gunnamatta bay
Referee
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- 21,084
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/sundaystartimes/0,2106,3865698a19695,00.html
$500m Mallard monstrosity will be a dead duck
19 November 2006
By CHRIS TROTTER
Jeez Trev, whadarya? Half-a-billion dollars to make this country stand up and shout "This is what we're about!" - and what do you come up with? A bloody great stadium on the Auckland waterfront.
You do realise that just about every stadium that's ever been built has ended up losing money? Take Stadium Australia (the ANZ wishes somebody would!). That magnificent Aussie icon - centrepiece of the 2000 Olympics - never made a penny of profit and is now $140 million in debt.
And that's Sydney, mate. Four million people in one place and the Aussies still couldn't make the thing pay. What on earth makes you think that a city a quarter of Sydney's size is going to do any better?
I suppose we should congratulate you though. Extracting that amount of money from Michael Cullen cannot have been easy.
Hell, we've got 260 radiographers on strike, people's health being compromised all over the show, and is anybody offering the DHBs the $1m it would take to settle the thing? Not on your Nelly!
But just let Trev say the magic word "rugby", and half-a-billion dollars suddenly materialises out of thin air.
It's quite a trick.
But what's got me really puzzled is why your boss is so willing to give you the keys to Dr Cullen's safe.
I mean, it's not as if you've done Helen all that many favours of late. That business with the schools - at the very least, it cost Labour the seats of Invercargill and Timaru. A lot of prime ministers would have shortened you by a head for a stunt like that. But what does Helen do? She makes you her bloody minister of economic development!
I tell you, it's baffling.
And I'm not even going to mention your infamous "Speaking of affairs" quip in the House, and remind everyone of just how helpful that was to the government.
So how did you sell her on the idea? How did you persuade a socialist-feminist elected to parliament in the grim aftermath of the 1981 Springbok Tour to stump up all that cash for a game she doesn't even like? I reckon you sold the whole Rugby World Cup package to the PM by slotting it into her grand visions of "economic transformation" and "fostering national identity". And you're pitching the 60,000-seat stadium as a key element of the plan to turn Auckland into a "world city".
But Trev, you and I both know that the boss has been sold a pup.
The experts tell us that to turn your home town into a "world" city, you have to make it a place where "creatives" feel at home. These creative types are apparently the key to the whole process - the yeast in the dough (so to speak).
Look what happened when the government decided to plonk a bloody great museum on somebody's waterfront instead of a gigantic sports venue. Wellington was transformed into an exciting and vibrant capital - with a global reputation for creative endeavour.
Now, call me a pessimist, but I just don't see the artists, writers, playwrights, movie directors, and computer-graphic wizards homing in on "Stadium New Zealand".
It would have made a lot more sense for Helen to have given the half-billion dollars to TVNZ and NZ on Air, and let the NZRFU make do with the $79m Steve Maharey has just set aside for the state broadcaster's digital platform. Fifty million dollars a year, for 10 years, would have procured some truly outstanding television. It would also have transformed Auckland's economy and fostered our national identity a helluva lot more effectively than six weeks of rugby.
One last thought for you, Trev. Assuming the stadium's built on time and under budget (and those, mate, are truly heroic assumptions): What if we don't win? What if New Zealand fails to make it through to the final? (It's happened before.)
I'll tell you what'll happen, Trev. You'll have a 60,000-seat stadium, with 20,000 people in it. And that'll scream out "world city" to a billion television viewers - won't it?
Your great white elephant will be known forever after as - the Mallard Stand.
A dead duck.
$500m Mallard monstrosity will be a dead duck
19 November 2006
By CHRIS TROTTER
Jeez Trev, whadarya? Half-a-billion dollars to make this country stand up and shout "This is what we're about!" - and what do you come up with? A bloody great stadium on the Auckland waterfront.
You do realise that just about every stadium that's ever been built has ended up losing money? Take Stadium Australia (the ANZ wishes somebody would!). That magnificent Aussie icon - centrepiece of the 2000 Olympics - never made a penny of profit and is now $140 million in debt.
And that's Sydney, mate. Four million people in one place and the Aussies still couldn't make the thing pay. What on earth makes you think that a city a quarter of Sydney's size is going to do any better?
I suppose we should congratulate you though. Extracting that amount of money from Michael Cullen cannot have been easy.
Hell, we've got 260 radiographers on strike, people's health being compromised all over the show, and is anybody offering the DHBs the $1m it would take to settle the thing? Not on your Nelly!
But just let Trev say the magic word "rugby", and half-a-billion dollars suddenly materialises out of thin air.
It's quite a trick.
But what's got me really puzzled is why your boss is so willing to give you the keys to Dr Cullen's safe.
I mean, it's not as if you've done Helen all that many favours of late. That business with the schools - at the very least, it cost Labour the seats of Invercargill and Timaru. A lot of prime ministers would have shortened you by a head for a stunt like that. But what does Helen do? She makes you her bloody minister of economic development!
I tell you, it's baffling.
And I'm not even going to mention your infamous "Speaking of affairs" quip in the House, and remind everyone of just how helpful that was to the government.
So how did you sell her on the idea? How did you persuade a socialist-feminist elected to parliament in the grim aftermath of the 1981 Springbok Tour to stump up all that cash for a game she doesn't even like? I reckon you sold the whole Rugby World Cup package to the PM by slotting it into her grand visions of "economic transformation" and "fostering national identity". And you're pitching the 60,000-seat stadium as a key element of the plan to turn Auckland into a "world city".
But Trev, you and I both know that the boss has been sold a pup.
The experts tell us that to turn your home town into a "world" city, you have to make it a place where "creatives" feel at home. These creative types are apparently the key to the whole process - the yeast in the dough (so to speak).
Look what happened when the government decided to plonk a bloody great museum on somebody's waterfront instead of a gigantic sports venue. Wellington was transformed into an exciting and vibrant capital - with a global reputation for creative endeavour.
Now, call me a pessimist, but I just don't see the artists, writers, playwrights, movie directors, and computer-graphic wizards homing in on "Stadium New Zealand".
It would have made a lot more sense for Helen to have given the half-billion dollars to TVNZ and NZ on Air, and let the NZRFU make do with the $79m Steve Maharey has just set aside for the state broadcaster's digital platform. Fifty million dollars a year, for 10 years, would have procured some truly outstanding television. It would also have transformed Auckland's economy and fostered our national identity a helluva lot more effectively than six weeks of rugby.
One last thought for you, Trev. Assuming the stadium's built on time and under budget (and those, mate, are truly heroic assumptions): What if we don't win? What if New Zealand fails to make it through to the final? (It's happened before.)
I'll tell you what'll happen, Trev. You'll have a 60,000-seat stadium, with 20,000 people in it. And that'll scream out "world city" to a billion television viewers - won't it?
Your great white elephant will be known forever after as - the Mallard Stand.
A dead duck.
