It’s only $31 million …
Australian issues, Sport - - Posted on October, 6 at 11:08 pm by Ken L
I have limited expectations of government. Build national infrastructure. Keep the peace. Defend the nation. Fund services like health and education. Ensure that every Australian can live at an acceptable standard of comfort and dignity.
Call me a crazy libertarian if you like but one of the things I do not expect government to do is interfere in the administration of sport. Sport is a private activity that individuals engage in for fun. Governments should provide open space in which sports can be played. That’s it. The games that people play and the way they play them should be left to the individuals concerned.
If sporting people want to have professional teams good luck to them … just don’t ask me to subsidise them. If they can’t get paying customers to cover the cost of the teams then self-evidently they’re paying the players too much. Nothing to do with me.
Same with representative teams. I don’t see why I should contribute to the cost of a bunch of people having a wonderful time swanning around the globe playing sport any more than I should cough up a few bucks to help the next door neighbours take their dream cruise to Vanuatu.
Most particularly … I fail to see the slightest reason why Australian taxpayers should fork over 10 million bloody dollars to help pay for a fucking rugby league hall of fame. Even if rugby league was a sport played for fun I wouldn’t see any reason why good public money should be wasted on such a pathetic self-indulgent exercise. The fact that it’s not a sport at all but a highly profitable business makes the proposed donation even more objectionable.
But even this atrocious bit of populist vote-buying pales into insignificance beside the news that Howard’s mob intends to spend $21 million - $21 friggin’ million - on exploiting yet another opportunity to stand on platforms all purse-lipped and grave and moralise about the threats to our society and how lucky we are to have a bunch of suits in Canberra to confiscate our money and throw it away on bullshit projects, all to save us from ourselves.
Yes Christopher Pyne - the prat who in a rational world would be a minister in nothing but a P G Wodehouse story - the man to whom in a rare display of sly irony John Howard has allocated responsibilities related to sweaty change rooms and muddy arenas - Christopher Pyne has decided to take over the administration of drug testing in Australian sport.
The Federal Government is today launching its plan to crack down on illicit drug use by sports people.
The Minister with responsibility for the illicit drug policy, Christopher Pyne, says the initiative is based on the National Rugby League’s drugs policy.
He says sports will be able to subscribe to the code, and the Commonwealth will foot the bill for drug tests.
He says there will be 6,000 tests a year at a cost of $21 million.
Just in passing … that works out at $3,500 per test. Well I suppose Ricky Ponting and George Gregan are kind of like royalty so it’s only reasonable they have solid gold beakers to piss in.
But more to the point, what earthly business does the government have getting involved in this? I mean let’s face it, drugs have taken over sport. Cycling, swimming, athletics, football, weightlifting … there is no longer a line between the drug-users and the drug-free and the too-smart-to-get-caught. More to the point, who gives a shit? Marion Jones was on TV tonight sobbing about how ashamed she was that she won all those medals in Sydney, but I didn’t hear her announcing that she was refunding all the sponsorship money she’d taken since 2000. And why should she? It’s all a giant commercial joke.
Sport can clean itself up … or not. I couldn’t care less. If sportspeople think their sex life and their health is a fair trade to achieve excellence in their hobby, who am I to try and stop them? And I certainly, definitely do not want Christphoher Pyne using my money to bring up another typical Howard Government trifecta:
- Find a new way of making people depend on government handouts;
- Create an excuse for unfit unathletic sporting wannabes to associate with elite sportspeople, and
- Ponce around pretending to be the saviours of the nation’s morals.
$10 million saved on the rugby league hall of fame and $21 million on drug testing would make $31 million available to do something useful. How about it Kevin? Or are you still having nightmares about getting wedged?
Posted in Australian issues, Sport |
October 7th, 2007 at 2:15 am
Simple: test athletes, test politicians
October 7th, 2007 at 7:23 am
Does your opposition extend to museums in general, opera and symphony orchestras?
October 7th, 2007 at 9:09 am
i am a big fan of rugby league and it made me smile extra wide to see u so pissed off about the planned rugby league hall of fame. lol
and u know the best bit?? these projects always over run and r never on budget…so..and i like this bit…it will probably be more like 30million than 21…lmfao.
October 7th, 2007 at 9:48 am
I agree with everything you say here, Ken.
Another question I often ask is why isn’t the AIS treated as a tertiary institution and the graduates subjected to HECS?
October 7th, 2007 at 9:57 am
yes, i think Charles is right. there are far too many drug cheats in music and why can’t they have a hall of fame, too?
