This is the second major government attack on Aboriginal sovereignty in Brisbane Magan-djin in the past 15 years. The first came in 2012, when hundreds of police moved on the Aboriginal Sovereign Embassy at Musgrave Park. Staunch Aboriginal resistance held the line and secured continuing control of the DOGIT area at the northern end of the park, including Jagera Arts Centre and the sacred fire.
Ironically, Queensland Premier Campbell Newman, who now says he supports saving Barrambin/Victoria Park, initiated the police attack on Musgrave Park on the very first day of his government. The pretext then was the Paniyiri Greek Festival.
Unfortunately, after the first occupation in 2012, the Aboriginal Cultural Centre promised by successive governments was never built. The $11 million set aside for the project was redirected elsewhere. The old tennis courts, intended to form the foundation of the Cultural Centre, remain on the site as a reminder of that broken promise.
At the time, the movement was not strong enough to bring the project to fruition, despite Uncle Sam Watson securing an undertaking from then Deputy Premier Jackie Trad that the Cultural Centre would be built if Labor were re-elected. That commitment was never honoured.
The Cultural Centre therefore remains an unfinished but vital expression of Aboriginal self-determination and economic independence in Magan-djin. If Brisbane is to host the Olympics and welcome international visitors, an Aboriginal-run Cultural Centre would be an obvious and meaningful investment — a place of cultural exchange, and a source of employment and opportunity for Aboriginal artists, performers, organisers and community.
Something positive for a change must come out of these struggles.
I can remember as a boy, on cross-country runs through Victoria Park, passing alongside the wetland known as York’s Hollow. Even then it felt distinct from the rest of the park — lower ground, damp underfoot, with water lingering in the reeds and paperbarks.
Barrambin was never just open parkland or a golf course. York’s Hollow was part of a living wetland and spring system long before the golf course was laid out, and long before the city spread around it.
It is something Aboriginal people have held onto for generations. Not far along breakfast creek there were Aboriginal encampments all the way up to where it meets the Brisbane river, the Maiwar. This is where Newstead House stands today overlooking the Hamilton reach once rich in fish, prawns, and bird life. Some things we should just leave alone. At Hamilton near North Point there are great stretches of concrete by the riverside probably about a venue for an Olympic stadium. In the avarice they intend to destroy the parkland, the trees, and the wildlife.
I think there was a farm nearby on the edges of hill and creek, on the other side of the Herston medical school — were there market gardens and cultivated ground supplying produce into Brisbane, I wonder? The area was once part of a much broader landscape of water, cultivation and gathering: wetlands, camps, gardens and pathways, all before it was drained, filled and remade into parkland. This area is now occupied by Northey Street City farm beside what used to be at industrial area housing print shops and car workshops and the junk that went with it. Not pretty.
Springbok apartheid tour. In response to a government declaration of a state of emergency, several hundred students, trade unionists, anti-apartheid activists and community supporters gathered in and around Victoria Park near the Exhibition Grounds. Police had sealed off the RNA and much of the surrounding area, but the protest continued to build throughout the day.
Victoria Park became a staging ground for resistance. Demonstrators assembled on the open ground below Gregory Terrace before moving toward the Exhibition Grounds and into the city. Mounted police and large numbers of officers were deployed across the park and surrounding streets. Protesters were met with batons, arrests and police lines, but they continued to march in defiance of the emergency powers.
For many in Brisbane, the confrontation at Victoria Park and the Tower Mill nearby during the 1971 Springbok tour remains one of the defining moments of political resistance in Queensland — a moment when opposition to apartheid collided directly with a racist. state government.
So we should be looking towards what we can bring out of this latest struggle in Barrambin. What about that cultural centre, eh?
Ian Curr, 1 June 2026
Where support for racist apartheid was strongest in Australia — in Queensland — the resistance was strongest too. History is made not by those who stand aside, but by those prepared to take a stand.
Yet there have been no public statements about the proposed Olympic stadium from a number of major public institutions situated immediately adjacent to the site in Barrambin.
