2018 Commonwealth Games
February 17th, 2009 at 11:00 am by David FarrarThe Herald reports:
Auckland’s prospects of bidding to host the 2018 Commonwealth Games have come under threat from the Government’s cost-cutting.
Minister for Economic Development Gerry Brownlee has withdrawn $500,000 earmarked by the previous Government for a study into whether Auckland could stage the event in nine years.
Thank God. Hosting the Games is the best way to lose tens of millions of dollars.
In a letter to the New Zealand Olympic Committee, the Ministry of Economic Development’s industry and regional development deputy secretary, Mark Steel, said the money promised by Labour had been conditional on city councils agreeing to put in money.
“After due consideration, and now that it is clear most cities that were initially approached will not be participating, the minister has indicated he is not convinced that the case has been established for allocating government resources,” said Mr Steel in the letter.
That tells you something if you don’t even have the local bodies on board.
Tags: Commonwealth Games, Gerry Brownlee
February 17th, 2009 at 11:11 am
Bull.
There are way better ways to lose tens of millions of dollars
Vote:February 17th, 2009 at 11:18 am
Thank god for that. These “prestige events” always make a huge loss and poor old muggins is asked to bail them out. I suggest the northern and southern hemispheres alternate say London and Sydney. They both will have 1st class facilities.
Vote:February 17th, 2009 at 11:22 am
Well done Gerry, now get of your backside and tell the NZRU that the govt is withdrawing its support for the Rugby world cup, while you are at it you can also tell Grant Dalton that he has had the last tax payer funded handouts he is going to get.
If the NZRU wants the Rugby world cup then they can bloody well pay for it themselves.
One more thing Gerry, why are my tax dollars (through SPARC) going to bail out rugby league?
Vote:February 17th, 2009 at 11:26 am
Spot on Mr Farrar, and Big Bruv (at 11.22).
With New Zealand now in economic crevasse country it’s time for priorities. That means bread before circuses.
Vote:February 17th, 2009 at 11:47 am
tvb… ahh NO, London does not have 1st class facilities. We are paying around £10 billion for it and even the Olympic “minister” said ours will be nowhere as good as Chinas. They’re not putting a roof on the London stadium!!! The stadium is going to be mothballed (unless some sucker will take it over) and the taxpayers are getting shafted.
NZ must pay attention to this, we CAN NOT afford a games, not now, not ever. Labour chose to buy a trainset anyway, so if you want it so badly – blame them for spending every last cent!
Vote:February 17th, 2009 at 11:56 am
Of course Social Welfare spends that $500,000 every 20 minutes or so.
Still a good decision but not really all that relevant.
Vote:February 17th, 2009 at 12:56 pm
i laugh at the londoners, who won the olympics when the place was awash with cash. Now the UK economy is one of the worst in the world , and they are even talking about nationalising the banks .
The british taxpayer is going to be hurting very very much to pay for those damned running races.
Vote:February 17th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
clint
What is the felling on the street about the Olympics?, is there a growing movement to back out of the deal?
Vote:February 17th, 2009 at 1:24 pm
I’ll be the contrarian here, given that ~9% of NZ GD is tourism related ( ~ 16 Billion ), spending around 1% of that annually on major event promotion sounds fair enough, figure that is ~160 million & you’ve got a fund for Rugby World Cups, Americas Cups etc.
Vote:There needs a full analysis, but given 4.5% of those visitors are from the UK & another 2% Singapore, 0.8% Malaysia & 0.8% India, let alone the 61% from Aussie, there is surely a case to do a full cost benefit analysis on the promotional impact of a Commonwealth games as it would relate to Tourism, if that is even close to even I’d say we should do it, because our Primary produce exporters would also benefit from the additional profile.
I guess my main thought is just because we need to be careful with money, it does not mean we should ignore opportunities to invest money where the returns are justified.
February 17th, 2009 at 1:29 pm
I agree wholeheartedly Nigel. If there is a good solid business case, absolutely it makes sense to make the investment. But I run into a practicality problem. I wouldn’t trust the govt (even the National govt) to assess a business case if they fell over one. So my default position is to oppose them funding anything of this nature.
Unfortunately the free rider problem means it is unlikely that the tourism sector will self fund this kind of thing, even though it would be the best answer.
If 61% of our visitors come from Aussie, what do we reckon the odds are that holding a Commonwealth games here would change how many of them come? I’m picking nil….
Vote:February 17th, 2009 at 1:46 pm
Getting rid of SPARC and making the Minister of Sport earn his salary would also be a worthwhile saving.
Vote:February 17th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
# Jack5 Says:
February 17th, 2009 at 11:26 am
With New Zealand now in economic crevasse country it’s time for priorities. That means bread before circuses.
Of that I’m not to sure.
In times of crisis often circuses are exactly what is needed.
Of course cheap, value for money circuses would be best, ruling out bullrush (who will get enough money with the reform of the prison service), yacht racing and commonwealth games immediately.
I tend to think the WWE trophy should go the same way but could be convinced otherwise simply because a win at home in this event (unlikely under the current joke) could not just raise the country’s morale and guarantee the continuation of the right-wing government.
Vote:February 17th, 2009 at 5:33 pm
Commonwealth countries already know where we are, more or less, and the rest of the world thinks the Commonwealth games are “amateur time”. I cannot see the point of the expense.
Vote:February 17th, 2009 at 6:57 pm
so this is what it means to be “Ambitious for New Zealand”?
Vote:February 18th, 2009 at 11:25 am
Word on the street is still pretty muted as the games still seem to far away and everybody is too worried about the crisis which is hitting us harder than we thought.
It is one hell of an ambitious project they have going on in Stratford for these Olympics. The bill is going to get a lot worse.
We’re stuffed either way, thank god we have Boris in charge of London as he is doing all he can to stop the open chequebook that Red Ken left us with.
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