Protesters challenge plans to destroy park and sacred Aboriginal site for Brisbane Olympics
- 6 days ago
- 2 min read
Protesters have been arrested at Brisbane's Victoria Park after police and Brisbane City Council officers entered a camp standing in opposition to a planned $3.6 billion Olympic stadium development on Aboriginal sacred land.
The long-running confrontation over the city’s plans for a $3.6 billion stadium for the 2032 Games centres on one of the city’s last green spaces, which Aboriginal leaders say is sacred ground. They warn that development would damage cultural artefacts and a landscape long recognised on Queensland’s heritage register. In addition to the Victoria Park controversy, deeper questions remain about the Olympic legacy Brisbane will leave. When the city secured hosting rights in 2021, it pledged to stage the world’s first “climate-positive” Games, promising not only to eliminate emissions but to remove more carbon than the event produced. The commitment, embedded in the original host contract, was heralded as a model for future mega-events—a chance to shift urban development towards regeneration rather than just mitigation.
Yet the current Queensland government has since reneged on many of the bid’s original environmental and community commitments. Amendments agreed between 2023 and 2024 stripped the host contract of binding “climate-positive” language, replacing it with softer goals that aim, rather than require, net carbon removal. A once-mandatory environmental commitment is now effectively optional. For critics, the shift fits a familiar pattern in Olympic history, where early sustainability pledges are diluted under political and financial pressure.
Originally, Brisbane’s bid emphasised upgrading existing venues, but that approach has been sidelined, and the Victoria Park site decision raises questions about whether it will run afoul of the International Olympic Committee’s commitment to respect culturally protected areas. Community groups such as Save Our Park have signalled they may pursue legal avenues to halt the park’s destruction.
Brisbane’s approach stands in stark contrast to the Sydney 2000 “Green Games,” where organisers partnered with Greenpeace to deliver an environmental legacy that included the country’s first housing equipped with solar electricity and hot water, large-scale water recycling on site, toxic brownfield remediation, and the first public transport-only Games.
As pressure builds for the city to deliver the Games in 2032, community and First Nations groups have vowed to continue the fight to hold Brisbane organisers to their environmental commitments.
You can support the campaign by signing the Save Victoria Park petition here.