October 7th, 2007 at 10:33 am
Opposition to what? Certainly I would resent my taxes being used to fund a taxidermists hall of fame or drug testing for clarinetists and contraltos.
October 7th, 2007 at 11:03 am
A taxidermist hall of fame? People would pay to get in. No need for subsidy.
October 7th, 2007 at 11:48 am
I agree with almost everything you say Ken but for one point, namely who cares whether drugs have taken over sport.
Sport (for better or worse) is highly connected to civil society and again (for better or worse) what athletes do is taken by children as a role model. If we want to avoid the harm drugs cause when taken in medium to large quantities we have to taken a position of prohibition as well as education in relation to drugs, particularly so in sport.
For example, if aspiring cyclists see EPO as the answer to poor performance whether through lack of talent or insufficient training then everyone will be forced to dope to maintain the level playing field. This wouldn’t be a problem if there were no side-effects but when you have athletes dropping dead of heart-attacks (not only Mainwaring but a cyclist a couple of years ago came to the same unfortunate end) then everyone has a problem.
If elite level athletes engage in the practice it will inevitably flow downwards both as an accepted practice as well as through the same personnel being involved at various levels in a sport.
Why ought government use our taxes to impose paternalistic testing? Either because the sport cannot afford to test ie local leagues or because frequency has to be maintained at such a high tempo that even wealthy competitions cannot afford the cost.
What’s the answer? Either accept drugs as part and parcel of society and trust that people know what is good for them once educated about a topic (the most common-sensical (sic) and cheapest view or spend in a drugs arms-race with private companies/individuals that will become ever-more expensive and futile as technology continues to develop.
Come to think of it there hasn’t been any investigation as to how drug manufacturers come up with new drugs to enhance performance. All we know of them is that they work in the shadows whilst sinister music is played in the background of any documentary that mentions them. Are there links in terms of personnel, technological know-how or facilities with the big pharmaceutical companies? How do they come by all the necessary equipment etc. needed to develop a new drug?
October 7th, 2007 at 12:20 pm
Good points Noam. I think trying to eradicate drugs from sport has about as much chance of success as reinstating amateur tennis or hickory shafted golf clubs. Drugs are the answer to everything these days, from having a good night clubbing through getting the personality you want in your kids, so trying to put a wall around sport is delusional. And why are some drugs ‘performance enhancing’ but painkillers are perfectly OK? I always found that pain kind of interfered with my performance. Some kinds of medical science are beyond reproach but others are reprehensible, apparently, but I don’t get the moral distinction.
Drugs will soon be passé anyway. Don’t the cyclists do the blood transfusion thing now? And it’s surely only a matter of time before smart surgeons find ways to alter the body to give a competitive edge. What’s the difference after all between surgery on a dodgy knee and surgery to make the knee immune from getting dodgy in the first place? Maybe we can use stem cells to grow longer legs in sprinters, bigger feet in swimmers and an extra lung in marathon runners.
We should let people do whatever they want with their own bodies. If they choose to ignore medical advice that’s their business. Which reminds me, you know those ads telling people not to smoke or eat or drink too much? The government can stop spending my money on them too any time it likes.
October 7th, 2007 at 2:50 pm
Agreed that there is little chance in eliminating drugs from sport but there’s a world of difference between condoning as opposed to condemning something. If no testing occurs then you’d really need to fine tune the dosage of a given drug for each individual athlete. Of course the question then arises ‘is what I’m watching an athletic spectacle or a competition between the best drug makers money can buy?’
I don’t surgery can be equated to drug use. Yes, each enhances performance but the type of surgery you’re talking about isn’t going to kill the subject or at the very least has a much smaller probability of doing so compared to drug use. I don’t see anything wrong with genetic engineering/bioscience enhancement. They’re akin to better materials used in the construction of the clothing an athlete wears or better training techniques.
I do agree that we should let people do what they like with their bodies but only when those who view an activity being undertaken with such a body are aware of what has been done to that body and the possible ramifications of such activities.
October 7th, 2007 at 4:48 pm
Well Noam, we could eliminate the clothing advantages by making nudity compulsory in sport. Just the players, of course.
October 7th, 2007 at 5:18 pm
How about an Advertising Hall of Fame?…they could create a special room to run 24hrs a day the Coalition’s Serf Choice (whoops! ‘Work Place’), ‘fairy floss’ Clean Energy & other Totalitarian State propaganda ads?…even provide visitors w/ soft rubber cricket bats & balls so they can pound the screens?
