Queensland’s Olympic review misses the target

This Review is more about getting rid of a political barnacle and embarrassment in an election year than about a thorough reassessment of an event eight years hence.

What is really needed is a proper, independent cost-benefit review of the whole Brisbane Olympic Games proposal so that if it does proceed we go into to it with eyes wide open and proper processes in place rather than just wishful thinking that all would be well.

After all, the record of these ever expanding and expensive sporting extravaganzas is poor.

Most recent Olympic Games have run at huge losses exceeding original estimates, leaving cities and governments, sometimes bankrupt and with purpose-built infrastructure of often little lasting practical value. Between 1960 to 2016 the average cost overruns for the Games was 156 per cent.

Promises that Olympic Games are economic bonanzas do not hold up. Look at the results from Montreal in 1976 to Athens, London, Sydney and most recently Tokyo.

And let’s not forget all the disruptions, road closures, traffic delays, pollution, and inevitable enforced relocations of families during the preparation of the Games that Brisbane citizens will have to endure.

Most importantly, events the size and complexity of the modern Olympics distract the government’s attention from its prime responsibility of running the state – providing key services like maternity wards across the regions, bringing Queensland’s poorly performing education and health systems up to scratch, tackling our future energy and water problems, ensuring our forensic testing services work effectively and reducing juvenile crime.

More would also be achieved for the health and well-being of Queenslanders if some of the energy and resources now being invested in the Olympic Games was diverted into community health programs and tackling head on major, preventable threats to health like diabetes.