*... no respect for the hard work that has gone into those taxes...#

No prescience, no respect and above all total arrogance towards the subject!

Dan

If only Morrison could do vaccines, the way Australia does water sports. I've been to six Games, but one of my favourite sports is razzing Life Emperor Coates.

To be sure, the IOC is corrupt and bloated leviathan, and the deals with the host cities are vastly asymmetric. But I'm still a de Coubertin guy at heart, as are many millions of us. Sydney itself is an overrated and overpopulated mess, but it worked in 2000. Don't like Brisbane either, but I'll be there on my walking frame I imagine.

Steve S

And as you’ve obviously walked through life in the same manner of ignorance towards the obvious, maybe you should apply for a free ticket for your dedication to that ignorance!

Dan

Graham could have added a couple more negatives.

Every time Australia hosts a Games event we get a good collection of third world athletes that disappear into the community and claim asylum.

The multi-billion dollar sporting infrastructure is supposed to be an asset for generations. It turned out that less than 20 years after the Sydney Olympics the NSW Government wanted to demolish the main stadium.

Overall, wining the right to host an Olympic Games is the mother of all booby prizes.

Graham. I believe Brisbane will be different. Given we already have much of the required infrastructure in place and other parts like rapid urban rail. Will bring with it, sustainable long term economic growth. And done with or without the games! And given it showcases areas like tourist mecca, the gold coast. Bring in a new surge of cashed-up tourists.

Sure we need to avoid the economic pitfalls and the waste of money! And we need a better deal for the broadcast rights from a post-pandemic world starving for escapism. And should the local media be unable to properly pay for broadcast rights, then sky news etc. May step into that money/honey pot breach. And broadcast to a world that's is bigger with billions more eyes glued to billions more TV sets.

Moreover, the upgrades will continue to serve a sports-mad population long after the games are little more than memories.

We do games very well and our renowned expertise is sort after, the world over! All we need do is break-even and then reap the later economic reward and economic expansion!
Alan B.

Graham,
>Brisbane's budget for the Olympics is $5 billion. This would make it the cheapest since the
>Athens Olympics, and even cheaper than the 2000 Sydney Olympics, which sounds ambitious.
It may sound ambitious until you look at the ratio of existing to new infrastructure.

>According to the Flyvbjerg study, the amount has at least a 20 per cent risk of being $15 billion or higher.
I had a look at his study and it didn't even mention Brisbane! You're making the mistake of looking only at statistics rather than the reasons behind them.

>And the state government has also done a sweetheart deal with the CFMEU for government construction
Any actual evidence it's a sweetheart deal? There have been lots of deals with unions resulting in high labour costs but also high labour productivity.

>That's bound to make the eye-wateringly expensive $1 billion redevelopment of the
>Gabba... even more expensive.
Not necessarily - it's just as likely to be part of the reason why it's expensive in the first place.

>Just how good a job generator that will be can easily be measured by comparing the Olympics
>with the Adani mine, which will employ 2000 a year not just for 10 years, but for 60.

An extremely dubious figure. The reality is much lower: http://www.thebigsmoke.com.au/2021/05/17/this-is-what-the-adani-mine-is-really-delivering/ quotes Senator Bridget McKenzie as claiming: “(Adani will) be employing 1,500 through the construction phase and around about 100 ongoing.” And the assumption that the coal mine will remain economic for 60 years is highly fanciful - world demand for coal is certain to fall for economic reasons as well as environmental reasons, and the mine's far enough from the port to suffer from high transport costs.

If you're going got whinge about costs and dubious benefits, please at least try to be consistent about it!