League licence bid by the Western Pride, and the new Brisbane Jets consortium, which I hope gets the NRL bid later this year, would also be involved in this. It would also provide tremendous support for sport in Ipswich.

I congratulate all levels of government. Get behind this bid; it's good for Ipswich, it's good for South-East Queensland and it's good for Australia.