Opinion: AFL grand final farce distracts from Qld’s painful reality
The costly distraction that is Queensland’s AFL grand final has all the hallmarks of a Roman tragicomedy, writes Mike O’Connor.
Opinion
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It is fortunate for people of faith that the practice of feeding Christians to the lions is no longer fashionable.
Were it to be otherwise, it would have made appropriate preliminary entertainment for the circus that is the AFL grand final.
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When the Colosseum was the biggest show in town, Roman politicians competed to produce a spectacle that would most please the crowds — gladiatorial fights to the death, wild animals let loose on hapless prisoners — the better to distract the masses from the awkward reality that they were impoverished and unemployed.
The Gabba may suffer in comparison with the Colosseum, but it will serve the same purpose, which is to divert attention from a state economy that was moribund before the pandemic struck and is slowly being paralysed by inflexible, politically motivated border closures.
The solution to this unfolding disaster is to stage a spectacle that in the absence of lions (well, that type) and compliant Christians, is to be a game of footy.
As businesses collapse and careers are trashed, the State Labor Government’s response is to pay 36 men to chase a ball around a paddock.
What inspired thinking! What a grand vision for Queensland! Football!
Such was the acclaim accorded the arrival of the AFL entourage that the casual observer could have been forgiven for assuming that Christ had chosen Queensland as the site of the Second Coming.
Rather than Christ and attendant herald angels descending from the clouds, we got the next best thing in the form of Eddie McGuire stepping off a flight to be greeted by a genuflecting gaggle of local politicians.
Those of us not rendered insensible by this modern-day miracle wondered what we as Queenslanders had done to be so blessed and just how much it was all costing.
No free passes to heaven for guessing that like a transgression revealed in the confines of the confessional, this was a secret.
The amount of money involved, we were told, was commercial-in-confidence, which is what politicians say when they have paid too much for something with your money that they hope will help keep them in a job and firmly attached to the public teat.
Miracles, of course, don’t come cheaply but we were assured that any moneys paid — let’s call it A Lot — would be more than recouped by the millions that footy fans would spend.
How much would that be, exactly? Twenty million dollars, crowed Premier Palaszczuk.
Not to be outdone, Tourism Minister Kate Jones immediately raised the bidding. “Twenty-five million dollars!” she chirped.
In fairness, there are some things on which you cannot put a price, one of these being images of Premier Palaszczuk posing with a football.
Had she been in secret training, would she get a run with Eddie’s Magpies?
The mind does truly boggle. Premier kicks winning goal in AFL grand final thriller!
Forget elections. Crown her Emperor for Life!
While the Premier was playing fumble the footy, her New South Wales counterpart Gladys Berejiklian was ringing her in a vain attempt to engage in a rational conversation about irrational border closures.
Queensland’s Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young wasn’t allowed to play with the footy. That was for the Big People who, unlike public servants, have to be elected.
She did, however, cop what is known in sporting parlance as a “hospital pass” from the Premier when it was left to her to explain how flying in hundreds of people into Fortress Queensland from Hotspot Victoria to play footy in front of 30,000 jostling fans did not make a complete farce of the pandemic restrictions.
The reason was, she said, that the grand final was an important event.
Important for whom?
I regard visiting my 93-year-old mother as an important event, but she’s been locked away in her aged-care facility thanks to an edict from Ms Young.
What constitutes an important event? We have not been told.
Did Dr Young at any point consider declaring it an unimportant event, and thus dashing the plans of her boss to use it as part of her re-election strategy?
One wonders.
It’s certainly not important to the mass of Queenslanders who don’t follow AFL, or to people who are too absorbed by the daily struggle to keep their businesses alive and their employees in jobs to bother about a game of football.
