Harder to take than the closing ceremony? The buck-passing afterwards
IT appears to have been the world’s most closely guarded secret. More people know the colonel’s secret recipe, or the codes to unleash the USA’s nuclear arsenal on the world.
But with the exception of Peter Beattie, we are to believe absolutely nobody in authority had any hint about the disastrous Commonwealth Games closing ceremony before it was too late.
Not Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk. The Premier sounded on Monday morning as if she’d been to management school, trotting out the classic “I’m just as disappointed about it as anyone else” line beloved by senior executives who wish to wash their hands of a stuffup in their own organisation.
Ms Palaszczuk looked a little less shocked the night before when she posted a cringe-worthy video on Twitter of herself and Commonwealth Games Minister Kate Jones chairdancing during the “show”. It is remarkable viewing, not least because while all around were either making for the exits or staring dead ahead in stunned disbelief, it represents evidence of someone actually enjoying the nightmare.
And what of Ms Jones herself?
Although she carried the title Games Minister and like her boss happily associated herself with all that was good about the event, Ms Jones also professed to being taken completely by surprise by what unfolded. “Trust has been broken”, she said.
Which begs the question, what exactly are we paying these people for?
Was the title of Games Minister just some kind of honorific, or did it carry any responsibilities from which accountability might flow?
If the role had any meaning, taking an active interest in how public money was being spent (at the astonishing cost of almost $200,000 a minute) and ensuring the reputation of the Gold Coast was enhanced rather than torpedoed by the opening and closing ceremonies would surely have been high on the list.
Apparently not. Nothing to see here, not our problem, we had no involvement.
But they were warned. A group of prominent Australian producers wrote directly to the Premier as far back as December 2015 (before, it should be noted, kamikaze fallguy Mr Beattie was appointed chair of GOLDOC) correctly predicting the decision to award the contract for the Games ceremonies to an overseas company would come to be regretted and urging Ms Palaszczuk to intervene.
“When there is so much Australian talent, experience and international success in this field, it is incomprehensible that Queensland should be overlooking our own talent in favour of hiring a foreign company to stage what will arguably be the most important major public event in Australia this decade,” the group said in the letter.
But the Premier paid no attention.
In fact it would be more than two years before Ms Palaszczuk showed any real interest in the matter, when she began lobbying to be allowed to make a speech at the opening ceremony. The Premier was said to be greatly angered by her exclusion, and furious representations were made on her behalf. She instead spoke at the closing ceremony, when the deadening impact of a line-up of pollies drivelling on was all too apparent.
There were other warnings, other canaries in the mine, that had there been anyone in authority, they may have paid attention to.
This newspaper highlighted the fact that organisers decided there was to be no role in the ceremonies for the Meter Maids – an iconic and fun representation of the Gold Coast. Apparently, they were not “sophisticated” enough.
Their treatment, and a clear overriding obsession with a need to preach verses from the book of political correctness (Melbourne edition), was an ominous portent of what was to come.
We also expressed growing alarm as the Games grew closer about how the associated Festival 2018 was being organised. When the first indication of its content was released, we wrote that it was at total variance to the Gold Coast’s hard-earned reputation as a “fun” destination, and instead promised to “have all the thrill and excitement of your average gender studies lecture”.
Our concerns, which reflected those of the Gold Coast community, were haughtily dismissed. We were pilloried, accused of being “negative”, urged to “get behind” a wrongheaded approach.
Mr Beattie countered that “any assertion that we (Games organisers) are taking the fun out of Festival 2018 and GC2018 is well wide of the mark”.
Tell that to the athletes who should have been at the closing ceremony’s heart, but were so bored and excluded they instead made for the exits before the halfway mark.
The warning signs were all there. If only we had elected representatives who might represent our interests. People with the authority to intervene and protect the city from the embarrassment that unfolded on Sunday.
A Games Minister, or a Premier perhaps, with actual power.
But sadly it appears nobody had any responsibility or ability to influence matters one way or another. Despite the public money spent, it was all out of their hands. They were all as shocked and disappointed as you were.