It’s not often Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate finds himself standing on the outside looking in.

But that’s where Tate, who regularly finds himself the centre of attention as one of Australia’s highest profile mayors and unashamed mouthpiece for the country’s capital of fun, is stuck as preparations for the south-east Queensland Olympic Games gear up in 2023.

This unfamiliar territory is courtesy of the controversial decision – supported by a super-majority of Gold Coast councillors at the time – to pull the Gold Coast out of the Council of Mayors Southeast Queensland (COMSEQ) ahead of the Olympic host city announcement in July last year.

It’s a decision that now appears to have cost Tate – and the Gold Coast – a seat on the influential board of the organising committee for the 2032 Olympic Games.

And it’s left a queue of Queensland political heavyweights lining up to accuse Tate of costing the city millions of dollars in infrastructure investment.

With COMSEQ membership, they say, there’s literally a room full of money ready to be rolled out across the region to set it up for the Olympic show. But no amount of work is going to get Tate through the door – short of performing a humbling mea culpa and coughing up $350,000 to be allowed back in.

It’s a fascinating side-story in the long lead up to the 2032 Olympic Games to be hosted across south-east Queensland. It’s a story rich in petty politicking and personality power plays, especially between urbane Brisbane and its flasher, younger sibling, the Gold Coast. But it’s one that may ultimately achieve what many thought impossible – forcing the glittering, shoot from the lip Gold Coast back into the box, most humiliatingly under the whip of Brisbane.

On one hand Tate remains defiant, doubling down on his view that COMSEQ is a “team batting ducks” when it comes to lobbying federal and state governments for city deals.

He insists membership of the group is a dud deal for the Gold Coast, and the tourism jewel of Queensland was only ever a part of the group to show it was a team player during the Olympic bid.

On the other, he’s being pressured by councillors who’ve got the wobbles and want back inside the tent and access to the fistfuls of dollars it’s supposed to provide.

As well, he’s being swatted by a phalanx of Gold Coast federal MPs, led by Moncrieff’s Angie Bell, who say it’s Tate’s fault the city is dipping out under the Federal and State Labor governments’ dispensing of project funding, and he’d better fix it.

“I will take the issue to full council for discussion when I have evidence that our city is missing out on project funding,” Tate said just before Christmas.

“I will ask Council to rejoin COMSEQ the minute either COMSEQ or any state or federal politician can show me what project, or funding, our city is missing out on simply because we are not members.

“I don’t believe that is the case as funding for any project should be determined by a genuine need for that project, not on any council’s membership status to a non-statutory board,” he said.

“My question to all COMSEQ members is: what project has been lobbied for, secured, funded and delivered as a direct result of COMSEQ?”

He’s also refusing to smooth the fractious relationship with Brisbane Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner, whom he’s labelled “crass” and “arrogant”, and seemingly “jealous” of the Gold Coast’s ability to attract the limelight.

“I think it’s a bit of jealousy, like your little brother seems to get the limelight, then they get [the feeling] they’re ugly sister,” he said.

If he needed to punctuate the point, Tate told the ABC he refused to “kiss the arse” of Schrinner in order to secure a spot on the Olympic Games planning committee and thought the Gold Coast’s experience and expertise as host of the 2018 Commonwealth Games alone should ensure it a seat.

While tempering the personal criticism, Tate has indicated the cities aren’t – and are unlikely to be – in lockstep during the long haul to the Games.

“Our relationship is fine. I am issue-based and will always focus on the issue, not personalities,” Tate said as he headed into the Christmas break.

“I made comments regarding the Lord Mayor after he openly ridiculed our city at an SEQ Olympic luncheon in Brisbane. I wasn’t there but I believe his joke fell flat and once I heard of the criticism levelled at me for not attending the lunch, I responded accordingly. Like I said, I’ve moved on from that and I’m sure Adrian has too.”

But the Gold Coast hasn’t moved on and from 2023, the biggest game in town will be access to the spend on major projects during the state’s preparations for the 2032 Olympic Games.

The first decision of the Gold Coast city council on whether it will pay $350,000 and humbly rejoin COMSEQ will be telling.