WHAT SHOULD YOU WRITE IN YOUR EMAIL?

This is completely up to you. We have included some starting points below. Pick the issues that matter most to you. You do not need to use them all. If you mention one thing in your email, we strongly encourage you to discuss the lack of genuine community consultation around the plan to build stadiums in Victoria Park Barrambin.

NO GENUINE CONSULTATION - THE CONSULTATION EXCLUDES THE PHASES THAT MATTER MOST

• The stadium project is divided into four phases: pre-Games transformation, Games operations, post-Games transformation and long-term legacy development. Yet this consultation focuses on the final legacy phase ONLY and gives the public no meaningful opportunity to comment on the suitability of Victoria Park as the stadium location or on the earlier phases that will create the greatest impacts.

• These earlier phases include the major construction, closure and Games-time impacts on traffic, noise, dust, emergency access, wildlife, mature trees and First Nations cultural heritage.

• Decisions about construction, closure and Games-time operations will largely be worked through between State agencies, GIICA, transport authorities and Brisbane City Council, rather than being put to the public through this consultation. During the construction phase, GIICA has refused to conduct town hall meetings or public forums, preferring to isolate community groups and deal with issues in siloed, fragmented discussions which minimises collective public understanding and feedback

• A consultation that focuses on what happens after the most significant impacts have already occurred cannot reasonably be presented as comprehensive community consultation.

• I do not believe the Government’s “Have Your Say” process on the Victoria Park Precinct Draft Legacy Plan adequately addresses the Federal Government’s requirement for genuine engagement under the Inter-Governmental Agreement (IGA).

MISLEADING “GREEN” AND LEGACY CLAIMS

• No date has been given for when Legacy Development Mode will actually begin. JUST POST 2032. 

• Victoria Park Barrambin has already been converted from public land to freehold, which raises real concerns about future development pressure, given what has happened at other sites such as South Bank and Roma Street Parkland.

• Any promise of a restored park rests entirely on the word of a Premier who has already broken a pre-election commitment not to build a new stadium, with no legislation in place to guarantee the outcome.

• The statement that “around two-thirds” will remain green and public space is not accompanied by:

  • a definition of green space

  • an existing baseline

  • an area calculation

  • a distinction between ecological habitat, lawn, landscaped plaza and green-roofed or built space.

  • Does not make clear that a majority of the park will need to be raised, essentially becoming a quarry and then green space planted back - however planting saplings and grass is not the same as bulldozing 200+ year old veteran trees

• I note on page 10 that the plan’s promise of an “urban forest” is only planned for 2042 while in the meantime, the park’s heritage-listed veteran trees that are hundreds of years old are destroyed.

• I note that on page 17, carparks/drop offs/mobility hubs and bus malls (legend numbers 2, 3, 5, 10, 23, 26)  are deceptively coloured in green to make the entire area look like there is more greenspace

• Page 17’s depiction of large mature trees covering the entire park is incredibly misleading and deceptive

• On Page 17, the two new land bridges are drawn as established green landscape rather than large, complex structures over the Inner City Bypass and a hazardous goods train line.

• Under the State Government’s plan, Victoria Park would become predominantly stadium venue first. The original Brisbane City Council Master Plan to rewild the park started from the premise that Victoria Park is Brisbane's largest new inner-city parkland. Everything flowed from restoring nature, increasing tree canopy, reconnecting waterways and creating everyday recreation. In contrast, the State Government’s stadium plan starts with accommodating a 63,000-seat stadium, National Aquatic Centre and Olympic infrastructure, making everything event focused then inserting in patches of parkland around those facilities. 

COST BLOWOUTS AND UNDISCLOSED PUBLIC EXPENDITURE

• Nowhere in the document does the Government identify the total cost of delivering the promised precinct.

• The Government continues to state that Olympic venues will be delivered on budget, yet at least $1.1 billion in additional public infrastructure spending is required to make the precinct functional, including a new heavy rail station ($300 million), an extended blast-resistant landbridge over active rail corridors ($100 million), and ancillary civil works, road modifications and stormwater drainage ($700 million).

• I ask that the Federal Government require full public disclosure of these related costs before any funding is released.

• Brisbane’s recently completed Kangaroo Point Bridge rose from an initial $190 million estimate to $299 million. While the proposed Victoria Park land bridges are different projects, this provides a sobering local benchmark. The Legacy Plan supplies no dimensions, engineering concept, construction method, cost estimate, funding source or explanation of how two substantial bridges could be built over the operating Inner City Bypass and rail infrastructure. 

• The Draft Legacy Plan fails to identify if the existing Green Land Bridge (currently pedestrian access) is going to have vehicular traffic

CULTURAL HERITAGE IMPACTS

• There are currently four Section 10 applications for permanent protection of Victoria Park Barrambin under the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act, still being assessed by the Federal Government.

• Barrambin is one of Brisbane’s most significant First Nations sites, with long-documented connections to camping, gathering, ceremony, water, family history, burial places and continuing connection to Country, and is also the site of the 1846 and 1849 York’s Hollow conflicts.

• The park’s original ridges, gullies, view lines and open landforms are part of its cultural meaning and cannot be moved, offset or recreated around a stadium.

• Despite the well documented First Nations history of Victoria Park Barrambin, the Government’s 44-page Draft Victoria Park Precinct Legacy Plan does not mention First Nations history once.

• The Games Concept Plan on p.44 shows York’s Hollow greyed out indicated back of house Olympics operations and logistics / servicing and operations movement over this historic area. I have grave concerns over what this means for York’s Hollow and urge the State Government to clearly explain whether they plan on desecrating this area in any way.

