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King George Square-off: Both sides share blame for city’s summer hellscape
Not many examples of urban renewal in Brisbane have been as widely pilloried as King George Square, which officially reopened 14 years ago this Wednesday.
The $28 million revamp (closer to $40 million in today’s money) was a byproduct of the Northern Busway and related subterranean station work, which also claimed a fair chunk of Brisbane City Council’s public car park.
Brisbane Times once tried to fry an egg in King George Square on a 40-degree day.Credit: Michelle Smith
You can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs, and so it was that Brisbane’s inner-city oasis was torn up and consigned to history.
Gone were the manicured lawns and fountains, in their place a granite wasteland that seemed to amplify the heat, much to the horror of those who attended the opening.
In keeping with the egg analogy, media outlets – including this one – took great delight in frying them on the square’s surface, to varying degrees of success.
All a far cry from what it used to be: grass lawns and fountains, where city workers would plant themselves to eat their packed lunches, or just read a book.
King George Square as it was in 1981.
These days, you can forget picnics in your lunch break. King George Square is now more thoroughfare than meeting place, unless you want to shell out for some food and drinks at the only ground-level shaded area in the square– the Pig N’ Whistle pub.
Want shade? You’re going to pay for it.
Now, every year, as the mercury inches higher through the 30s, the complaints roll in.
So they should.
And with just a few months to go until Brisbane City Council voters go to the ballot box, you may even see those complaints become hot-button election issues – even promises.
As they were in 2020. As they were in 2016. As they were in 2012.
But there is some pretty important context that should be remembered, an inconvenient truth for the Labor Party, which has been in the political wilderness at City Hall since 2008.
UrbisJHD won a design competition for the inner-city public space, which was endorsed by the council, in 2006.
What, what year was that?
Yes, 2006. Liberal Campbell Newman may have been lord mayor, but Labor had the numbers in the council – and the Civic Cabinet.
It was a wild time in local politics. I spent some time covering City Hall for a sadly defunct afternoon newspaper in those years, and there was no more entertaining seat than the media table right in front of Newman and his Labor deputy, David Hinchliffe.
At that point, Civic Cabinet consisted of six ALP councillors, including deputy mayor Hinchliffe, and two Liberals (this was before the merger with the Nationals), Newman and his eventual successor, Graham Quirk.
While Hinchliffe did argue for green space, in the end the design was endorsed by the Labor-dominated council in September 2006.
All of this is not to say Labor has no right to agitate for a better King George Square. Of course, they do, and they should.
But to suggest the grey hellscape between Ann and Adelaide streets is on the head of the LNP is disingenuous.
They did just that earlier this year, when they juxtaposed two images of the square – one with greenery, people and fountains with the tag “Labor council”, the other an empty granite landscape tagged “LNP council” – in an attempt to somehow put the entirety of the blame on the current administration.
Politicians gonna politic, but it shows how completely lacking in self-awareness they can be.
In its current form, King George Square is a bipartisan folly.
Fact is, both sides own this one. Both sides share the blame.
It would be nice if both sides stopped the finger-pointing, followed Newman’s lead and admitted they got King George Square wrong, and just got on and fixed it.
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