23 August 2008

We're bidding for the Commonwealth Games? Is this a cunning plan?

| johnboy
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According to gamesbids.com Canberra is in the running to host the 2018 Commonwealth Games:

    The Gold Coast will be in competition with the city of Perth, which also officially announced its bid Friday, while Canberra has also said it was bidding.

Leaving aside the question of why any city would want to inflict this barely-glorified sports carnival upon itself…

Is this a cunning plan to bring the self-government era to end? Are we planning to bankrupt ourselves on Athletes Villages and new buses before throwing ourselves upon the arms of a Commonwealth Government that, at the end of the day, can’t allow its national capital to rot?

Maybe it does make sense…

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considering that the wowsers canned the supercars here, how would they go with an event of this magnitude?

trees would have to be cut down to allow development of a decent sized site. oh, and the noise would be huge. not to mention the litter, influx of additional population, etc. we can bid all we want.

we won’t get it, though.

Holden Caulfield9:16 am 25 Aug 08

Oops, ‘depends’ even.

Holden Caulfield9:16 am 25 Aug 08

Well, that determines on the definition of ‘feasible’ doesn’t it. :p

Considering the Melbourne Commonwealth Games attracted about 200 million in Commonwealth Government funding and the Victorian Government chipped the majority of 800 million meaning each Victorian taxpayer subsidised each ticket to the tune of anywhere between $500 and $800 (the final amount was hotly debated between each side of Victorian politics.

The ACT having a population about one tenth the size of Victoria would have to put a huge impost on the taxpayer but hell, the current government (for want of a better word) thinks nothing of frittering $140,000 on some piece of shit artwork which in the opinion of our Chief Minister “was the most beautiful thing he had seen all day besides his wife Robyn”

The penchant of our Chief Minister for holding events for self glorification such as “The Chief Minister’s Command Performance” – please get me a bucket! and erecting artworks at the public expense is a freakin’ joke when essential services such as education, health and road infrastructure are lacking.

Commonwealth Games? The answer is NO!

Let’s just be glad that for the moment, officially at least, this is just a feasibility study. I fail to see how anyone in their right mind can conduct a feasibility study into this and actually determine it feasible.

Well, at least they could finally use that concrete pad they built for indoor soccer for something useful. They could park cars on it.

Could you imagine having Bruce/Canberra Stadium as the centre-piece of the Commy Games?

‘Patrons are strongly advised, to avoid congestion and traffic jams, to park on the dirt by the side of the road near the tourist park on Dryandra Street and then walk up the bike track. That will also help you dodge paying five bucks to the parking marshalls.’

Interestingly, we got Bruce Stadium for the Pacific Games in 1977 (our school provided some Rent A Crowd which is why I remember it). But in those days, all the taxpayers of Australia paid for such things. Nowadays, it’d be just Canberra.

As for Victoria B.C, that’s an island, but BC is a wealthy and populous province (boasting Vancouver, among other things).

We don’t have the facilities, and neither should we have a push to develop those myriad facilities for this one off.

I’m all for leaving the legacy of required sporting facilities in the wake of a large event, but the ‘bang for buck’ ratio necessitated for something of the scale of the Commy Games just is not warranted.

Canberra… Commonwealth Games? Having a small population doesn’t automatically negate the possibility but Canberra hasn’t proven very good at hosting anything big. Even the 2000 Olympic Soccer preliminaries caused traffic chaos.

Father of Finn8:10 pm 24 Aug 08

Commonwealth Games for Canberra? Where will they play the football? Dickson fields? Give me a break.

Now that Britain are better than us at ‘Games’ type sports won’t we be leading the charge to can the Comm Games as an anacronysm? I mean, now we can’t win any more what is the point of them?

Less people did it easily

fewer.

rekkun canberra has little hope of getting the gig.

Holden Caulfield8:44 pm 23 Aug 08

Wide Boy Jake said :

I can still remember the last big athletics event in Canberra, the World Athletics Championships in 1985 at the old Bruce Stadium. The athletes kept getting swooped by magpies and the whole thing was an embarrassing flop.

Actually, that meet got a mention on the Ollypigs last night and from memory there were a few eastern Europeans on juice as well, which kinda tarnished their winning efforts.

Perhaps you shouldn’t believe everything you read on “gamesbids.com”.

Felix the Cat6:36 pm 23 Aug 08

spoonbill said :

Surely the government can come up with better ways of pissing rate payers’ money up against the wall!

A few more public art works or half-arsed roads should do the trick.

Surely the government can come up with better ways of pissing rate payers’ money up against the wall!

Hey Granny, is the word you’re looking for boganfillea?? Tish boom!!

Wide Boy Jake5:28 pm 23 Aug 08

I can still remember the last big athletics event in Canberra, the World Athletics Championships in 1985 at the old Bruce Stadium. The athletes kept getting swooped by magpies and the whole thing was an embarrassing flop.

GottaLoveCanberra4:01 pm 23 Aug 08

Yeah but I’m sure the Government of Victoria, BC wasn’t a hodge podge collection of useless twats.

Read the above re Victoria, BC

Less people did it easily

The population on Canberra just isn’t big enough.

I would personally be embarrassed to invite people to Canberra at the moment. I have always been proud of my city, but I have never seen it look so shabby. It just looks tired and dirty and potholey and … and … bogan boganly full of boganity.

The Head of the Canberra Bid Committee, a Mr S. Baldrick, was unavailable for comment.

Johnboy… the cunning plan. I can see it and think we should have a go.

Victoria, BC, Canada

The whole area only has the same population as us and held the event just swimmingly.

Could do it easily here and in the local surrounds

I got out of Melbourne just before the last CG..

I think it would be crap here. We’d need a statium big enoough to hold a quarter the population of the ACT. Can anyone say “white elephant”? I’m not paying for it…

The Atheletes villiage might help with the “housing crisis”. The quotes are intentinal – as the subjects of the crisis couldn’t make use of them for about 10 years from now, so it’s kinda moot. Then there’s the fact we’d have to send more than half of the events – and the athletes – to other cities that can actually support the events.

“barely-glorified sports carnival” doesn’t cut it… WAFTAM is much more accurate… Though the extended Theory of johnboy does have some wieght to it.

Canberra is simply not big enough to host a games of that size.

It would be nice, considering Canberra is the capital, but you just couldn’t do it here.

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