Queensland to bid to bring Games back to Australia in 2032

SYDNEY: Queensland will launch a bid to bring the Summer Olympics to Australia for the third time in 2032 if it can get financial support from central and local government, state premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said on Monday.

The bid would be centred on the city of Brisbane and the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast beach resort areas of the southeast of the state, and take place from July 23 to Aug. 8 2032, she told a news conference.

"This is about so much more than a few weeks of sport," Palaszczuk added in a statement.

"Hosting the 2032 Olympics and Paralympics could be a game-changer and deliver 20 years of accelerated opportunity for our state.

"That's why cabinet has today made the decision to continue working towards securing a Games – and we will continue to work closely with our partners to ensure we receive the financial support we require from all levels of government.

"There's more work to do to ensure we are in a position to put a compelling case to the International Olympic Committee."

Australia hosted the Olympics in 1956 in Melbourne and again in Sydney in 2000 but Brisbane's bid to bring the Games to Queensland in 1992 lost out to Barcelona.

The state has twice hosted the Commonwealth Games - in Brisbane in 1982 and the Gold Coast last year - and Palaszczuk estimated that up to 80per cent of the venues required to stage the Olympics were already in place or would be temporary.

Australia's Prime Minister Scott Morrison is on record as saying his government would back the bid "all the way" and Palaszczuk said the Olympics could create 130,000 jobs and boost "tourism spending" by AUS$20 million (10.6 million pounds).

"The world's greatest event provides a platform like no other. It's an opportunity to showcase Queensland to the rest of the world," she added.

"Hosting around 11,000 athletes from 206 countries, and an estimated television audience of 3.2 billion people would see the world watching Queensland at its best."

There are indications that rival bids for 2032 may come from Indonesia, India, Spain, Germany, Italy, Britain and Russia, while North and South Korea are investigating a joint proposal to bring the Olympics back to the peninsula.

Tokyo will host the Summer Olympics for the second time next year with Paris locked in for 2024 and a return to Los Angeles for the third time in 2028 already confirmed.

(Reporting by Nick Mulvenney, editing by Peter Rutherford)