Brisbane 2032: The Games That Will Reshape Southeast Queensland

Brisbane's successful bid to host the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games was confirmed by the International Olympic Committee in 2021, making Brisbane the third Australian city to host the Games after Melbourne (1956) and Sydney (2000). The announcement triggered the most significant infrastructure planning exercise in Queensland history, as the state and federal governments committed to the transport, venue, sports, and urban renewal investments that hosting the Games requires and that the planning community has used the Games as leverage to accelerate.

The Olympic programme has been designed to use existing venues wherever possible, with Brisbane Stadium (Suncorp Stadium), the Gabba, and the Queensland Tennis Centre modified and upgraded rather than replaced with new facilities. The approach, designed to avoid the white elephant venue legacy that has blighted several post-Olympic cities, represents a deliberate strategic choice that the IOC's New Norm framework encourages and that Brisbane has embraced more thoroughly than most previous host cities.

The transport infrastructure investment associated with the Games, including the Cross River Rail project already under construction and the Brisbane Metro that connects the CBD to the inner suburbs, represents the generational infrastructure investment that Brisbane has sought for decades. The Games timing has provided the political justification for investments that the city needed regardless of the Olympics but that required the forcing function that a fixed international deadline provides.

The Athletes' Village planned for the Hamilton waterfront on the Brisbane River will become a riverside residential community after the Games, adding significant housing supply to the inner city and transforming an underutilised industrial and port waterfront into a mixed-use urban precinct. The legacy residential development is intended to provide the most tangible long-term urban benefit of the Games investment.

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