Brisbane’s Olympic stadium stoush to hit the stage – but the fight’s not over yet

As one of six children, playwright and actor Amelia Slatter has experience standing up for her rights.

“We lived in The Gap, and there were a lot of trees that would hang above the roof, so [my parents] were like, ‘we need to take this tree down’, and I was like, ‘you’re not taking it down!’”

She lost that battle, but the memory as an eight-year-old tying herself to her beloved tree would resurface in the writing of 8 More Years, Slatter’s comedy about a family divided by the prospect of the Brisbane Olympics.

Playwright and actor Amelia Slatter and director Calum Johnston in Victoria Park, where activists have marked trees in yellow to highlight the risks of development. Credit: Nick Dent

The one-hour play stars Slatter as Tracey, a “bratty eight-year-old” who joins a protest against the bulldozing of a park where she likes to play.

Her protest proves an embarrassment to both her older brother, Jay-sun (Sam Herbertson), an aspiring Olympic swimmer, and her mother (Meryn Cooper), who is overinvested in Jay-sun’s freestyle success, and flirts shamelessly with his coach (Hayden Burke).

“Everyone’s supportive of Jay-sun’s dream until Tracey finds out that her favourite park’s being redeveloped into an Olympic stadium, and then she goes all-out to protest,” Slatter says.

Meryn Cooper as mum and Amelia Slatter as Tracey in 8 More Years, which draws on broad Australian comedy tropes seen in films such as The Castle.Credit: Kris Anderson

The play’s family ructions mirror the squabbles that have gripped Brisbane ever since it was announced as the 2032 host city in 2021.

After Labor’s cautious choice of a refurbished QSAC arguably contributed to their election defeat, LNP premier David Crisafulli swooped in with his Delivering 2032 and Beyond plan in March, decreeing that the new 63,000-seat Brisbane Stadium would be built in Victoria Park.

In October, the Save Victoria Park group released its own Time for Plan B report predicting that the stadium would miss its completion deadline by at least six months.

Both the Yagara Magandjin Aboriginal Corporation and First Nations elder Aunty Sandra King OAM have lodged applications with the federal government seeking protection of the park, while former LNP premier and Brisbane lord mayor Campbell Newman added his voice to the fight at a protest in early November on the park’s 150th anniversary.

Slatter said her play is “not for the Olympics, it’s not against the Olympics – it’s just there to serve as a conversation starter about how we will all feel the impacts of the changes over the next 10 years”.

The play’s director, Calum Johnston, says the arguments show the “Brisbane as a big country town” mentality persists.

“People are saying, ‘oh, this is really going to boost the economy, it’s going to put Brisbane on a map’.

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“But the other side is the environmental impact, the billions that are going to things apart from housing and the cost-of-living crisis. How is it going to truly benefit the city after the Olympics?”

Slatter says her eight-year-old activist is a character she has always wanted to play.

“Tracey is feeling left behind, she wants to be seen. I took a lot of inspiration from my own family and how we interact – the sibling rivalry.

“I wanted to write something local, funny, and a bit ridiculous, but that also looks at how we change with the world around us.”

Slatter was influenced by classic Australian comedies like The Castle, Muriel’s Wedding and Kath and Kim.

“They’re very heightened characters – the bogan Australian accents, the love of sport.”

8 More Years is being staged at Brisbane’s PIP Theatre from December 10-12 as part of the theatre’s annual Toucan Club Festival.

Excavation of the Victoria Park site is scheduled to begin in mid-2026.

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