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The state has denied it overrode a public poll to name the state’s newest theatre, the Glasshouse, despite the arts minister signing off months before voting opened.
The new $184 million venue at the Queensland Performing Arts Centre (QPAC) was officially named The Glasshouse on July 20, 2025, following a four-week public consultation period offering a vote on four names.
However, Arts Minister John-Paul Langbroek had already cleared the name on February 3, and eventual polling stripped a QPAC advisory board’s strong recommendation to name the venue after activist and poet Oodgeroo Noonuccal.
On Sunday, the premier said the Glasshouse moniker was fitting and “clearly able to be marketed across the globe”.
On Monday, Attorney-General Deb Frecklington confirmed the name had been preferred by the government, but said the public had ultimately chosen it.
“We didn’t announce it because we took it to the people of Queensland to hear from [them],” she said.
“This was real consultation.”
Frecklington said 42 per cent of respondents – totalling about 2400 people – had backed the Glasshouse name. The other options were ‘The Watershed’, ‘Lantern’ or ‘Russell Street’.
“I think even the builders, as they were building it, were calling it Glasshouse,” she said.
“I mean, it’s a glass house … it is made of glass, and that’s what the people on the street are calling it.”
The attorney-general said if the public had voted for another name then the government “would have been lucky that we hadn’t made our decision”.
State deputy opposition leader Cameron Dick said Frecklington’s claims were “just more nonsense”, and said the override was a strike against the state’s credibility.
“The naming process for the Glasshouse Theatre was corrupted from the start,” Dick said.
“This has been a complete waste of public money, it’s been a waste of the public’s time, and it’s just a complete sham.”
He said as new venues were opened in the lead-up to the 2032 Olympic Games, Queenslanders would have no way of knowing whether their vote was legitimate.
Dick said the state’s decision to cut out Oodgeroo as a prospective theatre name was also a missed opportunity for the state.
Opposition spokeswoman for reconciliation and the arts Leeanne Enoch said the process was “offensive from the very beginning”.
“To just spin the name and then pretend like there’s some kind of consultation going on when they’d already decided – I think every Queenslander should be asking questions about the integrity of this government,” she said.
The state had offered the public a vote on the four possible names, as well as an option to write in a new suggestion.
When asked why the name Oodgeroo had not been offered on the public ballot, Crisafulli would not provide a clear answer, but said the Glasshouse name was fitting and “people know exactly what it is”.
The Glasshouse Theatre’s first shows will be Queensland Ballet’s Messa da Requiem, which opens March 27, ahead of the opening of Sting’s The Last Ship from April 9.
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