These include the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital, the largest public hospital in Australia; the University of Queensland’s Medical School at Herston, which stands beside both the proposed stadium site and the hospital; Brisbane Grammar School at the western end of Victoria Park; Brisbane Girls Grammar School overlooking the parklands; and St Joseph’s College Gregory Terrace, whose historical sporting grounds once occupied part of the area.
Nor have there been public statements from the University of Queensland or the Queensland University of Technology, despite both institutions having campuses immediately adjacent to the proposed Olympic precinct.
The silence of these public institutions is striking.
The proposed stadium will have profound implications for traffic, public transport, emergency access, construction impacts, heritage values, open space, and the future character of the Herston–Spring Hill precinct. These are matters of direct concern not only to students and staff, but to the wider public.
Public institutions have a responsibility to contribute openly to public debate on projects of this scale. Yet the elites remain silent. Why?
The public is entitled to know what concerns, if any, have been raised by the hospital, the universities and the schools most directly affected by the development.
To date, that public discussion appears to be absent despite leadership being provided by traditional owners driven off that land by settlers in the 19th century.
There is no publicly available evidence that Toowoomba real estate Tycoon, Clive Berghofer, stands to gain financially from the construction of the Olympic stadium.
However, neither Clive Berghofer nor management at QIMR Berghofer appear to have made any public statement about the advantages or disadvantages of locating a 63,000-seat Olympic stadium immediately adjacent to one of Australia’s leading medical research institutes.
Truth is, the 2032 Olympic dream has converted all of Brisbane Magan-djin into a construction site. For some years now and for the foreseeable future this chaotic, as hoc and unplanned construction detracts from the livability of this River City.
It is no coincidence that the elites stand back from the fray. I remember well June and July 1971, when the South African Springbok rugby tour came to Brisbane in support of apartheid South Africa. The elites stood back then too. Although many claimed to oppose the racist regime in South Africa, few were prepared to take a public stand against the tour.
Instead, it was left to students and staff at the University of Queensland, together with Brisbane’s trade unions, to organise the resistance. One of the largest demonstrations took place in Victoria Park, immediately adjacent to the Brisbane Exhibition Grounds where the match was being played.
“With the oval at the Exhibition Grounds ringed by barbed wire, protesters decided instead to launch a demonstration in nearby Victoria Park. About 2,000…” – Radical times archive.
That struggle became part of Australia’s broader resistance to apartheid. I do not make this claim lightly. Where apartheid’s supporters were strongest in Australia — in Queensland — the resistance was also strongest.
There is one notable exception that being the former Premier Campbell Newman who led his party to the disastrous defeat after sacking 14,000 public servants. Campbell-Newman is the only member of this elite who has publicly criticised the stadium in Victoria Park.
More glaring still is the complete absence of Queensland council of unions in this debate. In July 1971 unions were most active.
” The Ruby test match was played at the Exhibition Grounds because BWIU unionists black banned essential plumbing works at the better equipped and more desirable Ballymore rugby ground.
The BWIU also halted the production of police batons and the AMIEU stopped the transport of police horses to the demonstration.
So where is the Queensland council of Unions in this debate!
Or are there Project Agreements, Enterprise Bargaining Agreements, or Industrial Framework Agreements being negotiated behind the scenes between the successful contractor and unions such as the CFMEU, ETU, AMWU and the Plumbers?
If this is true how ironic because it was the construction unions that opposed a part-time and put bans on government attempts to have the game located in the best playing fields and stopped the production of police batons and deployment of horses to attack the demonstrators.
Ian Curr
3 June 2026
See also “The Games”
What happened to the aboriginal cultural centre proposed by successive governments? Another promise never delivered.
You would think that in the spirit of the Olympics, with many guests coming to Brisbane Magan-djin, these elites, depicted in this video, would wish to show off Aboriginal culture
How better to do it than by an Aboriginal-run showcase of first Nations art and culture.
Forget the stadium in Barrambin build an Aboriginal-run cultural centre now!
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