Australian Olympics Committee needs to provide facts.
STATEMENT
I’m looking forward to my meeting later this month with Australian Olympics Committee president John Coates.
He says the Olympics, should south-east Queensland be successful in securing the event, will be cost neutral and may even produce a surplus for Queensland. So, I am seriously waiting in anticipation to see the facts and figures that will convince me that this is true.
From my readings of the financial facts surrounding past Olympic Games, there have never been an Olympics that has run to budget. Most hosts are still paying the debts off for many years afterwards.
In my view, these historic truths make it incredibly risky and irresponsible to proceed with a bid that may well see the state lumbered with a massive financial commitment that it realistically cannot cover.
Mr Coates criticised me for using apparently-outdated research into Olympic Games costings of the past. Well, this research by the University of Oxford is as recent as having assessed the costings of the most recent London and Rio Olympics – and both of them failed big financially.
The study showed that hosting the Summer Olympics costs on average $12.5b (in Australian dollars). History shows that hosting the games has resulted in an average budget blowout for host cities of 176%.
Mr Coates repeatedly said on radio this week that the games would cost $4.5-million. That sounds extraordinarily ambitious. Reports show that security costs alone, since 9/11, are between $1-billion and $2-billion.
As I said previously, Queensland has a debt that is now greater than $90-billion dollars and hosting the Olympics will risk digging that massive black hole even deeper.
The higher our debt, the more we will struggle to pay for essential infrastructure and service items. It begs the questions: would taxpayers rather have their lives improved through new schools, hospitals and better roads, or a two-week “sugar hit” from an expensive Olympic Games.
I’m sure Mr Coates will get a lot of satisfaction from being part of the Olympics, but the satisfaction of Queensland taxpayers in having a well-run state is actually a much more important priority. The Olympics will compromise that priority.
Premier Anna Palaszczuk is using the Games “buzz” as a smoke screen and vote winner in the upcoming election, but Queensland voters who are tired of poor financial leadership, are not that stupid.
The Courier-Mail, which also seems to be backing the Games bid strongly, also needs to think more responsibly of the costs to Queenslanders.
Pauline Hanson
Senator for Queensland
Leader of One Nation
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