Going for gold via the Eastern Bloc

Healthcare, pensions and aged care spending are, according to Treasurer Peter Costello, likely to rise substantially over the next 40 years, and the revenue to support that expenditure growth will not rise quickly enough to meet it.

In this context, one wonders why the Federal Government does not begin to dismantle its outmoded state-run sports facility - which reflects a world long gone - and replace it with a cheaper but more effective decentralised model.

It would of course, take a brave prime minister who was prepared to turn the existing model of funding elite sports through the AIS on its head. But the alternative is that the AIS and its parent, the Australian Sports Commission, continue to suck up more taxpayers’ funds simply to win gold medals at the Olympic Games and third rate events like the Commonwealth Games.

Just as the Howard Government has commissioned review after review of arts funding in Australia - at least four, all headed by hard-nosed business types - so it should examine whether or not the AIS is the best or most equitable use of taxpayers’ dollars today.

Why not, for example, pay for elite sports training through a tax on gaming - an Australian obsession and growth industry? Or look at extending the tax incentives for private donations to the arts to sport?

Nothing lasts forever - not even the AIS. Perhaps its time to consign it to the dustbin of history, just like the Eastern Bloc.