NOlympics LA is a part of the NOlympics Anywhere movement, a transnational group of organizations staging various fights around housing and homelessness, policing and security, environmental and community destruction, and the many problems the games foist upon host city residents. We’ve published resources like our academic syllabus and teach-in series to help groups understand what they’re up against and we will continue supporting people caught up in the churn of the Olympic machine. This dispatch comes from some comrades in Brisbane who were promised no new stadiums would be built, but are fighting a massive, expensive, destructive stadium set to begin construction on the sacred Indigenous land of the Yagara People. Read their dispatch here:
A “Trojan Horse”: The Olympic stadium that Brisbane does not need and the erosion of democratic oversight and environmental integrity
I am from Brisbane Australia. Our city will host the Olympic Games in 2032. The Queensland state Labor government in 2021 signed a contract with the International Olympic Committee to host sustainable games with no expensive new facilities, the so-called “new norm” Olympics.
In 2024 the conservative Liberal/National, LNP, government was elected. At the elections, the LNP made a clear commitment to Queenslanders that there would be no new stadiums. But once elected, the LNP broke its promise and decided that Brisbane needed a new stadium scrapping the agreement made with the IOC. There was no clear reason why this was necessary. They claimed time was short, but there are other spaces in Brisbane that are far more suitable and would be considerably cheaper and easier to develop. There was also no public consultation about the location of the main stadium in heritage-listed parkland, or with the Yagara Indigenous people for whom this is sacred territory.
To enable them to build stadiums on this land, the government bypassed 15 pieces of legislation that protected heritage-listed land and then two months ago it transferred the park’s crown-land status into freehold, giving it to the Games Coordination Authority to use as they wish.
The government has not addressed problems related to the site: disruption to the main hospital immediately adjacent to the park, access by visitors to the Games, housing of competitors and international visitors when there already is an acute housing shortage. Meanwhile costs of construction are escalating especially with the fuel crisis as a result of the war in Iran. The immovable deadline for delivery will have a “cannibalizing” effect on the local housing and labour markets. At the same time, to enable this vanity mega-build, promised health, infrastructure and transport facilities have been delayed or cancelled as they are deemed too expensive.
Construction is scheduled to begin on 1 June.
Dr. Neil Peach, a Project Coordinator with the Games WatchDog2032, on 5 May 2026 at a meeting of the alliance of Greens parties in the European parliament compared the experiences of past and coming winter Olympics with Brisbane’s. And I would add this applies to your Games in LA in 2028.
The promise of a “Green Olympics” has acted as a Trojan Horse. The “Horse” presented to the public was painted with the colours of sustainability, “re-wilding,” and the preservation of our green spaces.
Once the bid was won and the gates were opened, the “Hidden Reality” was revealed:
- The permanent construction of a 60,000-seat Main Stadium and a National Aquatic Centre on protected heritage land, sacred to the Yagara First Nations peoples.
- The destruction of 2,000 mature trees and the displacement of 300,000 cubic metres of earth, obliterating 70% of the park.
- An irrational decision-making process that ignores the government’s own 100-Day Review, which concluded this site has significant heritage, topographical and transport constraints.
Whether it is “Snow” in the Dolomites or “Concrete” in Brisbane, the “Hidden Cost” is the same: the erosion of democratic oversight and environmental integrity.
As Dr Peach writes elsewhere: The Victoria Park Barrambin project is not a battle between sports lovers and loopy NIMBYs, as the government tries to depict us. It is a Trojan Horse designed to force through the most expensive sporting venue in Australian history at an exorbitant $60,000- $90,000 per seat while distracting the community from the severe financial, environmental, and logistical crises that will burden Queenslanders for generations.
Helene van Klinken
Brisbane, Australia +61 455 103 233