The Olympics is costing us more every day. Not a day goes by without another story about a cost blowout on a stadium, an athlete’s village or some other related infrastructure.
The previous Labor Government made the Games planning over the past two years too political. When the LNP lost government federally, the then Queensland Premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, abolished the independent planning board and centralised decision making in her office. Fortunately, the Premier that replaced her, Steven Miles, reversed this decision but then he scrapped the Gabba as the main Olympics venue without a proper replacement ever being put forward.
So it made sense for the new Crisafulli Government to announce a 100-day review of Games venues.
Lost in all of the focus on the Gabba is the fact that the former Labor Government had not planned for any major Games events to take place outside of South-East Queensland.
The three new State LNP Members of Parliament from Central Queensland, Donna Kirkland, Nigel Hutton and Glen Kelly are fighting to change this “Games Gap”. Along with myself and Michelle Landry we have all made submissions to the Games review arguing that Rockhampton is the perfect venue to host rowing and canoeing events at a cheaper cost.
The current Olympics proposal is for the rowing and canoeing events to occur at the Wyaralong Dam over 100 kilometres south of Brisbane. In traffic, it can take over 2 hours to drive from Brisbane to the Dam. The course is so remote that it is not on the power grid, nor is there a water or sewerage connection. There is an existing course on the Dam but it needs to be moved to accommodate the Olympics.
So to build a new road, new power and water connections and a new course will cost around $130 million – for a five day event!
We already have a rowing course in the middle of Rockhampton. Our course is less than 5 kilometres from a major regional city, the national highway and an international airport (we take international military flights). We would need to build more rowing sheds, some car parking and spectator stands. But all of those would be needed at Wyaralong too.
Overall we believe that we could save $100 million by hosting rowing and canoeing events in Rockhampton. It is about time someone puts forward a proposal to save taxpayers money.
We have the proponents of Wyaralong worried. They have taken to making baseless attacks that our river is full of crocs. But we already host the rowing state championships on the Fitzroy every year. If crocs are an issue why do we allow 700 Queensland school students to row in it every year.
(At a personal level, my son rows in the river three to four times a week. It is perfectly safe.)
Our Rockhampton rowing proposal would leave a much greater legacy too. To house the athletes, a 1200 bed facility needs to be built. Under the Wyaralong option those beds will be at Kooralbyn, itself 40 minutes from the rowing course, and way too far from Brisbane to provide any long term housing.
In contrast, we have a housing shortage in Rockhampton and the athlete’s village could be re-purposed for affordable housing after the Games.
Our Rockhampton rowing proposal offers an unmatched opportunity to sell the best of what Queensland has to offer to the world. As it stands, there are no events that will showcase the wonders of the Great Barrier Reef to the world from the Games. A few early round football games in North Queensland will hardly do that.
The Fitzroy River is a key catchment of the Reef and the rowing course is just 40 kilometres from Yeppoon.
Hosting an Olympics event in Rockhampton stacks up from a financial, sporting and tourism perspective. Your CQ LNP team will fight hard to bring gold home for Central Queensland.
