Brisbane Olympics: Greens, One Nation and Katter events unite in push to cap spending on 2032 Video games | Queensland politics

They don’t often agree on a lot, however Queensland’s crossbenchers this week put their political variations apart to voice their shared considerations about spending on the 2032 Olympic Video games.

“I’m about as enthusiastic about this as getting a vasectomy, standing right here with the Greens, with our pure enemy,” the Katter’s Australian social gathering MP Nick Dametto instructed reporters on Tuesday.

“We’ve come collectively on one subject, which regional Queensland and even Brisbane and Southeast quarter residents will agree [with] – the destructive influence of the Olympics goes to have an effect on us all.”

The crossbench – together with members of One Nation, Katter’s Australian social gathering, the Greens and impartial MP Sandy Bolton – are calling on the state and federal governments to cap expenditure for the Video games at $7bn.

They’re additionally urging the state authorities to scrap the $2.7bn rebuild of the Gabba stadium, publish an Olympics housing plan and make investments an equal quantity in infrastructure tasks in areas that gained’t obtain any Olympics-related spending.

Requested how she felt making a joint announcement with One Nation, the Greens MP Amy MacMahon stated the crossbench was “united” on this challenge regardless of their huge “political variations”.

“We’re set to lose a state main faculty … all for a two-week occasion that almost all of individuals in our electorates gained’t be capable to afford to go to,” she stated, referring to the East Brisbane state faculty.

“The proof from Video games proper all over the world is that costs go up, charges go up and other people get actively displaced from their neighbourhoods … we’re seeing gentrification fuelled by the Olympic Video games.”

Bolton stated a few of her constituents within the Sunshine Coast have been additionally going through housing difficulties and she or he feared the Video games would exacerbate the disaster.

“What we actually want is a method and a plan on how that is going to be mitigated,” she stated.

Robbie Katter, the chief of the KAP, stated Queensland must have a “sobering” have a look at the Video games and the “monumental vortex” it’ll create for future infrastructure tasks.

“Everybody’s getting enthusiastic about it however we’re tasked with holding the federal government to account,” Katter stated.

“That makes you a bit unpopular as a result of everybody likes the thought of getting a celebration and having a brand new stadium, however there’s a value.”

Katter stated his social gathering was “sick of asking” for renal models and CT scanners, and “being instructed there’s no cash for it after they can discover cash for brand-new stadiums”.

“We didn’t compete for the Olympic Video games, nobody else on the earth wished it – it fell in our lap,” he stated.

A authorities spokesperson stated “there are not any gold medals for booing” and that authorities funding for the areas “eclipses Olympic spending by a substantial margin”.

They stated the Queensland authorities’s share of funding on Olympic infrastructure is $3.7bn over the subsequent decade, with the federal authorities offering $3.4bn.

“Nothing is being constructed only for the Olympic and Paralympic Video games. The concept has at all times been to speed up tasks in time for 2032 that can have lasting advantages for the neighborhood lengthy after.”