Officials deny moving on Gold Coast homeless before Commonwealth Games

AFTER reports of a “mass exodus” of homeless people from the Gold Coast ahead of the start of the Commonwealth Games, officials have rejected persistent claims it was an order to clean up the Glitter Strip for the world’s watching eyes.

THERE has been a mass exodus of homeless people from the Gold Coast ahead of this week’s Commonwealth Games, but officials have rejected claims it was a direct order to clean up the Glitter Strip for the world’s watching eyes.

Glitter Strip Bare understands charities and support networks for homeless people in Logan and Brisbane have been “run off their feet” in recent weeks dealing with a sudden influx of homeless people from the Gold Coast as the city prepares for the Games, while there has been a similar rush south of the border.

Reports of homeless Gold Coasters being moved on to help show the city in its best possible light ahead of next week’s sporting spectacular have been doing the rounds for months.

Charities that support the homeless in southeast Queensland say they have been “run off their feet” ahead of the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast.

Last year, a vagrant arrested in Gladstone told the court he had been told to move on from the Gold Coast ahead of the Commonwealth Games.

His Legal Aid lawyer later refused requests for interviews.

Glitter Strip Bare has been contacted by several volunteers from charity organisations saying there was a definite move to usher homeless out of the city.

One volunteer from a Brisbane charity said they had been run off their feet in recent weeks as more Gold Coast homeless were directed towards the state capital.

Gold Coast Commonwealth Games Chairman Peter Beattie is on record saying the last thing organisers want to do is “actually move people out of the city”.

Gold Coast Commonwealth Games Chairman Peter Beattie. Picture: AAP/Tim Marsden

A well-known mobile food station for the homeless has also been relocated from a park across the road from the high-profile swimming competition to another location several kilometres away.

Queensland Housing Minister Mick De Brenni said there was ‘no requirement’ for anyone on the Gold Coast to move on unless they were residing in areas cordoned off around competition venues.

“Some people have already made the decision to relocate due to the activity that is going on around the Games preparation and we’ve heard that some have crossed the border in to NSW,” he said.

“The State government has invested more than $1 million for the duration of the Games to boost services for people experiencing homelessness,” he said.

PASSING THE BATON

THE Queen’s Baton Relay has been the source of much pride as it makes its way through the Gold Coast ahead of Wednesday night’s Opening Ceremony, but not everyone has quite got in to the spirit.

Not everyone was as happy as Daphne Pirie, pictured, about an offer to carry the Queen’s Baton on the Gold Coast.

One well-known Gold Coast celeb wasn’t quite feeling it when they were contacted to run a leg of the relay.

“I’d do it if it was the Olympics,” they told a speechless Comm Games official.

GAFFE-PRONE EX-POLLIE GOES POMMY

SHE might be a staunch royalist but gaffe-prone former Gold Coast MP Verity Barton will be nowhere in the vicinity of Prince Charles and Camilla at the Commonwealth Games opening ceremony tomorrow night.

In fact, she’ll be more than 15,000km away in London itself.

The former Member for Broadwater, who was dumped by the LNP before last year’s state election to make way for party star David Crisafulli, recently moved to the Old Dart after her short-lived political career ended ingloriously.

Outspoken Gold Coast MP Verity Barton has moved to the UK.

Her updated Linkedin profile says she is ‘looking for new opportunities’ in the UK.

There have been rumours she would seek out work with former boss George Brandis, who took over as Australia’s High Commissioner to the UK last month.

That would be a case of quickly finding her feet for Ms Barton, who ironically won her place in office as the last candidate standing when two other options preferred by the LNP were dumped just out from the 2012 election.

Never far from the headlines, Ms Barton got in to hot water over unpaid road tolls, driving infringements and for a social media post in which she called public transport users ‘icky’.

Not sure how she’ll feel about taking the Tube on London’s famous Underground.

Or whether she packed this delightfully British ensemble she wore to a fancy dress party late last year before her departure.