The future's not what it used to be
Will the Olympic Games make a difference to the River City?
With fewer than 10 years to go before the 2032 Brisbane Olympic Games, we’re already being told that preparations for the big event are behind schedule.
There’s little doubt that we’ll get there in the end, and it will be deemed an unqualified success (“best Games ever”). But how will we feel in 2033 once the hoo-ha has died down?
The Games have been pitched to Brisbane people as a good thing chiefly because they will see much-needed infrastructure fast-tracked.
Yes, there will be many benefits, and I’m looking forward to those things coming to pass. But at the same time, the looming Games may pose a risk to who we are and how we live. And we have to talk about the potential negatives.
One of those is that it will escalate the already overwhelming influx of people moving to south-east Queensland. Can we cope with that?
Many of the newcomers will have sold up interstate for a very tidy amount and will be able to outbid those born and bred in Brisbane for the limited property stock, affecting both the sale and rental markets.
Unless the authorities go out of the way to build affordable housing — and lots of it — many people can forget about affordable rentals let alone property ownership in their home town.
And even that much-vaunted improved infrastructure may be pushed to the limit.
Is that the kind of legacy we want the Games to have? That we supplant Sydney as the least affordable city in the country?
I’d like to hear your thoughts.
VIDEO VILLAGE
This is your regular reminder that my Radio Bert You Tube channel exists to fulfill all your video requirements.
I’m still in experimental mode, so there are dozens of videos, many of them just shorts, on a range of subjects in many different styles.
Some of them are attracting decent traffic (views in their thousands); others are not. Your help in sorting out which way I need to go would be greatly appreciated — especially if it’s done through the channel itself.
RIB TICKLER
Are ribs the new cockroaches? By which, of course, I mean will the relatively new annual “tradition” of a rib-eating competition at the Plough Inn be a bigger thing than the 40th anniversary of the roach races at the Story Bridge Hotel on January 26?
I recently admitted that I’ve become somewhat obsessed with professional eaters on YouTube, but I am obliged to say that conscious overconsumption is not a great thing for an individual’s health or for this planet.
Guinness has stopped keeping records on these things, which is why, I believe, Ipswich councillor Paul Tully remains undefeated as the world potato-crisp-eating champ.
McSCALLOP FOR ME
It’s not a cake and it’s not a scallop. It’s a fritter, I suppose.
Nevertheless, I’m glad Macca’s went with the version I’ve used all my life to describe its latest menu item.