Work will begin today at Victoria Park, the site of Brisbane’s new Olympic stadium, after protesters were moved on overnight.
Fencing was erected over the weekend and heavy machinery moved in ahead of the Games Independent Infrastructure and Coordination Authority officially taking ownership of the park and closing it to the public at midnight overnight.
Protesters at Victoria Park opposed to the construction of a new Olympic stadium. Nine
Victoria Park, just two kilometres from the CBD, will soon become home to the 63,000-seat Brisbane Stadium, the centrepiece of the Brisbane 2032 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games, hosting the opening and closing ceremonies and the athletics.
After the Games, it will become the home ground for the Brisbane Lions, as well as the Brisbane Heat and Queensland Bulls cricket.
The stadium is expected to make up about half of the $7.1 billion Games Venues Infrastructure Program jointly funded by the federal and Queensland governments.
“We are going to create a world-class green space book-ended by a world-class stadium for a world-class event for a state on the rise,” Premier David Crisafulli said this morning.
“Queenslanders can feel that this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to create something really special and we have to reach out and grab it.”
Crisafulli said getting the stadium completed by 2032 would be a “race against time”.
“We have time but we don’t have time to waste,” he said.
The first concept designs for the stadium were released in January after the Queensland government passed legislation last year allowing the fast-tracking of any Olympic infrastructure project, past heritage protections or other previous legislation.
The 64-hectare site has previously been the site of temporary housing after World War II and was home to an 18-hole golf course until it was repurposed back into public parkland in 2021.
Early designs for Brisbane’s new Olympic stadium at Victoria Park. Supplied
Hundreds of protesters have turned out to oppose the project, arguing it will destroy precious green space and desecrate sacred Aboriginal land.
Indigenous protesters had set up a camp at the site, which was partly dismantled by council officers yesterday in heated scenes that saw two people arrested.
“Everyone’s got a right to protest but from midnight this becomes a construction zone and that wouldn’t be safe not just for them but also for the workers and we have a duty of care on that,” Crisafulli said.
“But they can continue to make a protest of course they can… but I think most people would acknowledge the place to do that isn’t the middle of a construction site.”
Protesters were dealt a further blow yesterday, with federal environment minister Murray Watt rejecting two cultural heritage protection applications made under section 9 of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984.
“I was unable to be satisfied that either application met the statutory requirements for a declaration to be made under the Act,” Watt said in a statement.
Ten applications to the minister have been made about the Victoria Park Barrambin site.
The department is still considering another section 9 application and four applications under section 10.
If the applications are successful, they will not stop the build, but will require some amendments be made to the stadium design.