RIDING WAVE OF WEALTH
TERRY Jackman has considerable clout still on the beach, in sports arenas, and in the boardrooms of the tourism and entertainment industries.
When Jackman talks, people listen. And when he calls out the new $15 million Kurrawa Surf Life Saving Club building as “ridiculously big’’, criticises its siting on public parkland and questions the priorities behind such a huge project, he has thrown a bomb that should ignite fierce debate.
But this is nothing new in surf lifesaving. At its heart is a grassroots movement in which careers and status are left in the car park and once people are in their budgie smugglers and patrol caps on the beach, they’re all equal – and opinions should be tossed around without fear or favour.
Councillor Paul Taylor, Kurrawa’s former supporters club president, has no qualms in defending the club, agreeing it is big now but insisting funds are ploughed back into where they are needed – nippers, patrols and shoring up the club’s future.
He says Kurrawa has helped put smaller clubs on their feet.
Terry Jackman however has plenty of kudos and is right to voice a concern held by plenty who question the need for a massive clubhouse that appears to drip wealth while small clubs without the returns from pokies, bars and restaurants struggle to operate or mount patrols without a handful of stalwarts volunteering for multiple sessions on the beach.
The movement also risks a jaded public questioning why, if some clubs can bankroll mega-complexes, they should cough up when people dressed as clubbies hit them for donations outside bottleshops or approach them to buy art union tickets in the major shopping centres.
The true purpose of any surf club is to train volunteers, from nippers through to masters, in the skills needed to save lives.
Jackman does not hide from the fact he is a Hedges Ave high-flyer. In the past he headed Tourism Queensland, Sea World and Movie World, Indy Car Australia, Breakfree and Sunland, and chaired the National Association of Cinema Owners. He is a former board member of Bond University and the ARU.
His associations with lifesaving include being patron of Mermaid and of the Northcliffe club, which itself has been criticised in the past for pouring dollars into elite athletes and professional coaches, and has been described by its own champion ironman, Shannon Eckstein, as one of the “superclubs’’.
But Jackman, despite a career built on recognising economic opportunity, is appealing to the movement to maintain saving lives as its main priority, and to resist a commercial temptation to start building huge club structures. The lifesaving movement does not need a backlash, with the public wrongly assuming clubs are always flush with cash.