To: Mr Joe Brumm, c/o Ludo Studios
Dear Mr Brumm,
We are the parents and kids of Save Victoria Park Inc., a Brisbane community group that loves our parkland and wants to save it from Olympic stadiums.
Many of us are also longtime, slightly obsessive, watchers of Bluey.
We write in response to your recent comments regarding the Olympic stadium that is being built in Victoria Park Barrambin and your plans to include it in the upcoming Bluey movie.
First of all, it’s important to note that we are not, and have never been, anti-Olympics. We do believe though, that the 2032 Games should change our city for the better, not the worse.
Bluey, we know, means different things to different people – that’s its power and its magic.
For us, the kids who grew up in the iconic landscape of Bluey’s Brisbane, our primary schools backing onto gum-filled scrub and creeks, your cartoon has an extra special resonance.
Bluey’s nature – in all its subtropical, thunder-clapping, magpie-swooping Brisbane glory – is a lead character in our lives.
We ran straight outside after watching The Creek, moved to rediscover the magical waterways we are so lucky to have, right in our backyards.
We sat transfixed by Fruit Bat, developing a new fascination for the noisy black swarms of wildlife that streak across our skies at dusk.
And we got a bit leaky during Rain, inspired by Bluey’s doggedness and willingness to get her paws soaked in pursuit of her goals, however small.
Many of us actually saw Bluey and Bingo for real life for the first time at Victoria Park Barrambin, at a fair celebrating the city’s “green heart”. We waited impatiently under towering trees for our beloved cartoon dogs to appear, throwing ourselves at the stage and bashing those giant keepy uppy balls as if our lives depended on it, feet muddy in the park’s soggy soil, but hearts full.
We don’t know if you’re aware of how these Olympic stadiums came to be, and what they have already taken away.
Victoria Park was never just empty land, waiting for yet another generic stadium precinct that will somehow put Brisbane on the map. It was never the only option for a successful Games.
We know this is the story others are desperate to tell, for the brutal recent history of this park to somehow be forgotten, but it’s not the one we will allow to be written.
To us, Vic Park Barrambin was – is – Brisbane. Whether as a peaceful respite from hospital, an epically hilly golf course, a giant tree-filled playground, or a place to connect with thousands of years of culture, the park’s beauty lies in its nature and its heritage.
And you don’t make a city better by flattening its past and destroying what makes it special.
In the rush towards being a future Games city, we have already lost too much.
Not just access to our park, but what fledgling faith we had in a truly sustainable future for us and the countless generations to come.
We understand the excitement of the Games, the inspiration it can bring to many.
But the Olympic stadiums proposed for Victoria Park should not represent Bluey’s Brisbane.
There is still a very small window of opportunity to write a different Olympic narrative, one where long-promised environmental commitments are taken seriously.
Mr Brumm, the story you choose to champion can make a big difference in shaping our future, as you – and many other powerful people in this city – undoubtedly know.
We wait in hope that the next chapter of Bluey (and of Brisbane) will show a skyline not of stadiums built on broken dreams, but one where our parks, our nature and wildlife, continue to be celebrated.
Thank you for your time.
Yours sincerely,
The parents and kids of Save Victoria Park Inc.
https://www.facebook.com/savevictoriaparkbarrambin/
About Victoria Park Barrambin
Victoria Park is Brisbane's largest inner-urban green space - approximately 60 hectares of parkland that serves as the lungs of our subtropical city. This culturally significant First Nations site has been protected public parkland since 1875 and is now listed on Queensland's Heritage Register.
Up until earlier this year, the park had been the subject of a detailed Brisbane City Council Master Plan. As part of this, local First Nations elders from the Yagara and Turrbal communities participated in a four-year consultation process which honoured the rich Aboriginal heritage of the landscape. The result of this inclusive process was a shared ambition to deliver a world-class, uniquely Brisbane parkland with reinvigorated waterholes, 60% tree canopy to support urban cooling and wildlife, and innovative spaces for visitors to explore and connect with local Indigenous culture. This vision was thrown out last year in favour of major Olympic stadium construction. Current projections by architects, engineers and sustainable development experts now show the stadiums and associated infrastructure will consume two thirds (or about 35 hectares) of the park. This would result in a catastrophic loss of parkland in a city that already lags well behind all other Australian capitals when it comes to urban green space.