Australia’s richest person, Gina Rinehart, lobbied for controversial plans to host 2032 Olympic rowing events on the Fitzroy River at Rockhampton, documents released by the Queensland government show.

The plans to send rowers 600km north of host city Brisbane – to a river that is natural habitat for saltwater crocodiles, and which prompted significant backlash among the rowing and broader Olympic communities – were announced by the Queensland government in March last year.

The newly elected Queensland government conducted a venues review that was finalised in early 2025.

It used the review process to justify breaking election promises not to build a new stadium. But the decision to send rowing events to Rockhampton went against the review’s recommendations, which suggested rowing be relocated to Sydney and held at the existing facility near Penrith.

Concerns about the Fitzroy River’s suitability go well beyond the most glaring reason – the saltwater crocodiles, which are occasionally found in the water at Rockhampton, which sits just above the Tropic of Capricorn.

Andrew Miller paddles along the Fitzroy River, which will host 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games events despite concerns about crocodile numbers. Photograph: Sylvia Liber/The Guardian

International and Australian rowing officials and competitors have raised various concerns, including that a rowing facility built in Rockhampton would become a “white elephant”. There are also concerns any potential course would not it meet the strict technical requirements for international racing regarding weeds, water quality and currents.

The situation has led to brinkmanship: the Queensland deputy premier, Jarrod Bleijie, has said publicly that rowing would be held in Rockhampton or cancelled altogether.

An undated letter from Rinehart to Bleijie obtained by Brisbane Times, but understood to have been sent prior to the government’s decision to move rowing to Rockhampton, lobbies for the relocation of rowing to central Queensland.

Rinehart, a key financial backer of the rightwing One Nation party, and who has extensive mining and pastoral interests, says in the letter that hosting an Olympic event in the “beef capital” would “enable Queensland to tell the iconic Australian story of our pastoralists and farmers”.

“As you would know too, Rockhampton has also always been a major mining town, the nearby Mt Morgan mine was once the biggest gold mine in the world.

“I am told that metals from this mine will produce the gold, silver, and bronze medals for the Olympics! To marry showing where the Olympic medals come from and having Olympic events nearby, sounds to me like a beautiful extra!”