Beyond the Games: Designing Australia's Infrastructure Legacy

Workforce: The deciding factor

The most significant constraint for Brisbane 2032 is not funding but capability. Nation building at this scale depends on a skilled, scalable and resilient workforce.

Queensland requires thousands of engineers, project managers and trades professionals, supported by digital specialists capable of embedding advanced technologies into every stage of delivery. Equally, regional participation and Indigenous engagement is vital to ensuring the Games create both economic and social value.

Jacobs' experience across global infrastructure programs reinforces that capability investment must begin early. Apprenticeships, graduate pathways and reskilling initiatives are essential to building continuity of expertise. International mobility should be leveraged where it strengthens capability, while local workforce development must underpin long-term legacy.

Without a coordinated workforce strategy, even sophisticated governance models risk underperformance. With one, Brisbane can establish a delivery capability that endures for future generations.

Redefining the measure of success

Brisbane 2032 provides an inflection point for Australia's infrastructure system. It offers a platform to redefine how the nation plans, procures and delivers at scale.

Success is measurable. It will be evident when the Games are delivered with budgetary discipline, when venues operate as enduring community assets and when the delivery model itself becomes a template for certainty, collaboration and performance.

These outcomes are achievable through design, not aspiration.

Jacobs' local and global portfolio demonstrates that disciplined program governance, consistent stakeholder alignment and integrated digital assurance produce measurable outcomes in cost, safety and social value. The convergence of challenges facing Brisbane - housing, energy transition and transport renewal - makes this discipline imperative.

Industry is prepared to act. Jacobs stands ready to deploy its capital advisory, program management and delivery partner expertise to help government make the strategic decisions that will shape the next decade of national infrastructure.

The decisive choice is clear: persist with fragmented, transactional procurement that guarantees drift, or adopt programmatic, outcomes-based partnerships that deliver certainty, legacy and confidence.

A defining moment for Australia

The implications of this choice extend beyond the Games.

Continuing with conventional procurement will perpetuate cost escalation, fragmented accountability and erosion of public confidence. Programmatic collaboration, underpinned by governance discipline, can deliver enduring value and institutional capability.

Brisbane 2032 is therefore more than a sporting event - it is a referendum on how Australia builds.

Failure will echo for a generation. Success will redefine how the nation governs, collaborates and performs.

Readiness is not a matter of time but of design. The frameworks established now will determine whether Brisbane 2032 becomes a case study in constraint or a model of confidence, the point at which Australia demonstrates it can build, govern and deliver at a global standard.

Brisbane 2032 will not only reshape city skylines but determine Australia's standing as a nation capable of disciplined, world-class delivery. The world will be watching, and history will remember how we chose to build.