World Youth Day wash up

The Sun-Herald reported that a spokesman for WYD said it was “misleading” to compare costs of events. He reportedly said: “Host cities start from different levels of readiness and offer different levels of service.”

But Sydney 2008 had the same amount of time to prepare as other cities as the event was held 2002 in Toronto and 2005 in Cologne. In terms of the services the city was to provide, what apart from the use of Randwick racecourse was so different? And how could Toronto host some 500,000 people at a cost of A$89.7 million, as reported by the Sun-Herald, while the estimated Australian cost was $150 million for what turned out to be no more than a total number of 223,000 attendees, less than half than attended Toronto?

So if the numbers were down, how did the expenditure and income stack up?

On September 20-21, 2008, some two months after World Youth Day, the Sydney Morning Herald’s Freedom of Information (FOI) reporter, Matthew Moore, wrote “Before the event the Catholic Church and the State Government financial backer were remarkably reluctant to reveal details of who was paying for what. Now that it is over, not much has changed.”

He recounted a letter to the Herald the day before, written by a general counsel of the Premier’s Department, which stated that the Catholic WYD 2008 organisation had requested that details of funding and liabilities be subject to a number of exemptions under FOI. One of them was “not in the public interest”.

Matthew Moore noted that “What a contrast Toronto was. It hosted World Youth Day in 2002 and published audited figures, detailing where every dollar went.” He concluded “It is hard to make the State [NSW] Government appear open and accountable but the Catholic Church is doing a pretty good job.”

In other words, even the normally reticent state government which habitually refuses FOI requests was outshone by the Catholic Church on this occasion in its search for secrecy.

The whole sorry affair was summarised well enough by a report and an editorial in the Sydney Morning Herald of November 27, 2008. The two analyses spoke to the NSW Auditor-General’s report on WYD. The Auditor-General had found WYD had exceeded its original state budget of $20 million by six times for a total cost to NSW of $120 million. This does not include the Federal Government’s contribution of $20 million. The Church itself, depending on differing reports, provided only $10 million or $15 million. Compensation for the use of Randwick Racecourse finally amounted to $41 million. So the total cost was in excess of $150 million.

The Auditor-General called for a more thorough analysis but in the Parliament the Minister for State Development refused to commit the government to a full assessment of WYD. The Herald editorial concluded it was unlikely the economic benefits of WYD were achieved as the numbers were so down, the event discouraged other tourists from Sydney and “only 21 per cent of the pilgrims used paid accommodation”.

But we don’t know for sure because neither the government nor the church is willing to be totally frank about the whole affair. It is arguable that if WYD had generated a profit there would be no such reluctance.

WYD cost taxpayers considerably more than it did in Toronto and Cologne and the final balance remains opaque. Meanwhile, public hospitals in NSW are told to cut back seriously strained resources and public schools have to fight for funding from the government table. But the church was given what was in effect a blank cheque.

Cardinal Pell was cited in The Australian on May 27, 2001 saying “the separation of church and state in Australia is a blessing and we should preserve it”.