Brisbane’s Olympic win: Golden opportunity or burden?

In 2032 Brisbane will open the curtains to the Olympic world stage, but will Queenslanders still be cheering?

Jesse Walter, Isaac Walter, Campbell Chapman and Cooper Chapman cheer for Brisbane winning the Olympic 2032 bid. Picture: Josh Woning

I APPLAUD The Courier-Mail for yesterday’s 44-page souvenir coverage of the Brisbane Olympic Games win.

It was a feast for the senses and a welcome distraction from the daily updates of Covid-19.

The Sunshine State and River City can now add Olympic City to its CV.

If excitement, exhilaration and sheer joy was an Olympic event our nation would win gold, gold, gold!

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk made an emotional speech worthy of a standing ovation. She painted a picture of our beautiful Sunshine State, showcasing its many spectacular panoramic landscapes.

In 2032 we open the curtains to the world stage, who will be impressed with the sheer beauty of our land and the open, honest friendliness of its people.

Let the Games begin!

Helen Holdey, Brighton

BRISBANE has won its bid to host the Olympic Games in 2032, after winning essentially a one-horse race.

After months of leaking behind the scenes, the final result was announced to a massive fanfare on Wednesday evening.

Annastacia Palaszczuk was smiling like the proverbial Cheshire cat, and similar enthusiasm was shown by other Australians present.

A great boost to the Queensland economy and to the economy of Australia is heralded in the next 10 years as more facilities are constructed or repurposed to accommodate the Games.

The cost is to be shared equally by the commonwealth and state governments, so the Australian public will in one way or another be paying the costs.

No doubt the Covid pandemic will be over within 10 years (we hope so).

Let us hope that every cloud has a silver lining or else Brisbane’s Olympic Games will turn out to be a poisoned chalice in disguise.

Raymond Rose, Middle Park

CONGRATULATIONS, but not to those like the Premier who only got on board for political grandstanding, but to those few who first mooted the idea against massive opposition yet stuck to their beliefs and who now seem to have been forgotten in the euphoria of the result.

However, mark my words, the costs will double, revenue will be halved, the committees will be substantially full of political hacks and on top of the massive debt we have inherited arising from this pandemic, the Games will become an added financial burden on Queenslanders for some generations to come.

Patrick Mackey, Acacia Ridge

IT SEEMS a long time since the mascot “Matilda” and the 1982 Commonwealth Games in Brisbane and indeed, the 1988 World Expo.

The world seemed a less complicated and slower place then.

By 2032 and the Brisbane Olympics, will we have come to terms with and even driven Covid-19 underground?

Will terrorism have been defeated?

Will those in aged care have been completely well catered for?

Will teachers be accepted for their full worth?

Who will be governing our country?

If the wonderful benefits mooted for and from an Olympic Games host city/state are to truly be of mutual assistance to all, perhaps there need to be some more basic changes prior to all the up-market infrastructure.

Indeed, will we all be “in this together” or is that merely a hollow mantra?

Claire Jolliffe, Buderim

BIG congratulations to Brisbane, Queensland and Australia on gaining the Olympics in 2032.

However, I wonder who will win the ultimate “gold” – the state, the political parties or the unions.

Kingsley Miller, Kalbar

THANK goodness we won the right to stage the 2032 Olympics as it will put a temporary halt to the nauseating and constant harping about the Covid rollout out and vaccination bungles.

Charles A.W. Chant, Arundel

********

VAD OFFERS LESS SUFFERING

TEESHAN Johnson of Cherish Life is wrong when she says that voluntary assisted dying laws increase suicide (Letters, Jul 22) as the data demonstrates the opposite.

Johnson “cherry picks” the Victorian coronial figures.

She picks the figures of 2017 (694 suicide deaths) and compares them with the figures of 2020 (698 suicide deaths), and even worse adds in the voluntary assisted dying deaths to the 2020 number.

The last full year in Victoria before VAD was 2018, when the suicide figures were 717.

The 2019 year was a hybrid year of part VAD and part without VAD.

It is obvious that the more relevant comparison between 2018 and 2020 shows that suicide deaths declined from 717 to 698 after the introduction of VAD.

Further, Johnson is in error to conflate VAD with suicide.

Those who leapt from the burning World Trade Centre Towers in New York were found to have rationally chosen one form of death over another, ie death by falling rather than death by fire.

The VAD bill drafted by the expert Queensland Law Reform Commission says VAD is not suicide.

It is time for Johnson to drop her baseless claims and acknowledge that there will be not one extra death with VAD, but a lot less suffering.

David Muir, chair, Clem Jones Trust, Indooroopilly

********

LNP A BAD MARRIAGE

OUTGOING federal MP George Christensen attributes the LNP’s electoral woes at state level to “the party executive’s huge disconnect from the rank and file” (C-M, Jul 22).

He has missed the point, for such a disconnect was always inevitable.

The 2008 merger of a once-great National Party and a city-based Liberal Party was always a shotgun affair. It is long past time to call in the political divorce lawyers.

Given the current state of play, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk is long odds-on to welcome the world to Brisbane in 2032 as premier, fresh from her sixth consecutive electoral triumph.

And even I am prepared to wish her well in her quest for a hometown gold medal in her pet event – the political marathon.

Mind you, I don’t know if Steven Miles would find the prospect appealing.

Terry Birchley, Bundaberg

AFTER spending 300 days in the Philippines between 2014 and 2018, outgoing MP George Christensen would want to turn the heat elsewhere.

He is not in a position to criticise others. He has endangered the hold of the LNP on his seat at a time when it should be a shoo-in.

And as for the party bigwigs, their sins are peccadilloes by comparison.

After all, they are volunteers not paid parliamentarians.

The pollies, the media and some party members are tipping on the executive.

It’s easy to tip but it’s not an easy job. The executive has not been and is not perfect, and can’t satisfy all the competing aims and ambitions.

The consistent failure in the state arena though is, in my judgment, far more the responsibility of the state parliamentary wing than the executive. After all, the LNP romps it in at Brisbane City Council elections with the same executive.

It’s a bad sign that the party has to look backwards, but I wish Lawrence Springborg every success as he takes on the poisoned chalice.

We’ll see how loyally the new executive supports him.

Paul Everingham, Hamilton

**********

Molly Wright, 7, is asking parents to spend more time with their kids instead of on digital devices. Picture: Nigel Hallett

WE SHOULD LISTEN TO MOLLY’S PLEA

PARENTS should just stop for a moment and read, comprehend and analyse the words of

seven-year-old Molly Wright regarding her plea for parents to put down devices and play with their children (C-M, Jul 22).

Molly (pictured) exhibits wisdom far beyond her years.

Next tine you are at a cafe, glance around to see what antics children use in an attempt to gain parental attention, and for their parents to communicate with them rather than look at a screen.

A few examples noted recently include attempting to put the parent’s phone in a pocket or handbag, touching a parent’s face, making faces, and jumping up and down on the seat.

Play has been considered to be a child’s work, so run around with your child outside, go on an exploratory walk (you never know what you might find), hit or kick a ball.

You will feel energised and de-stressed as a result, and your child will thank you for it.

Pam McGahey, Mount Samson

*********

Join the conversation. Send your letters at couriermail.com.au/letters or email [e-mail]