• I urge the Federal Government to not release any Olympic funding until a decision has been made on the ATSIHPA Section 10 applications.

POOR PUBLIC TRANSPORT CONNECTIVITY DURING THE GAMES

• In its 100-Day Review, one of the reasons GIICA recommended Victoria Park for a stadium was that the site could be “accessible from all directions and leverages transport infrastructure investment including utilisation of new Exhibition Station via new pedestrian walkways.” Page 18 of the Draft Legacy Plan shows that Exhibition Station will not even be one of the primary public transport connections (likely due to IOC security requirements with the Athlete’s village at the RNA showgrounds) with people needing to walk from Fortitude Valley train station or Roma Street train station (the walk from both of these stations to the approximate stadium site is roughly 2-2.6km with sections of the walk up hilly terrain).

IMPACTS ON THE ROYAL BRISBANE AND WOMEN’S HOSPITAL

• Victoria Park Barrambin sits immediately next to the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital - Queensland’s largest hospital with more than 1,000 beds, at the centre of a health precinct employing around 13,000 people.

• I am concerned that construction disruption, event-day traffic, parking pressure and access challenges next to a hospital delivering 24-hour emergency, maternity and dialysis care have not been properly assessed or opened to public consultation.

LOCAL IMPACTS: TRAFFIC, PARKING, NOISE AND DUST

• Because the 'have your say' survey is focussed on post 2032 Olympics, the Victoria Park Precinct Draft Legacy Plan does not present any traffic, noise and dust management plans covering the full six years of works and only the works after the Olympics are open to consultation, not the impacts of building it.

• The Draft Legacy Plan fails to identify how much of the site would need to be cleared, excavated, cut down, filled, stabilised, benched, quarried or blasted. There is no cut-and-fill plan or existing-versus-finished contour comparison.

• The plan also fails to identify how the current road network will manage the additional capacity requirements of the Olympics and future stadium events. Herston Road is one lane each way that is incapable of servicing a stadium. Victoria Park Road is one lane each way. Page 19 of the document states that “Upgrades to local road network will be undertaken…” however this is not detailed.

• Because the 'have your say' survey is focussed on post 2032 Olympics, the government is able to avoid consulting with the community on local issues such as traffic, parking, RBWH, noise, dust etc. This is not genuine consultation. As a concerned resident, I urge the Federal Government not to let this pass as genuine consultation.

• It is unclear if any residential buy-backs that would likely be needed to expand existing road networks to service the stadium.

• Six years of continuous construction will bring sustained heavy vehicle movements through inner-city streets and suburbs surrounding the park, not a short, one-off building project.

• Local residents and businesses are likely to face years of increased congestion, reduced on-street parking and traffic diversions as haulage routes are established to move machinery, materials and spoil in and out of the site.

• Clearing 80-90% of the park and undertaking large-scale earthworks over six years will generate significant dust, with real air-quality implications for nearby homes, schools and vulnerable residents, not just during isolated peak construction windows.

• Construction noise and vibration sustained over six years is a fundamentally different experience to a short building project. I am concerned about the cumulative impact on sleep, work, school and daily life for residents and workers near the site.

• I ask that the Federal Government require independently verified noise, dust and traffic modelling for the entire six-year construction period, before any further funding is committed.

DESTRUCTION OF GREEN SPACE

• Victoria Park was set aside in the 1870s as green space for the people of Brisbane. Its remaining 64 hectares are now being taken away from the public.

• Mature trees, rolling hills and natural springs that cannot be replaced will be destroyed to host an event lasting a few weeks.

• The park will be inaccessible to the public for at least eight years. Children starting Grade 4 this year will finish school without ever playing in this park.

• The park had up to one million visitors a year before its closure. The decision to take this park away from the public is unfathomable given that Brisbane’s population is growing and high-rise development is continuing all around the park. Brisbane needs more green space, not less.

DESTRUCTION OF THOUSANDS OF TREES

• Victoria Park Barrambin is home to more than 4,000 trees, including 57 pre-colonial trees over 200 years old. These trees are highly valued by the community and are sacred to First Nations people. The Draft Legacy Plan does not map the park’s 57 identified pre-settlement trees or disclose which would survive. There is no mature-tree retention percentage.

• These established trees provide critical ecosystem services to our growing city and I am concerned that removing them represents an enormous, irreversible loss for Brisbane.

• The Legacy Plan’s claim that two-thirds of the park will remain “green and public space” is misleading, as this will include concourses, pathways and roads and refers to staged regreening through to 2042 and beyond, not the retention of existing trees. New plantings cannot replace the thousands of mature trees that will be removed.

THREATS TO THE BARRAMBIN SPRINGS

• Developing the site for the Olympics will see around 80–90% of the park covered in structures and paved areas. Rainfall that would normally soak into the ground and travel underground to feed the Barrambin springs will instead be diverted into gutters and drains.

• The springs, the trees, the landscape and the wildlife are all one connected system. If the catchment feeding the springs is capped, spring flow will diminish, and that decline will impact the trees and wildlife that depend on it too.

• The Draft Legacy Plan fails to identify how the two stadiums are expected to impact the historic fresh water Barrambin springs

WILDLIFE IMPACTS

• Victoria Park Barrambin provides habitat for at least 82 bird species, 12 reptiles, 19 mammals, 2 fish species, 6 amphibians and 110 insect and arachnid species, including a resident squirrel glider population, and winter foraging grounds for the grey-headed flying-fox.

• The Draft Legacy Plan fails to identify how lights and noise from two stadiums, an outdoor playing field and track would impact biodiversity and wildlife.

• Losing this habitat would remove one of Brisbane’s few remaining inner-city wildlife refuges, at a time when habitat is already under severe pressure.