Opinion: Taking a cynical view of the Olympic benefits

“The Olympics will be something special that will principally will reap huge financial benefits to Brisbane, Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast but for the rest of Queensland the results are marginal.”

(From L to R) Members of the Brisbane 2032 delegation head of the Australian Olympic Committee John Coates, Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, Brisbane mayor Adrian Schrinner and Australia's Sports Minister Richard Colbeck celebrate after Brisbane was announced as the 2032 Summer Olympics host city during the 138th IOC Session in Tokyo on July 21, 2021. Photo: Toru Hanai

Hallelujah, the 2032 Olympics are coming to Brisbane.

This was the response by Australia to last nights announcement in Tokyo.

Our country celebrating what a fantastic achievement it was for all of us. All of us? Now, that is debatable.

The Olympics will be something special that will principally will reap huge financial benefits to Brisbane, Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast but for the rest of Queensland the results are marginal.

What they will most certainly bring to our state government is a new toy in the box to play with.

The cost of staging this 14 day extravaganza has been announced as minimal expenditure compared to prior Olympics staged elsewhere.

Whilst that may be a true statement who actually believes that it is?

Past government budgeting figures have shown that they are “pie-in-the- sky” when it comes to reality as it depends what costs you put in affects the bottom line.

Our state is a basket case financially at present so where is the staging money coming from? That is the real question.

Take Bundaberg and regions as an example, the treasury hatchet men will look at what can be permanently deleted, deferred or reduced.

If I was a hatchet man I would relish in the task.

The 1st to go would be the new hospital, lots to be saved and the population won’t miss it, the second would be the east levee easy to discard as the people mostly theoretically affected don’t want it and the budget figure is too low it will be exceeded when costed properly, thirdly Paradise Dam we have just wasted over $100 million reducing its height so why rebuild it when at present the height reduction is working?

The next item on the list would be to forget about raising the Tallon Bridge so that north people can escape flooding, they seem to be able to live without it so delete it from the future as it probably won’t flood as it has been years since the last, finally in round ones assessment forget about Flood Mitigation completely as the people most affected have been there before and handled it.

So there you go, there is a good financial contribution to the Olympic Game costs and the good part is that it probably won’t be a problem around election time as most of the population votes L.N.P. anyway.

I suppose that it all is a sarcastic approach but the possibilities are as presented and we have a Premier who makes promises that commit but never seem to eventuate.

Flood Mitigation was one made 3 terms ago so what are our chances of it happening when a far bigger ego trip is around with the “Brisbane” Olympic Games? And of course they can‘t be renege on.

Charles Brown, Burnett Downs

Originally published as Opinion: Taking a cynical view of the Olympic benefits