Procurement Crucial to ‘Control or Chaos’ in 2032 Games Delivery

Brisbane’s race to deliver the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games cannot be won on ambition alone. It will be won—or lost—on procurement. With a $120-billion infrastructure pipeline gathering pace across Queensland, industry leaders are warning the difference between a successful Games and a blown-out program may come down to one thing. Sequenced programming and procurement should be used to impose discipline on the Sunshine State’s indigestion-inducing pipeline, according to WT Australia’s Queensland director Jack Shelley. “Infrastructure success isn’t about building faster; it’s about planning smarter,” Shelley says. “What we need to do is have those properly coordinated, sequenced procurement strategies—and that is how we determine whether Brisbane 2032 is delivered through control or chaos.” And the starter gun has fired as the Queensland Government revealed this week the consortia vying for the Brisbane Arena project , and the location of the new Victoria Park stadium. Drilling has begun on the Gabba Entertainment and Housing Precinct, a mixed-use precinct anchored by a 17,000-seat indoor arena. A sprint, a marathon—and a fixed deadline The urgency is becoming undeniable. “It’s a sprint and a marathon. Day one readiness matters,” WT sport and venues sector lead Tim Bessell says. ▲ WT director for Queensland Jack Shelley says some trade-offs will be forced as the state grapples with a big pipeline of competing priorities. That duality defines the challenge ahead. Brisbane must deliver a globally scrutinised program of venues, transport and accommodation infrastructure to a fixed deadline, while ensuring every asset generates long-term value. But in a constrained market, speed comes at a cost, and Queensland projects are paying dearly, which will lead to some tough decisions, Shelley says. “We’re in a fixed deadline environment,” he says. “And that means escalation doesn’t just increase cost—it affects project viability, it delays projects, it defers projects, it descales projects. “It forces those hard trade-offs.” System already under strain Those trade-offs are becoming more acute as Queensland’s construction pipeline intensifies. Major Olympic works are colliding with housing, energy, transport and water infrastructure programs, all competing for the same labour pool. The result is a workforce crunch forecast to peak at 46,000 workers by 2028–29, assuming no further attrition and no productivity improvements. At the same time, productivity itself is faltering. ▲ A rendering of the Gold Coast Arena proposed for a 4.5ha site at Southport overlooking the Broadwater. Some Brisbane construction sites are reporting as little as 2.5 productive days per week. “The big build will create an unprecedented pipeline of work that will drive labour shortages,” Bessell says. “We see a potential shortfall of just over 27,000 people next financial year, and 43,000 the year after.” And the implications are already being felt across the market. “Cost escalation in Queensland is no longer cyclical, or short-term—it’s structural,” Shelley says. “By 2027, we’re going to see building markets at 10 per cent escalation, and infrastructure at 8 per cent. “Labour is that dominant driver—not materials—and it’s amplified by the Olympics program, but also coinciding with housing, energy, transport and water.” Procurement as the pressure valve In that environment, procurement becomes more than a process—it becomes the primary lever to manage risk. “We need program-wide coordination, because escalation is best managed upstream through sequencing and packaging,” Shelley says. “Once the projects are in procurement, the horse has bolted.” That upstream focus is critical, Shelley says. Rather than treating projects in isolation, industry is calling for a “bird’s-eye view” across the entire Olympic pipeline—mapping labour demand, sequencing works and aligning delivery timelines to avoid peak overlaps. “London and Paris demonstrated this really well—they did early risk reduction, bundled procurement, integrated planning and co-ordination,” Shelley says. “These are decisive advantages that are at our fingertips. In a constrained market, we need to maximise that.” Productivity: the missing piece Even with smarter procurement, the numbers don’t stack up without a lift in productivity. Queensland’s construction sector has experienced a sustained decline since the mining boom era, reversing years of efficiency gains. “If Queensland had maintained its 2018 productivity levels, an additional 77,000 homes could have been built,” Bessell says. Productivity – value of work delivered per employee ▲ Source: Qld Major Contractors Association Recent reforms, including the removal of Best Practice Industry Conditions (BPIC) and changes to subcontractor prequalification, aim to reduce friction and unlock efficiency across the sector. But structural change will take time—and the Olympic deadline will not wait. That’s why the industry is increasingly focused on alternative delivery methods. Modular construction and offsite manufacturing are emerging as critical tools to reduce onsite labour squeeze and compress timelines. The labour equation Even with productivity gains, workforce supply remains the defining constraint. Hydraulics specialists, electricians, crane operators and carpenters are all expected to be in high demand as the pipeline peaks. “The shortfalls will need to come from interstate migration, New Zealand, or new entrants into construction from other industries,” Bessell says. Queensland’s construction labour force challenge ▲ Source: WT's From vision to legacy—a game plan for Brisbane 2032 and beyond report He is among those calling for a more aggressive approach to skilled migration, particularly from New Zealand where the market has cooled. Without intervention, some projects will be delayed. Others will be descoped. And parts of the broader pipeline may be pushed beyond the Games. Making projects stack up Beyond delivery, procurement also plays a critical role in ensuring projects are financially viable—during and after the Games. “It’s hard to get these arenas to stack up from a feasibility point of view,” Bessell says. “So you have to look across as many different platforms to get people in as possible.” ▲ WT national sports and venues sector lead Tim Bessell says commercial office in the La Défense Arena ( pictured ) helped make it financially viable. That means integrating commercial outcomes into venue design from the outset, and examples from previous Games offer a clear blueprint. Paris’s La Défense Arena incorporated 30,000sq m of commercial office space to support its business case, while Brisbane projects are increasingly being considered through a similar multi-use lens. “The multi-purpose nature of an arena—whether it’s a Gabba arena or a Gold Coast arena—these are public-private partnerships used to harness commercial outcomes,” Bessell says. “Sunshine Coast arena, in Games mode, is an arena—but in legacy mode, it becomes a convention centre.” Avoiding the white elephant trap For all the urgency around delivery, the long-term legacy remains the ultimate measure of success. “Every dollar spent on Brisbane 2032 should be working twice as hard—once for the Games, and again for Queensland’s long-term growth,” Bessell says. That means avoiding the mistakes of past host cities, where poorly planned venues became underutilised “white elephants”. “Avoid the Homebush scenario,” he says. The solution lies in early decision-making—locking scope, embedding flexibility and aligning procurement strategies with long-term use cases.

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