Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'd like to make a few comments today to commend the LNP Queensland government on their excellent plan, for the 2032 Olympics, announced yesterday. It has been quite the rocky road to get to this point. There have been a few stumbles along the way, but I do think we now have a plan that all Queenslanders and all Australians can get behind and deliver the best games ever in 2032. That's certainly been the reaction I've heard from Queenslanders overnight, while I've been down here. I have had the privilege to know a little bit about these things. We have, for most of this parliament, had a Senate inquiry established on the planning for the games and, as the chair of the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee, I have been leading that inquiry through that time.

As I said, it's great to get to this moment. For a while there, there were some concerns—particularly when the former Premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, decided to abolish the independent organising committee that had been such a successful model for the Sydney Olympics and other Olympics subsequent to Sydney. She had decided to abolish that after the election of the Albanese government. The independent committee was a request of the federal Morrison government, before. Things seemed to go downhill after that. Decision-making was centralised in the Premier's office. We had a proposal for the Gabba to be used as the major stadium, which seemed to come from nowhere and certainly wasn't properly costed at the time.

Subsequent to Premier Palaszczuk stepping down as Premier, new Premier Miles decided to scrap that and move to upgrading the old QEII Stadium, in Brisbane, now known as QSAC. That seemed to come from absolutely nowhere, and the drawings that were produced did look a little bit embarrassing. There was an attempt to almost have a cut-price games, at the time, in the lead-up to the 2024 election.

But all that's been swept aside now. We can forget all about that. The independent organising committee has been re-established. The new government established a 100-day review to look through all this stuff, as quickly as they could, and I do think the plan that was delivered yesterday is fantastic. One of the reasons I think this plan is much superior to what was on the table before is that it is a plan that involves all Queenslanders. Queensland is such a big, wonderful state and, unlike most states in this country, it is quite regionally dispersed. We have large population centres a fair way from the capital city of Brisbane. Indeed, still, to this day, about half of Queenslanders live outside of the capital city—very, very different from most other states in this country. I myself live in a region away from Brisbane, in the Rockhampton region.

Many of us were perplexed that we were going to have to pay for this wonderful event, all the way down in Brisbane, and not see much of it at all. But now we have the opportunity to involve all Queenslanders, to sell Queensland to the world. The previous plan that the LNP inherited had just a few football games occurring in Townsville and Cairns. Hardly the high-profile, marquee events at an Olympics, they were just qualifying games for the football. That was in stark contrast to the last successful Paris Olympics. Even in Paris, six sports, across 10 cities, were played at least 200 kilometres from Paris. They used their whole country. In fact, you probably remember, they had surfing in Tahiti but many other sports spread right through France as well. It would be a shame for us not to do the same thing.

Now we have a plan that involves all Queenslanders. We have the equestrian events going to Toowoomba, which has wonderful heritage as a rural, agricultural town. They'll do a great job with that. We have archery being proposed for Maryborough—a beautiful, historic town—showcasing that part of Queensland. Sailing—