Page 3540 - Week 13 - Thursday, 26 November 1992
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MR BERRY (Minister for Health, Minister for Industrial Relations and Minister for Sport) (3.47): Mr Lamont has spoken to this Assembly on the importance of any bid for the Olympic Games and the support this Government has given to date for the Sydney bid. I am not going to dwell too long on the Commonwealth Games bid. It is easy for Mr De Domenico to say, "Yes, we should have a plunge", but this Government is not going to commit $100,000 to a feasibility study just because it is a good idea. It has to have an outcome, and we are not going to commit ourselves to a $10m bid unless there is good reason for us to do it.
The first thing before us is the Olympics bid in New South Wales. Yesterday I was at the BOMA luncheon, where Mr Churches from the Sydney Olympic bid company spoke on the bid to bring the Olympic Games to Sydney in the year 2000. If the bid is successful, and we will know this after the 96 members of the International Olympic Committee meet in Monte Carlo on 23 September 1993, it will have major benefits for the whole of Australia and, in particular, for the ACT. The Sydney bid alone has created 1,000 construction jobs in Sydney and planning for the Games employs 40 salaried and 1,000 volunteer staff. This is without the flow-on of benefits to other areas of the economy.
It is not without risk. This is a big undertaking and one which involves the commitment of a lot of finances to the development. The bid company has done a lot of research in its planning, and it is estimated that $2 billion worth of investment in infrastructure would be needed between now and the year 2000. The New South Wales Government has already committed $300m for the construction of the aquatic and athletic centres. A further $1 billion would complete the venue construction program. The Sydney bid company is confident that it is preparing the best proposal possible. In a recent meeting in Acapulco, the Sydney bid organisers offered to pay the return air fares to the Games for athletes and officials. This offer was based on calculations that the maximum number of athletes and officials involved would be 15,000, and the cost is estimated at more than $US30m.
The Liberals' silence on Olympic sport, as has been said earlier, is on a par with their Marcel Marceau views on the GST and what it will do to sport.
Mr Cornwell: What on earth does that mean? What has Marcel Marceau to do with the GST?
MR BERRY: The Liberals do not want to talk about it. One wonders what the massive increase in building costs of the Homebush centre will be if the GST is introduced, or what the increased costs on air tickets will be to the New South Wales Government, as they have offered to pay the costs of the athletes travelling to the Olympics. This offer is expected, in particular, to assist Third World countries to attend the Games and encourage them to vote for Sydney.
The level of community support for the staging of the Games is a significant factor in the selection of the host city. It has been determined in surveys that 90 per cent of respondents in New South Wales supported the conduct of the Games in Sydney and over half said that they would be prepared to host visitors. A major advantage is that all athletes could be accommodated within a short distance of their competition and training venues. Planning and construction of
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