SYDNEY, May 29 (Reuters) – Police in Brisbane made five arrests on Friday as they cleared a protest camp from the city park where the main stadium for the 2032 Olympics will be built.
A coalition of environmentalists and Indigenous activists had been warned by the Queensland state government they would be removed if they did not vacate the park, which will be closed off for five years from next week.
The Games Independent Infrastructure and Coordination Authority (GIICA) will take over the park at midnight on Monday and begin site work for the 63,000-seat arena, the centrepiece of Australia’s third Olympics.
The work is set to get underway despite an outstanding application to the Australian government by Indigenous groups to protect the park in perpetuity as a “significant Aboriginal area”.
The park, which includes many old-growth trees, is known as Barrambin (“Windy Place”) to the Yagara people, who consider it culturally and spiritually significant.
The “Goori Camp Embassy” had kept a ceremonial camp fire burning for more than 60 days among a huddle of tents in the park and had planned non-violent resistance.
Some 40 police officers surprised campaigners by arriving at the park on Friday morning, making two arrests before giving the other protesters a couple of hours to disperse.
There were scuffles and three more arrests as the tents were dismantled after the deadline had passed.
Indigenous activists, who had been hoping to delay construction until their application to the federal government was heard, said they were intending to keep the fire alight.
The state government last year exempted the park, which was mostly a golf course until 2021, from heritage, environmental and planning laws.
As well as the stadium, a new aquatics centre will be built for the Olympics on the site of the Centenary Pool in another part of the park.
The state government and Brisbane City Council issued a joint statement on Friday saying the park was going to become a “world-class destination” with plenty of open space for people to enjoy.
“While we respect the right to peaceful protest, the Victoria Park camp has now become a safety issue,” it added.
“GIICA, council and police have repeatedly engaged with protesters at Victoria Park and made clear it will be unsafe for people to remain once the site becomes an active construction zone.”
($1 = 1.3957 Australian dollars)
(Reporting by Nick Mulvenney, editing by Peter Rutherford)
Comments