My 14 year old daughter was recently part of a interschool debating competition. It was her first debate and the topic was ‘That The Commonwealth Games Are Worth Hosting’. Laura’s team from Kings Christian College was the negative…meaning they were saying that the Comm Games aren’t worth hosting. The affirmative team won….with eloquently delivered statistics on all the economic benefits to the Gold Coast of hosting the games….
Now we introduce the Beattie effect.
Former Queensland Premier Peter Beattie is the Games Organising Committee Director and he and the Organising Team have been telling the people of Queensland that the traffic is going to horrendous during the games. The message has been if you don’t need to be on the Gold Coast roads….then don’t. There has been a lot of promotion about working from home for the two weeks of the games and organisations like Griffith University have strongly encouraged staff to take leave.
The problem with all this is that it appears to have scared everyone away. And whilst the actual game events have been well attended, the businesses and motels that were banking on an economic win, have been left as ghost towns. My wife Melanie works at Biggerah Waters which is close to the Marathon route and she was saying there was less people around last week than in a normal week.
So now with 6 days of the Games to go, the organisers have hit the media with the message that the Gold Coast is open for business so come on down. It may be a message too little to late. It seems a real shame that people have been scared off from coming to the Gold Coast during the games and is a pretty big stuff up all round from the Organisers.
Maybe if Laura’s debate was tonight….the outcome would be very different. The Commonwealth Games may not be the economic boom for the GC as was predicted.
And that’s pretty unfortunate.
Anyway, That’s what I think.
Peter
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Categories: Current Affairs, Gold Coast
peterpilt 
Peter Beattie probably wasn’t the best choice to be In charge of the games. His experience is as a solicitor, union secretary and politician. They should’ve got someone with more of a business background who understood the gold coast.
Agreed
You think they would have learnt from the Sydney Olympics trade went down however there was a flow-on effect after the games. The GC should benefit from the added promotions and general good vibe and international exposure. The new venues also should bring new events to the town.
Beaurecratics panic about crowds however Sydney has now learnt to embrace the crowd example being vid and the new years eve Olympics. The GC just needs to learn and this is a good learning definitely not a waste.