Editorial: Tom Tate’s bid audacious, yes, but Gold Coast 26 not so silly
By stepping in to save the 2026 Games, the Gold Coast has the opportunity to reshape what the event has become, to make it more attractive to future hosts, writes the editor.
Opinion
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Nobody really believed Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate when he offered his city as an alternative host of the 2026 Commonwealth Games in the days after then Victorian premier Dan Andrews bizarrely pulled out of hosting it a few months back.
But Mr Tate’s bid is still somehow alive – and perhaps it is time we all got on board, starting with the state and federal governments.
Why? Well, Mr Tate made a very good point yesterday.
“In future years, no one will remember Dan Andrews or the Victorian government – they will all say the Aussies are the ones who cancelled the 2026 Games,” he said.
It is a cancellation that could have a dramatic impact on the future of the Games themselves, with host cities not exactly lining up to take on the event.
But that is also the opportunity here – by stepping in to save the 2026 Games, the Gold Coast has the opportunity to potentially reshape what the event has become, to make it more attractive to future hosts.
Over the years it has, like the Olympic Games, grown to include a multitude of additional sports.
But the Commonwealth Games have a far less broad global appeal and so do not demand the same revenue from partners and broadcasters as the Olympics.
Hence, there is probably a need to recalibrate the balance between revenue and costs – and perhaps a scaled-back 2026 event could help here, as a test.
Mr Tate also tried to enlist Perth as a co-host. While those early talks broke down pretty quickly, a multi-city hosting arrangement could be another way forward for future Commonwealth Games.
The biggest sporting events in the world outside of the Olympics – such as World Cups – are now more often than not hosted across different countries, and at the very least different cities.
A multi-city option allows costs to be spread and venue legacies to be shared. And one where both cities are in different time zones – as it is with the Gold Coast and Perth – would also provide benefits for broadcasters, who are swamped as it is trying to flip between live medal events.
Mr Tate says a formal meeting he held with Commonwealth Games bosses on Monday was a “frank” one and that there was “a bit of a journey to do”.
It sounds like they reminded him that hosting such an event is a big deal, particularly with a runway now of less than three years until the opening ceremony.
But – ever the optimist – Mr Tate also said he had worked on a budget that was “very doable” if the state government agreed to support the bid to return the Games to the Gold Coast just eight years after it last hosted the event.
There would be scant political benefit for Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk to do so.
The hosting of the 2032 Olympics in Brisbane (and both the Gold and Sunshine coasts) is controversial at best in regional Queensland.
Funding another big sporting carnival in the South East at the same time as her popularity is sliding a year out from an election would require significant courage.
But Mr Tate says he would not be asking the state government for a cent, only agency and legislative support at the time to help with savings.
And, as Mr Tate pointed out, the economic benefit to the state from the 2018 Games was $2.8bn from an outlay of $1.2bn.
There could also be synergies with the 2032 event – and there would be benefits akin to hosting an athletics world championships in the lead-up to the Olympics.
The one certainty is that this dream will remain so if the state does not back Mr Tate’s vision. The Palaszczuk government should at the very least seriously consider it.
Feeling good should be turned into cash
It is a fair point made by Gulf Region Economic Aboriginal Trust director Mangubadijarri Yanner that those big corporations that spent millions of dollars backing the Yes campaign should prove their enduring commitment by allocating the same money into the future for grassroots programs in First Nations communities.
Most of the country’s biggest companies – including Qantas, Telstra, Woolworths and the big four banks – publicly backed the Yes campaign.
That debate is now lost, but the plea that lay at the heart of the Uluru Statement very much remains intact: to find new ways to close the gap between the lives of Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.
And Mr Yanner is right when he says the meaning of the Voice proposal went far deeper than “badges and social media posts”. In fact, it had nothing to do with them.
The proud Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who thrashed out the Statement from the Heart six years ago were not interested in virtue-signalling.
They wanted real change, and thought the Voice was the best way to go about ensuring it.
If as a nation we can salvage from this entirely avoidable divisive debate a renewed commitment – in cash and kind – to ending the stain on our society that is the gap then maybe it will have all been worth it.
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The illegal tobacco trade is thriving in Queensland, with black market activity fuelling gang wars and attracting new users, including children, so it is vital that meaningful action is taken now.
Weakness allows hate to surge among us
As a free nation, we simply cannot continue to allow our streets to be controlled, and people’s lives to be disrupted, by thuggish activists who hate our country, writes Peta Credlin.