They could name the room “The year television died”…or “How to turn a voter into a raving lunatic without really trying”…perhaps ”The ads that killed a ‘deputy decider’…”
Wouldn’t it be a tourist attraction?…imagine the overseas curiosity factor as tourists frantically reached for their digital cameras to capture images of normally sane & laid back Aussies going ‘berserk’ on the various flat screen TVs littered across the room.
As BARBARA BENNETT says for the umpteenth time in that bureaucratic tone that made narcolepsy the national trend: “That’s the law, and the Workplace Ombudsman will enforce it.” men in suits that rarely venture out of their offices suddenly become enraged, rip off their ties & try to strangle themselves. What a drawcard!
The potential for it to evolve into a self-sustaining Government venture is enormous. We might even recoup the 2 billion spent on researching & screening the ads…we could spend it on mental health services, to assist those afflicted by PGASD…Post Govt. Ad Stress Disorder.
October 7th, 2007 at 6:20 pm
Or perhaps a “Hall of Fame” Hall of fame?
October 7th, 2007 at 7:35 pm
Ken, I agree with you 100%, why the f*#@k should I or any other slogger pay for this bullshit. I started work in the timber industry aged twelve, many years ago know, and was a competition axe man at local shows etc:. OK, that may not go down too well with these times, point is that all was fair and clear(pun not intended) and it , like other sports, played outside our ‘bacon hours’ was fair and just. Charles and “cheesy bunnet”( is that a name for a joke in poor taste)probably, may well feel that poor attitude and performance needs Government support, that is, that excellent performance needs to be looked at very closely, and we will throw the dollars to find out why you excelled. Righto, you lot, how about if the less than excellent, who do it for enjoyment , why not target them as to why they didn’t do better?It’s a mantra that we have been repeating time and again for some time, this lot(Howard) are again making putrid of sport for enjoyment , for political advantage, and I’m bloody well sick of it.
October 7th, 2007 at 11:29 pm
I am in two minds about government ‘interfering’ in sport.
If the Howard government gets defeated at the next election, I would say that the only good thing they did was to institute the Crawford Report to examine the administration of Association Football (soccer) in Australia.
Association Football was administered in such inept and corrupt, ethnically factionalised manner that the Government rightly stated that it would not contribute one cent to the sport unless an independent review was done on the way the sport was run.
There was so much self-interest in the way Association Football was being run that was a running joke amongst all the other sports. The Government was the only thing that provided a stimulus for change that created the Football Association Australia, which was run by professional people such as O’Neill and Buckley and Lowy.
This allowed the creation of the A-League etc.
So I see government interference as positive.
But then again I love Association Football.
October 8th, 2007 at 12:13 am
Standards have indeed slipped.
One time Howard mouth Georgie brandis has become somewhat of a nice guy.
Saw the media blurb for this and was astounded at his demeanour.
Oh dear georgie, has thou seen the polls and decided, we have to nice to the plebs or ya might loose more than ya deposit at the polls??
October 8th, 2007 at 10:24 am
It’d be great if they spent the $21m on non important issiue like health, education, and other insignificant things they have neglected in an effort for our atheletes to be seen as the biggest and the best. I’m a Rugby League fan, a real tragic, but the coconuts in Canberra forget that it is a sport. What about increasing the basic pensions to help offset the cost of living. These poor buggars live on the smell of an oily rag now, I shudder to think what’d it be like after another term of the Rodents men. Lack of measures tackling climate change resulting in more and longer droughts. This will in turn increase the cost of food and basic living items like fuel. I think this Governments priorities are clouded by the need to buy votes. Rudd is quite right when he says that Rodent has lost touch with the average worker and the sook (Costello) has never been in touch. I can only hope that he lives up to his considerable promise.
October 8th, 2007 at 12:02 pm
Yeah, the Hall of Fame money is poorly spent. As for drugs in sports, just legislate that the governing body must have a policy, must enforce that policy, must educate its players and the community, all out of its own pocketbook, of course, and that the members of the governing body and ownership of individual teams would be liable for any breaches and subject to substantial fines and potential jail time. They can set their own player punishments.
Alternatively, just legalise the use of performance-enhancing drugs (a misnomer, as they more usually enhance training results, not one-off event performance).
October 8th, 2007 at 12:13 pm
Have to agree hold heartedly Ken. It makes me puke when I hear some boof-headed 18 year old explain with naive enthusiasm how they just returned from a 6 month stint visiting all the best cities of Europe. Where’s my all bloody expenses paid European holiday? I’d be visiting all the major breweries not pointlessly running, jumping and throwing.
cheers
Patick
October 8th, 2007 at 1:08 pm
Play rugby or cricket Patrick and get the best of both worlds.
