MOMENT TO GO FOR GOLD
TODAY promises to be a watershed moment for the Gold Coast, as leading figures pack the Going For Gold Legacy Symposium to map a course for proper social and economic dividends from the 2018 Commonwealth Games.
This sports extravaganza will be the biggest event in the Commonwealth next year. Games boss Peter Beattie predicts 1.5 billion viewers around the world will watch and fall in love with the city. That bodes well for tourism and conferences.
But Sydney also enjoyed a surge in that sector with its 2000 Olympics. Indeed, it had a golden opportunity to parlay its Olympics glory into a permanent, positive outcome but stumbled, failing to invest in the opportunities it should have created. Sydney built its Games infrastructure at Homebush, serviced by a rail line from the CBD, but did not think through how the whole city could be connected and how to maintain the Games momentum.
The Gold Coast has been handed an extraordinary opportunity with the Commonwealth Games to diversify and to create undreamed-of opportunities.
The challenge is great. We must use the spotlight already on our city, and use the rush of capital spending that has gone into preparations as a launch pad.
Take for example the health and knowledge precinct, alongside which a colourful and futuristic Athletes Village has been built. Huge amounts have been invested in the bricks and mortar of Griffith University and our Gold Coast University Hospital, and to attract and train medical, academic and research personnel. Added to that precinct is the educational excellence of Bond and Southern Cross universities, and the city’s schools and academies. But all that is just the start in a world where technology means we’re limited only by imagination.
The Games will be the catalyst, but to give the city its best chance proper infrastructure has to be in place. Transport issues are critical. The light rail must be pushed through to the airport.
The symposium today features a leading list of speakers. The Bulletin is proud to be part of this undertaking. Packed as it is with the crème de la crème of thinkers and captains of industry, the event shows a hunger for leadership and direction to set the city up for the century ahead.