Overview
Brisbane has been arguing about Victoria Park for three years. As of June 1, the argument has a fence around it. That was the day the Games Independent Infrastructure and Coordination Authority (GIICA) took possession of the park and began initial works for Brisbane Stadium — the $3.8 billion, 63,000-seat centrepiece of the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
The early program is unglamorous but consequential: site investigations, early enabling works, demolition of some existing infrastructure and the establishment of construction areas on the Herston side of the park. Bulk earthworks are scheduled to begin between late 2026 and early 2027, with the early-works contract to be awarded in the coming months.
The stadium will host the opening and closing ceremonies and athletics in 2032, then settle in as the city's main venue for sport and entertainment, with concert capacity stretching to 70,000. The designs lean hard on connection: a network of elevated pedestrian bridges across the Inner City Bypass will act as entry points on event days and as public thoroughfares the rest of the time, stitching the precinct into Spring Hill, Herston and Bowen Hills.
But the start of construction is also the continuation of a contest. To the Turrbal and Yagara Peoples, the park is Barrambin, a culturally significant site whose springs were sacred places of healing. First Nations activists established a tent embassy at the park in April, after it was announced the site would be fenced off for five years; protesters were removed in late May. Opponents have filed ten applications with federal Environment Minister Murray Watt to protect part of the park under the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act. Watt has assessed two so far, saying he was "unable to be satisfied that either application met the statutory requirements for a declaration to be made", while acknowledging "the importance of the area to the Turrbal and Yagara Peoples". The remaining applications are still being assessed — though, as Watt told ABC Radio Brisbane, "People seem to think that these are stop work orders, and they're not."
Community group Save Victoria Park, meanwhile, argues the city is giving up one of its few inner-city green spaces — land it believes could have become Brisbane's answer to Federation Square or Sydney Park. It's a sharp turn from the master plan Brisbane was promised in 2021, which imagined tree house lookouts and water play gullies rather than grandstands.
For the next five years, Victoria Park will be a construction site. What Brisbane gets at the end of it is a stadium. What it gives up — and who was heard along the way — will be argued over for far longer than the building takes.
Want more on how the city is reshaping itself before the Games? Read our rundown of Brisbane's 2032 Olympic venue plan.