Not ready, barely set, but soon to go

He has been asked to report on progress at the next Board meeting in June - this means that the IOC is starting to call for accountability on social impact issues from SOCOG and the State government, a major breakthrough. After years of stonewalling against community concerns expressed within and outside the Social Impacts Advisory Committee (SIAC), the State government is now having to come up with answers.

Carrard has made it clear he wants to keep meeting with the OIC to ensure that he is aware of continuing community concerns, presumably so the right questions get asked as Knight reports.

A key proposal in Shelter’s Olympics report is for social impact statements to be mandatory for future bid cities. We argued that Sydney is in such a mess over social impacts because no real planning has been systematically done. The contrast is marked with environmental issues, where the impact statement led to the nickname "the Green Games". The government is clearly feeling the pressure to live up to the tag.

Carrard showed great interest in this proposal and complimented us on the methodology suggested in the Shelter report. He said that "this is an idea whose time has come". He surprised us further by saying he would raise it directly with the ten cities bidding for the 2008 games when he met with them later in February. It was clear that the IOC is uncomfortable at being seen to be a major cause of social dislocation in the host city, and is close to being ready to embrace the idea of high-level planning to mitigate disruptive social impacts.

We talk about the "legacy" of the Games. If this principle gets formally adopted, Sydney will have left a legacy that the citizens of future games cities will be truly thankful for.