Or better still, have some ancient ancestor’s bones dug up on a WW1 battlefield. Then you get to take the family along as well … all courtesy of the generous Australian taxpayer.
October 8th, 2007 at 1:18 pm
A taxidermist hall of fame? People would pay to get in.
Not me - I couldn’t be stuffed.
i am a big fan of rugby league and it made me smile extra wide to see u so pissed off about the planned rugby league hall of fame. lol Cheesy bunnet
I don’t know - maybe it would be better spending all that money giving them necks.
October 8th, 2007 at 1:38 pm
When you raise taxation to unprecedented levels, it’s inevitable you have to churn it back in unprecedented ways. Then as the spending becomes more marginal in the eyes of the taxed, our Govts have to spend more to convince us they’re spending it for our greater benefit.
The Rann Govt has just posted us all a glossy plastic wrapped brochure, extolling the virtues of its $31mill extension of the Bay City tramline in town, after some whinging about value for money. They have also budgeted $380k to tell us about the virtues of a new greenfields hospital to replace the Royal Adelaide, after some similar questions about the economics. Small beer compared to the Feds but we are the Cinderella State and it’s horses for courses. Noone’s added up the States advertising budgets over the past 11 years, but it would make the same frustrating reading as the Howard Govt’s time.
October 8th, 2007 at 1:40 pm
Ken,
Trouble is all cricketers and rugby players think that Crown Lager represents excellence in brewing, wouldn’t know a Dubbel if it hit them in the head.
Anyway you’re a bit hard with your comments on the reburials, I mean the GG needs to have something to make him feel just a little bit like the head of state seeing as the PM has taken over most of the duties.
cheers
Patrick
October 8th, 2007 at 3:15 pm
…come to think of it, a museum already is a hall of fame, isn’t it?
anyway, i think all this calls for another booklet from Mr Howard, i don’t think our booklet-happy PM has issued one this week yet. standby for “How to Talk to Your Kids About Drugs in Sport”. closely followed by “How To Run Your Country Using Only Booklets”.
October 8th, 2007 at 4:13 pm
Conservative voters have just got to be honest. The Liberal party is a party of big government and high spending. (The Nationals always were). The Liberals believe in jobs for mates, disastrous privatization deals where the state leases infrastructure at disastrous rents, and general sleaze. And the Labor party is not much better.
The real division in society is no longer between capital and labor, it is between the corrupt elites in all governing political parties, and their cronies, and the rest of us struggling in the real economy, who pay for it all.
October 8th, 2007 at 7:55 pm
I agree Observa, the Howard Govt. is taxing at unprecedented levels…but simultaneously not keeping up w/ the appropriate funding of public hospitals, dental services, child care, higher education & education in general. Seems to me they are too concerned w/ funnelling money into the hands of private businesses like ABC Learning Centres by way of the rebate system:
“Critics of ABC Learning say it is making these considerable profits at the expense of Australian taxpayers whose money subsidises the use of childcare with means-tested tax rebates. ABC Learning received $128 million of its revenue from government subsidies in the last financial year.
It has expanded aggressively into the outsourcing of child care services, negotiating deals with some of Australia’s largest employers including the Australian Department of Defence which involved taking over the Department’s nineteen childcare facilities. Aside from offshore expansion, the company is also expanding in training and education. It runs the ABC Early Childhood Training College, providing training for childcare workers, publishes a magazine Small Wonders aimed at parents with young children.
It is a highly profitable company, in the FY2004/5 recording net profit after tax of $52.3 million on total revenues of $292.7 million. The six months ending 31 December 2005 showed no slowing in the financial momentum for the company with profit after tax reaching $38 million and revenues of $219.8 million.”
(wiki pedia)
October 9th, 2007 at 2:19 am
I noticed that the ever grumbling, ’smear merchant’ Piers Ackerman is leading the next ‘paint a Labor minister w/ crap’ attempt for the Govt. & their constitutional monarch Luddites this week (interesting timing coming asap after the attack on the Sudanese by the British Empire nostalgics in the Govt. & their Corporate media ‘wolf pack’ enablers). This time it’s Lindsay Tanner:
By Piers Akerman
October 04, 2007
Daily Telegraph
“Tanner — who, frighteningly, would be finance minister to Wayne Swan as treasurer and Gillard’s industrial relations minister in a Rudd government — on February 13 last year launched a spectacular attack under parliamentary privilege on a body named the Constitution Education Fund Australia which had gained deductible gift recipient status in June 2003, the year it was set up as a bipartisan organisation to educate the public on the role of the Constitution.
