Expo 88 was a World Expo held in Brisbane with the theme "Leisure in the Age of Technology". The event is considered a significant turning point for Brisbane, spurring subsequent tourism, investment, and the development of the South Bank Parklands.

I recently donated a layout plan of the Expo 88 tenancies to the Queensland State Library. The plan was approved on 2 February 1988, close to the opening on 30 April 1988.

It is similar to the James Maccormick layout plan from 1983 which is held by the State Library as part of the James Mccormick World Expo 88 Collection but shows the proposed tenancies close to the opening date in 1988.

Back story to its acquisition.

Expo 88 ran from 30 April to 30 October 1988 at South Bank in Brisbane. An amazing event, it attracted an average of 100,000 people per day. As a law student at QUT, you would hear the nighttime fireworks on the other side of the Brisbane River at 10pm, around the time the Law Library was closing.

In my law student days, I would buy and sell office furniture, mainly filing cabinets, for extra cash.

At the end of Expo 88, most of the assets, including office furniture, were sold by public tender. I successfully tendered for around 100 used filing cabinets (and whatever contents remained in them).

The layout plan was in one of the filing cabinets.

Stored for many years, the State Library plans to make the layout plan available for viewing by the public.

James Mccormick World Expo 88 Collection

September 2025

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Australia is in the grip of a residential rental property crisis (or boom, depending on your position as a tenant or landlord) with very low vacancy rates and rising rents.

There are some interesting comments in the linked article. Based on ABS survey results, there are apparently around 577,000 investment properties sitting vacant across Australia.*

There are likely to be numerous reasons why residential vacancy rates are currently so low. The recent boom in residential property prices has encouraged some investors to exit the market with increased owner occupiers purchases. Changes to tenancy laws may also be a factor in investors selling. Covid-19 resulted in enhanced internal migration to regional areas with the normal internal migration to major cities temporarily reduced. Short-term lettings are also a factor, taking properties out of the normal tenancy pool.

Tenants do seem to be less willing to move at present, with tenants in well maintained and fairly priced properties renewing their tenancies well in advance.

Encouraging some of these 577,000 vacant investment properties into the rental market would no doubt assist the current shortfall.

Meanwhile, Brisbane City Council has announced it will apply a 50% rates surcharge to residential properties used for short-term letting, including on platforms such as Airbnb. Properties subject to the surcharge will be changed to a transitory accommodation rating category. The surcharge will not apply to the letting of individual rooms, granny flats or share accommodation nor where the short-term letting is restricted to less than 60 days per year.

Council will rely on owners self-identifying with neighbours also encouraged to report their neighbours short-term letting activities.

* Note - ABS subsequently clarified to the Courier Mail that “the data includes properties used for other purposes, such as holiday homes, second residences, dwellings occupied rent-free by family members etc”.

Matusik - Housing Demographics

Brisbane City Council to hike rates on short-stay properties

June 2022