Maybe I like to support Australian Teams.

I don't think I can get behind Ian "[Brand Name]" Thorpe and the mighty invicible "Fat Burger" Kangaroo's team.

Naming a sporting stadium after a brand name was too much for me.

As someone who finds a problem with our unhealthy pre-occupation with sports, I am probably not the most objective of commentators on this issue but what the hell, it's my taxes too. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy watching sports but there's a limit.
Thinking back to the 2000 Olympics, I remember a report relating to the bean counters running to the government with the breathless zeal of an Olympian runner proclaiming that X number of dollars was needed to ensure X number of Gold Medals in competition.
It didn't seem a particularly sportpersonlike approach to the Olympic ideal but then again, neither was Samaranch. I remember in earlier Winter Olympics, the Jamaican Bobsledders and who could forget Eddie the Eagle. To me, they were the Olympic Spirit personified and even more so in the spirit of the Paralympians who even had to go through the indignity of negotiating the use of the Olympic symbols. Bloody Samaranch.
Investment should promote endeavour, not gold. With gold being the same benchmark that underpins the monetary value of much of the world's economy, the Olympics had a chance to elevate the ideal of humanity itself but chose, instead, to assign it a monetary worth. Last place, regardless of the effort, makes it into the loose change bag, far from the musical lilt of the till drawers opening.
I apologise for digressing from the core of the article but much of this comes to mind every time another television presenter beams for the camera and tells us that we are going to get "bags of gold medals".
I couldn't care less.

Sport takes a prominent place in Australian culture. More Aussies could name all the players in the cricket team, than the members of cabinet.

The Australian institute of sport has been successful in delivering elite sportsmen and women. It is interesting to see that the England cricket team has become successful after copying the similarly centralised Australian cricket academy. The eastern block has also been successful in getting medals with their institutes. By decentralising sport to be financed by private sponsors we will see all morals loose sport and we risk the strong possibility that drugs will proliferate sport like it does in the US.

Yes the Olympics and similar events have a very ugly nationalistic face. If we really want to "celebrate sport and humanity" we should drop all the flag waving and anthems. They have nothing to do with sport and only serve to divide humanity in nationalist pigeonholes. Nationalism is the same political force that has caused millions to march to their deaths in the world wars. Nationality is something artificial bestowed by accident of birth and it is time we realise that nationalism = racism. It has no place in the sporting arena.

The argument that we need to save the money to fund the safety net is ludicrous. The safety net is attacked at every possible occasion. Elections are bought with tax cuts at the safety nets expense. Scaremongering has reached the level where an underfunded retirement is the new hell for our post modern secular age. It is only a matter of time before the liberal party commisions Baz Luhrman to make a modern film version of Dante's Inferno set in a Salvo's refuge overflowing with desitute senior citizens.

PS I like Baz Luhrman's films and hold the work of the Salvation Army in high regard.

Most of the athletes at the AIS don't become a "brand" such as Ian Thorpe ( who has never trained at the AIS) and will recover little, if anything, finanically from years and years of training.

I'd prefer tax payers money being directed to these athletes who are showing complete commitment and dedication to an endeavour rather than to many other less worthy (in my opinion) beneficiaries of tax hand outs. At least these athletes are embodying characteristics which we want encouraged in the community.

As a minimum why not a HECS (Higher Education Contribution Scheme) type arrangement where the athletes would be required to pay back the assistance they have received.

Why discriminate athletics from other forms of education especially where these actually add value to the community (in the traditional sense). Payback on success, just like our tertiary students.

Now what about a name? ACS? (Athletics Contribution Scheme)? Hmm sounds like a good acronym to me. Do you agree?

HECS is based on the idea that you pay back the cost of studying out of an income which you receive as a result of that study. This wouldn't apply to AIS athletes as very few derive an income as a result of the training they receive from the institute. The only income you may be able to try to hit is sponsorship money, but like I said, very few receive this kind of income.

In reality $110 million is not a lot when you consider that:

1. $130 million is handed out annually in family benefits to families earning more than $100,000 per year.

2. The government spends $100 million a year on advertising.

If we want to curtail waste of tax payers money I'd prefer to see the above axed.