Brisbane 2032: Risk, Culture and Long-Term Impact

Andrew McCormack:

Hello and welcome to Ashurst’s Business Agenda podcast. My name is Andrew McCormack and I am a partner in Ashurst's Project & Energy Transition Team. It is with great pleasure that I bring you this series of bite-sized episodes revisiting key talking points from our 2032 and Beyond podcast series.

In these special episodes, we will take a detailed look at a range of important issues that are relevant to the Queensland Government's recently unveiled plans for the venues, infrastructure, and transport solutions for the Brisbane 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Welcome to Part 2 of our episode on lessons in leadership and risk management for international sporting events. In today's episode, we explore the complexity of planning for an event on the scale of the Brisbane 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Expert Bob Walker shares his experience in breaking down the “big picture” into interconnected plans, drawing on lessons from major events like the Sydney Olympics and the AFL Grand Final. One key take away from Bob's conversation with Ashurst partner, Dan Brown, is the importance of agility in planning—recognising that, no matter how comprehensive your contingencies, unexpected challenges will always arise.

We will also delve into the critical role of First Nations involvement, reflecting on the need for genuine engagement and representation—not just in ceremonies, but throughout the leadership and delivery of the Games. As we approach Brisbane 2032, this commitment to inclusion and legacy is more important than ever, given this unique opportunity to create lasting benefits for communities across Australia.

Without further ado, let's get back to our conversation with Dan and Bob.

Dan Brown:

What does that planning look like? Where do you start? How do you even begin to contemplate drafting a single plan let alone, I think you mentioned nine contingency plans.

Bob Walker:

So you start at the big picture, and you drop it down. And then everything has to interconnect at some point. And so that's why it takes so long. So if you start with the big picture that says we have 12 days of events. During those 12 days, we're going to have, or 14 days, we're going to have people here, here, here, and here. We know that because that's the schedule. Then start winding it back from there, right. And you have to also remember that, it's not like we haven't, we're not doing this already. So as you say that the MCG and the Grand Final is a great example. So we've got people that are really well skilled in bringing 100,000 people into a heart of a big metropolitan city regularly for those events. And you've got Melbourne Cup around the country. And so it's about tapping into those networks, the planning that sits floor, that's happening now. Those people are all pulled up into assisting in that planning.

Dan Brown:

Yeah. So maybe this is just my simple mind, but is the order of magnitude around the planning so much different when you're looking at 100,000 versus 500,000? Or is fundamentally, are the issues broadly aligned?

Bob Walker:

Broadly aligned. There's a bit more complexity to it, right. But broadly, you can roll that up.

Dan Brown:

Yeah, yeah. And so I guess, turning to things that are probably not so positive, what will unravel the Olympics? What will unravel the "best games ever" type moniker that we know will be ascribed to the Brisbane Olympics. From a risk management perspective or a risk perspective, what are the issues that might unravel, or make the games not so great an outcome for people?

Bob Walker:

So I think it is fair to say that you can't plan for every contingency. So stuff will happen. So you have to be agile in your approach. And I can remember really early on in the piece, in the testing, and so in some of the test events and the volunteers for the test events picked up the uniforms, gone home and they'd come back the next day in their uniform. And by the end of the day, they all had rashes because it was something wrong in the manufacturing process of that particular component of the uniform. So you can't plan for that.

So you have to be able to, you've got to have that agility to be able to respond and say, "Right, they're out and they are in." And then you look back at that and you go, well, thankfully we didn't have just one manufacturer of the uniforms. We looked at our continuity or our contingency and said that we need to have a couple of manufacturers. And so that was pulled and the other stuff was put in.

Dan Brown:

Turning to something that's a little more serious for a moment, but I think is absolutely fundamental to the success of any Olympics, but especially the Brisbane Olympics is the involvement of the First Nations people. I know it's something that you're really passionate about. It's something that our business, our firm here at Ashurst we're super passionate about it. And I know that there's been criticism of other games in the past around perhaps insensitivity or overlooking the First Nations people. And I guess potentially there's a risk-based, but it's actually more fundamental piece around acknowledgement, involvement and respect. But what are the things that we really need to focus on to ensure that this super important and fundamental aspect of our Australian culture and society is acknowledged and respected in the right way?

Bob Walker:

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. My view was that in Sydney, at that particular time, the community had a particular view and our First Nations people were involved in the opening ceremony and in the closing ceremony. But what stood out for me was that, so then I didn't see any indigenous faces in the volunteers or I didn't see any indigenous faces in the leadership teams. And I think that has to change, right. This should be something that we should all be really jumping behind and saying, all right, how do we as a firm – Well, we know as a firm, we're very committed to that - but as a nation, how do we actually use the Brisbane games as a catalyst to actually help elevate and give our First Nations people a voice by giving employment and skills. And there's a big enough period of time now that we could do that.

