The Aroma of Progress.

There is a particular smell that accompanies major development announcements in Queensland. Part wet concrete, part catered luncheon, part freshly printed exemption order. One notices it most strongly when governments begin speaking in unusually soothing tones about legacy.

Queensland's Deputy Premier Jarrod Bleijie is a busy man. As Minister for State Development, Infrastructure and Planning, he oversees a portfolio of considerable reach. Victoria Park. Coochin Creek. The fast-tracking of Olympic approvals. The rehabilitation of developer donations. It is a great deal of ground to cover, and he covers it with admirable consistency.

At Victoria Park, the proposed Olympic stadium is entering that familiar stage of public administration where the fences arrive before the final designs, the legislation before the consultation, and the public is assured everything is fully accountable while simultaneously being told there is no time for too many questions. Olympic venues are now exempt from a considerable collection of planning, heritage and environmental laws. The Deputy Premier says there is no time to waste. This is apparently what urgency looks like.

At Coochin Creek, on the edge of a Ramsar-listed wetland south of Caloundra, a different project has been moving with similar efficiency. The State Assessment and Referral Agency found the development did not comply with planning legislation and identified no overriding need in the public interest. The Deputy Premier called the application in, removing it from local council's hands entirely, with no right of appeal, and approved it anyway. He has since signed off on amendments significantly weakening the original conditions, including the removal of a cap on the number of people on site. The environment, he assures everyone, is well protected.

Two projects. Two sets of concerns. One minister. One direction.

The more interesting phrase came not from critics but from Queensland's own Crime and Corruption Commission, in a submission concerning the government's plans to lift the ban on developer donations. The CCC warned of "increased risks of actual or perceived corruption" and noted that reintroducing developer donations could exacerbate "real and/or perceived risks of undue or improper influence, particularly as developer interests align closely with major projects."

'Perceived' is doing an extraordinary amount of work there.

Modern politics has grown deeply interested in perception. One must not say something is corrupt. One merely observes that it occasionally develops the appearance of a well-fed arrangement. The public notices people who stand to benefit moving unusually close to people empowered to approve things. Then everyone attends a fundraising dinner where access is priced at roughly a second-hand Corolla and acts wounded when eyebrows rise.

This does not prove corruption. It creates the sort of atmosphere in which corruption would feel socially at ease.

Between now and the 2032 opening ceremony, at least $7 billion will be spent on Olympic infrastructure across Queensland. Fast-tracked approvals. Heritage exemptions. A corruption watchdog raising its hand. Developer donations returning. Property interests circling. And one minister whose portfolio happens to sit at the intersection of all of it.

The Deputy Premier dismissed opponents of the Victoria Park stadium as "a bunch of nimbys who don't want anything to happen." Perhaps. Though one notes that some of the people most enthusiastic about things happening stand to benefit considerably from their happening.

Governments now speak about public consultation the way airlines speak about legroom. Technically it exists. The Premier says the projects will leave a world-class legacy. Perhaps they will. There will be renders, drone footage, delegations in lanyards, speeches containing the word "transformational."

Still, the public would feel more relaxed if the process smelled faintly less like opportunity marinated in urgency.

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The views expressed are those of the correspondent. Factual claims draw on publicly available sources.