Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has thrown her support behind a potential Olympic bid for southeast Queensland that's being pushed by local councils.
The Southeast Queensland Council of Mayors has commissioned a feasibility study on a bid by the region rather than a single city, to report back by the end of the year.
Ms Palaszczuk is currently on a trade mission to Japan and inspected preparations for the 2020 Tokyo Games, saying she believed hosting an Olympics would put the state on the world map.
With the likes of Tokyo, Los Angeles and Paris to host the next three Games, the premier suggested Queensland would rather downsize than try to compete with the grandeur of bigger cities.
"I am open to the conversation, but we're going to take the Queensland public and the Australian public with us," she told the Seven Network on Thursday.
"But only if we can talk to the IOC about the size of the venues to keep the costs to an absolute minimum.
"Let's see the report, that is step one."
Ms Palaszczuk said the Gold Coast had put on an excellent Commonwealth Games, and gave an example which could form the basis of a potential Olympic bid.
However she stressed the bid would need federal government funding as well as private investment, and may have to be "smaller scale" to rival bidders.
Gold Coast and Logan councils, the two biggest cities in the region apart from Brisbane, have already pulled out of the feasibility study but the rest of the Council of Mayors have welcomed the premier's comments.
However Deputy Opposition Leader Tim Mander sounded a note of caution, saying he didn't think it was the best use of money to pursue an Olympics to be held in 2032 at the earliest.
"This seems to be a pie-in-the-sky idea from the premier, where I think Queenslanders are more interested in getting infrastructure projects like bridges and roads off the ground," he said.
Australian Associated Press