(you’ve got to luv Ackerman’s emotive use of the word “frightening”…we can just imagine why this News Ltd. hack would find Lindsay Tanner scary…for one, he wrote a book called ‘Open Australia’ that explored how contemporary & future communication & info-technology might be able to promote a ‘fair go for all’. Probably didn’t suit Ackerman’s master at all…frightening!!!)
“In his lengthy speech he made bold claims of a conspiratorial link between CEFA and Australians for a Constitutional Monarchy, which shared the same Sydney address. He referred darkly to CEFA and the ACM’s accounts and tried valiantly to paint a picture of collusion and worse before making the direct claim”
(yep, sharing the same address was just a coincidence…just like the many others we’ve gotten used to from this government & their Neo-Con mates)
“When he accused CEFA of being a “shell” and a front for “a brazen tax scam”, he was attacking some highly respected and honourable Australians, including the wounded war hero and RSL chief Major-General W.B. “Digger” James, noted historian Professor Geoffrey Blainey, arts benefactor Kim Bonython, Justice Lloyd Waddy, a former Chief Justice of NSW Sir Laurence Street, the highly successful mining executive Hugh Morgan, Sir David Smith, the widely respected historian associate professor Greg Melleuish, and the matriarch of Australian philanthropy Dame Elisabeth Murdoch.”
(…:)…ok, now i’ve stopped laughing…well, no comment…i’ll leave it up to your imagination…tea anyone?…)
“Unfortunately (and I bet you guessed the sad end to this saga), when the ATO completed its comprehensive secret audit in June it found absolutely nothing awry. Not a single breach of the Tax Act.”
(yes, it was easy to guess…as was the Australian Wheat Board investigation outcome…& many other Senate inquiries…Piers must think we the public actually believe that there is any integrity left in any Federal Govt. Dept or investigative body to which they can appoint top staff…sorry, but for many of us regular folk, we just don’t buy it…not after 11 + years…i think the ‘children overboard’ affair & inappropriate use of Navy personnel to support the BS broke the camel’s back for this lad…dig?)
“Tanner’s witch-hunt cost the taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars and sullied the reputations of people of principle who have earned nationwide admiration for their contributions to public life.”
(crikey!…what a waste!…to think that money could’ve been better used in an advertising campaign…ya know, the million dollars a day one to promote Coalition propaganda at the expense of taxpayers…sigh)
I recommend people visit Lindsay Tanner’s site to find out about the REAL Lindsay…not the myth constructed by the x-treme Right-Wing smear merchants who snarl at shadows cause they fear for their privileged lifestyle:
http://www.lindsaytanner.com/
October 9th, 2007 at 11:03 pm
I wanted to comment earlier but someone has got the thread porn-banned at work somehow. As usual I blame Nasking.
The thing you’ve gotta understand Ken, is that any 18 year old bloke who can play footy good n stuff is QED a role model to your children. This is so obviously true that no one has ever even felt compelled to explain it to me.
It’s also that old thing what that German priest wrote: “when they started randomly piss-testing the train station cleaners and leaguies, I smirked with much schadenfreude, for I am white collar and unco.” Someowt like that anyway.
October 9th, 2007 at 11:21 pm
“Critics of ABC Learning say it is making these considerable profits at the expense of Australian taxpayers whose money subsidises the use of childcare with means-tested tax rebates. ABC Learning received $128 million of its revenue from government subsidies in the last financial year.”
Fancy that eh? You give people back their taxes and they flock to ABC childcare centres in droves. That wouldn’t be because they offer the best value for the consumer dollar now would it? Just like giving people PBS or Medicare benefits and they spend it with profit making private enterprise too. Gee whiz, soon you’ll have pensioners and beneficiaries spending their mannah from heaven with evil capitalists too….err, hang on a minute!
October 10th, 2007 at 1:06 am
Hey observa, nothin’ like competition eh? Works amazingly doesn’t it when favoritism, nepotism & lobbying is the way of the day. Your ‘faux’ free trade heroes make me laugh. They luv a rigged game, haven’t got the guts to take on real competition, they just use their political & judicial mates, law suits, market manipulation, price collusion, crappy wages & conditions, wads of easy credit & other strategies to take down the little guy & gal…& then have the tenacity to stand there w/ fixed stare & declare it’s an even playing field. Bollocks!
Trust me mate, the law of the jungle can lead to unexpected outcomes. Think of a few wealthy Aussies whose lives didn’t work out so well once a few big cats got hungry in the late 80s-90s. I can hear their tummies rumbling now.
July 23rd, 2008 at 5:52 pm
The drug industry behind sport is big business and it is not going to go away. Chris