Casino Royale? Flushed?

Melbourne’s Southbank Casino opened in 1997 (there was a temporary site before this) and so did Sydney’s in around the same year. Then, Brisbane got its new Queens Wharf to replace The Treasury in 2024.

Has any of this in any state or city really done anything for our international reputation? Has any of it produced plane loads of foreign tourists weighed down with cash they want to splash throughout our economy, creating jobs and opportunity in the process and adding to our standards of living? Has any of it ‘put us on the map’?

No, not in my view at least. What made us famous, as a place to visit and to dream of living here, was our natural beauty, environment and lifestyle. And still is. We are the envy of the world not because there’s a casino in every second town, but because we are (mostly) a safe, very liveable country which isn’t badly overcrowded (with some exceptions) and with a good standard of living. Access to quality healthcare and education are not (yet) the preserve of the wealthy but accessible to the vast majority.

Will we learn though? If history is any judge, not likely. It is sadly too easy to envisage another similar proposal one day for a big shiny casino being proposed for yet another place on the map. Maybe even a floating one on the barrier reef? Oh wait, we tried that one too! (In fairness, it was a floating hotel but a very flashy one with lots of sparkly lights).

As the saying goes, you can’t make this stuff up.

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. – George Santayana, The Life of Reason, 1905.