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The Stolenwealth Games are in full swing and what a blast they are, if you believe the headlines and what an extravaganza Melbourne is hosting. Aren’t you glad you’re a tax payer? We’ve had the Queen’s Torch relay dramas. We’ve had the hype and mystery of the Opening Ceremony rehearsals and we’ve endured the droning of Victorian politicians from all sides talking up what promises to be one of the most extravagant, taxpayer funded white elephants of all time. I’m so glad I’m a Victorian!
While the media focuses on the glamour, speed and sexual attraction of young men and women who can run fast, swim quickly and jump really high, we find the media has taken their eye off the real game. Let’s have a look at a couple of issues that have been swept under the rug in the hyperbole and spin.
Just days out from the opening ceremony a 16 year old girl reported she was sexually accosted by an accredited official from the Indian team. The media reported on this as an alleged sex crime committed by a visiting sports team member. There was much hand wringing and apologies and promises that this was just a one off, an aberration of the norm which would not happen again.
What went uncommented on was the fact that the girl in question was 16 years old. She was an underage worker. Or, to put it another way, she was very cheap labour. As you would be aware the government has talked up the value of the work that contractors would get by servicing the Games Village. It was sold to the Victorian public as a potential gold mine for local businesses. What we find in the end is that it is multinational companies who won the major contracts to clean and supply the Games Village.
While these companies do employ local contractors in the end, these local contractors are screwed to the wall when it comes to cost. The bottom line, they are told by the corporations is, if you want the work, you’ll do it at our cost. So the local contractors resort to finding the cheapest labour possible. And what labour is the cheapest? Child labour. Those under 18 who are among our most vulnerable. We don’t find that aspect of this alleged crime being reported in the mainstream media do we? We don’t find the reality of the downside of the “Friendly Games” getting the same analysis as who is wearing what or who is not running, swimming, jumping or shooting.
We then find, on the eve of the games and after months of telling us that the security at the Games will be ‘world class’, employing the ‘latest technology’ and the most advanced ‘high tech’ equipment, operated by ‘highly trained and skilled’ security forces, that a bunch of youngsters from a nearby juvenile detention centre jump the fence and run amok in the Games Village. They simply jumped the fence and the response from the Victorian Police is that, “Everybody in the village should feel safe with the highly visible police presence that’s here”.
Four teenagers armed with nothing more that runners, tee shirts and some adventure on their mind are able to bypass what the Victorian government, police and Games organisers have told us is about the most secure site on earth outside an Israeli nuclear plant. Bollocks!
What this little testosterone fuelled adventure demonstrates is what any regular air traveller will tell you. The so called “security checks” we are subject to are 99% front and 1% effective. In the so called ‘post 911’ world, security is the thing we are all supposed to take notice of. However, like any company, security companies will do only as much as their contract and budget allow. If that means skimping on training, resourcing its employees and providing 100% water tight security, then they will. As far as this demonstration of the fallacy that is supposedly the tightest security cordon in the southern hemisphere goes, I doubt whether the embarrassment of the truth will allow a full pubic explanation of the incident.
While 16 year old girls are being abused and similar aged boys are jumping the fence into the village, the Sports Minister, Justin Madden, reveals the economic disaster that is the Games. On ABC radio on the morning of the opening ceremony he was talking up the sale of 40,000 tickets over the last few days. He described it as a “ticket frenzy”. He told us that of the 1.8 million tickets on offer, 1.3 million had been sold. That leaves 500,000 tickets sitting in the box.
In his usual insightful way, Kenneth Davidson, writing in the Age in December 2004, noted that the average cost of a ticket was about $50. However, in order to even cover the direct cost of putting on the Games (not including all the hidden subsidies to entice corporate bidders into contracts) would mean that each ticket sold would have a state tax payer funded subsidy of $474 and a federal tax subsidy of $272. I reckon that’s real value for money. Spend $50 and get $746 worth of value.
In his Age article Davidson says that this figure is just for us locals to attend. When it comes to interstate and overseas ticket holders, we Victorians will be subsidising them to the tune of $4,700 each. In order to break even, so we southerners don’t have to dig into to our pockets for tickets holders flying in for the week, each out of town visitor would have to spend up to five times the $4,700 or more than $3,000 per day on top of their travel and hotel costs.
On the local level, here in my little neck of the woods out in regional Victoria, the local council and state government spent $1 million dollars on a new Basketball stadium that will be used for a total of two days. Imagine what that money could have bought when it comes to upgrading and supporting the long term sports infrastructure in my town?
The point of all this talk is that, as Kenneth Davidson so rightly pointed out, “This must be an all-time record for the cost to taxpayers of a circus without the bread.” While real needs go unmet and young people with disabilities languish in aged nursing homes, while schools fall into disrepair, while dental, medical and mental health services are wound back, our state and federal governments throw our money at activities that cost a motsa and return nothing to our long term social progress.
While I do admit some interest in the technical aspects of the Games, I find myself not at all interested in them as a tax paying spectator. While the schools in my town and health and other social services continue to struggle to find the funds to operate at the bare minimum, I must voice my opposition to the games that steal our wealth and transfer it into the hands of a few already rich individuals.
The Stolenwealth Games were conceived by the Reverend Astly Cooper in 1891 as a “Pan-Britannic-Pan Anglican Contest and Festival … as a means of increasing the goodwill and good understanding of the Empire”. Over 100 years later we find this strange mix of religious imperialism pervades all aspects of the Games. What goes unmentioned in the corporate tents and mainstream media is that the games represent the theft from citizens of the right to receive much better value for their tax dollar. All things considered, it could be worse. They could last for more than ten days.