Are the Olympics really worth it?
Some practical solutions to deflate Brisbane’s bloated Games, starting with the Village.
A lot of people tut-tutted when former Victorian Premier Dan Andrews cancelled the Commonwealth Games on the grounds that they were unaffordable.
What would he have made of the ever-escalating bill for the 2032 Olympics here in Brisbane?
Apart from the fact that there is still no decision over the main venue, we’ve now heard there’s been a huge blowout in the cost of the Olympic Village.
It’s clear to me and many others that the idea should have been a non-starter, and I have some sympathy for Premier David Crisafulli who has been left holding the baby.
In fact, the ongoing kerfuffle has prompted this social media post from respected former Brisbane television reporter Michael Beattie:
“I hope I’m wrong but I’m going to reiterate what I said a year and a half ago. Brisbane will not host the Olympics. Within ten years a plan will be launched to build a permanent venue in Athens.”
Indeed, holding the Games is increasingly seen as a burden rather than a badge of honour for the host city, and having a permanent venue to which all participating countries contribute would seem like a practical idea.
Questions that have been asked before, and probably should have been considered more seriously at the start of this whole debacle, are again raised:
Was Brisbane’s bid merely a misguided exercise of me-tooism? Is it a poisoned chalice going to harm our city and state? Are there better ways to spend the money to directly benefit the people who live here?
Assuming the Brisbane Games do go ahead, here’s a potential solution to the Village dilemma I first proposed three years ago:
“Previous villages have been built with the idea of selling them off afterwards, often as affordable housing. But why wait until then? Why not allow the people of Brisbane to invest in the village now, with the view to living there after the Games?
“This would be particularly appealing to first-home buyers, as well as “downsizers” and other people (like me) who are eyeing retirement in a small- to medium-sized apartment. Applicants — who would undertake to actually live in the apartment for, say, five years, to avoid profiteering by flippers — could put down a deposit and maybe even begin making payments now.”
More generally about the Games, I’ll also repeat what I wrote just six weeks ago:
“The organisers are already running late and history tells us that whatever they agree to will cost way over their estimates and take a lot longer to deliver than they expect.
“We’ll be racing to the finish line for sure. But whatever infrastructure is built, it should be both fit for purpose in 2032 and be an asset to the city well beyond then.”
Adn a year before that, I wrote:
“We know thousands of people are descending on Queensland; we know mortgages are sky-high; we know rents are completely out of hand; we know we have a homelessness problem. We also know we have an uptick in anti-social and criminal behaviour in many places.
“We have more things for government to worry about than putting on a show for the rest of the world.”
And, in March last year, I proclaimed:
“… any infrastructure spent on the Olympics must be able to be put to good use when the travelling show has moved on. It should not be like the World Expo site, which has undergone several expensive reimaginings since 1988.
“We need a multipartisan plan to ensure that not one dollar spent on the Games will be wasted.
“If that means having a ‘bargain-basement’ Olympics, so be it.”
I stand by it all.
If Mr Crisafulli, Deputy Premier Jarrod Bleijie or Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner want some more practical advice, I’m here to help.
Totally agree with the commentary here - we didn’t ask for the Olympics and the economic cost and the political burden we have to suffer through is already tiresome.