Then-deputy premier Steven Miles,who has since ascended to the top job,had insisted there had been no commitment to the International Olympic Committee that there would be such an independent cross-governmental agency.
But the Brisbane bid’s IOC Future Host Commission Questionnaire Response outlined an Olympic Coordination Authority that would include all levels of government.
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In his first act as incoming premier,Miles announced he would establish that promised delivery authority. Legislation to establish the Games Venue and Legacy Delivery Authority was introduced to state parliament on Wednesday.
Batten,who has been intimately involved in preparations for the next two Summer Olympic Games,said that was a welcome course correction.
Paris has contracted Arcadis as cost managers for Solideo,that city’s Games delivery authority. In Los Angeles,the global engineering company has been engaged in delivering new public transport links to established venues.
Brisbane 2032,Batten noted,would be “the first Games that the IOC are procuring,which are regional Games. Typically,they’re associated around a very large city – Tokyo,Paris,Los Angeles – megacities,right?
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“Brisbane wouldn’t have qualified alone,so they throw in Sunshine Coast and throw in the Gold Coast,south-east Queensland,and then you get a regional Games.”
That meant taking management authority away from a single city,he said,and spreading it between the state government,the Commonwealth,Brisbane City Council and other local governments in the region.
“So now you have four stakeholder groups,trying to sort out the direction and where the locations of venues and infrastructure is going to go,” Batten said.
“That’s added a complicating dimension,but the positive side of me says those three years could be – and I think have been – used constructively to build consensus and work out how that pattern of play amongst those four stakeholder groups works.”
There had been some concern amon some of Brisbane’s movers and shakers thatthe stadium debacle risked major reputational damage for Brisbane.
“This stadium situation doesn’t really export well,” New York-based Batten said.
“What does export well is how well the World Cup women’s soccer event was delivered here within the last year – it was delivered flawlessly.
“So I think the sceptics,if there are any out there,can be reassured that Australia knows how to deliver events.”