Dan Brown:

Yeah, yeah. And I guess it really ties back into that conversation we had a little earlier on the podcast, which was the games have to be more than just that couple of weeks period. It has to be about an enduring legacy primarily for the immediate community and the nation. But also more broadly for everybody that's touched by the Olympics. And so it seems to me to be a natural part of that legacy that we honour and respect the First Nations people in the most appropriate way, given the significance and importance of the games.

Bob Walker:

I think so. And I think it creates a great opportunity for us to think about creative ways of actually doing that.

Dan Brown:

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think when I was doing some of the background research around the Olympics and looking for content to drive the podcasts, I was really heartened to see public announcements and pronouncements by the state of Queensland acknowledging the important role of First Nations people. And look, that's a small step, but the rubber needs to hit the road, I guess.

Bob Walker:

It does.

Dan Brown:

And I'm going to be really excited to see how that unfolds.

Bob Walker:

Yeah, and we can hopefully as a firm, we get the opportunity to partner in that.

Dan Brown:

Yeah, that'd be amazing if we could do that, isn't it?

Bob Walker:

Yeah, exactly.

Dan Brown:

So, Bob, we've been talking a little bit today around the Olympics not just being a two week ordeal, but it's really about a legacy piece. And I imagine during that process of helping to deliver the 2000 Olympics, notwithstanding the depth and breadth of your experience and knowledge, you would have actually learned a great deal. But from, again, from that legacy perspective, what are some of the learnings, what are some of the tools that you took away from the Olympics that you've been able to implement moving forward that have benefited others outside of that pure games delivery environment?

Bob Walker:

Yeah, that's really interesting, Dan, because I think you're right. I mean that legacy is not just about the Olympic games and the infrastructure and the people that came to see, but it's about the people that put it on and the people that had the opportunity to actually work in those games. And so for me it was almost like the Olympic games of risk management for me. And it's continued to give back to me throughout my career. So I went on from that to the Rugby World Cup to Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, and to a couple of other events and chorused to what it is that I do in my career has still been fundamentally coming back to understanding risk and how to actually break it apart into manageable pieces so that organisations and people can understand it and then manage it and move forward.

And I think probably the most recent case of that for me would be obviously, we've got this thing called COVID-19 at the moment. And certainly in early 2020, that became the thing that I had got very seriously involved in some risk planning around COVID at the government level. So I did a fair bit of that and I was really bringing to fall all of that risk management skill that I learned during the Olympics and has stayed with me right throughout my career, because risk is about being able to get on with and get back to where you need to be safely. And with the South Australian film authority, they came in and spoke to me about trying to get the film sector in South Australia up and running again in order to create employment at the backend as our first wave of COVID started to die down.

So we applied a risk management approach. We developed a risk assessment tool. That particular tool we then helped the authority to use to actually undertake a risk assessment for a production, which then actually attracted the funding because the risk assessment had been done and created something like 300 jobs in South Australia for the filming of that particular thing when the entire film sector globally had been shut down. Our tool was then, that particular tool would then became the largest download for a risk assessment tool in the film sector anywhere at that time. And it continues to be used, I suppose to look at the issue around COVID, understand the risks and develop a mitigation plan and a COVID safe plan out of that. So risk management continues to give.

Dan Brown:

Yeah, that's incredible. And it's all done from South Australia, that's amazing and impact of the global film industry. But look, I feel like I need to apologise because at the outset, what I should have done was introduced you as the absolute undisputed world champion of risk management.

Andrew McCormack:

Thank you for joining us for the second part of this episode from our special series on leadership and risk management in hosting world-class international sporting events

It is clear that lessons from previous events like the Sydney Olympics continue to resonate—reminding us that while meticulous planning is essential, true success lies in our ability to adapt, respond, and learn from the unexpected.

Perhaps most importantly, this discussion underscores the significance of genuine First Nations involvement—not just as a symbolic gesture, but as a fundamental part of the Games’ leadership, delivery, and enduring legacy.

Thank you again to Bob Walker for sharing his insights, and to all of you for listening.

To hear other Business Agenda episodes, including full episodes of 2032 and Beyond, you'll find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast. While you're there, feel free to subscribe to Ashurst Business Agenda and leave us a rating or review. Thanks again for listening and good bye for now.

This podcast contains general information and does not constitute legal advice. Ashurst is not a sponsor, licensee, or promotional partner of the Brisbane 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games, the Olympic movement, nor any Olympic body, event, team, or athlete. Nothing in this podcast is intended to suggest any such sponsorship, licence, or promotional affiliation.