“We’re bankrolling Bernie’s bogan daughter, says MP”, H-S, 14/3. Victorian Labour MP Kelvin Thompson made some unflattering remarks about Grand Prix boss Bernie Ecclestone and one of his daughters (Wikipedia: Bogan) – she is effectively acting like the typical nouveau riche. The GP, the first race of which has been held in Melbourne for over a decade (no thanks to then-Premier Jeff Kennett), gets taxpayer funding, a controversial issue (as is holding it in the city rather than a specialized racetrack). I do not support the GP and would like Melbourne to stop hosting it – aside from the funding issues, it is a noisy, environmentally-unfriendly spectacle (I wonder how it affects the animals and birds who live around Albert Park – the cars are extremely loud). I certainly have no liking for Bernie, who is an arrogant jerk who thinks he can order politicians around. His response came today.
There are a lot of people struggling to survive, so flaunting one’s wealth can be seen as offensive. It’s an issue of fairness – of some getting more than their fair share. Australia used to be perceived as an egalitarian country without the strict class system of other cultures, but this has become eroded in the last two decades or so.
I commented in a relevant GP thread at the Whirlpool forum. Perhaps I should have started a separate thread in the news section, but the sports section thread seemed like the logical place. Anyway, others there took offence, calling me a “troll” and such (apparently you are not allowed to have dissenting opinions). There are quite a few condescending ad hominem attacks from those defending their precious race, which doesn’t improve my opinion of them (here I can at least pay them the same courtesy). (Interestingly, one of the posters, “Sarah”, appears to be female; she accused me of being a “whinging female”.) Apparently they care more about sports spectacles than putting that taxpayers’ money to better use.
Professional sports should not receive government funding in my view; they are a frivolity. That view apparently makes me not “fun” according to those forum posters (I’m surprised they didn’t call me a “wowser”). I would love the GP to be canceled here just to see those morons (or should it be bogans?) whinge.
Edit, 17/3: A letter published in The Age, 16/3:
Ban the grand prix
I OBJECT to the grand prix. It costs the state an enormous amount of money that would be better spent on education and health. It takes over the public space of Albert Park. It celebrates hoon behaviour (driving cars too fast and making too much noise) and, in this time of climate crisis, dirty, obsolete petrol-burning cars. We need to celebrate transport that uses renewable energy sources. I suggest everyone boycott the grand prix and request that the government not allow it to take place in Victoria again.
– David Feith, Elwood
So there are others who have the same opinions as I do about it!
Edit: More letters published in The Age, 19/3:
Sick of being taken for ride
IT IS odd that Ron Walker can’t understand the non-acceptance of his grand prix (“Walker keeps faith as public’s embrace wavers”, The Saturday Age, 17/3). After all, a plethora of objections were there from the outset. Melburnians don’t like losing parkland. They were horrified when more than 900 trees were felled at Albert Park on a single day. And they know they are being taken for a ride when asked to pay for tickets that are given free to favoured customers at service stations. And what would the annual $50 million annual subsidy do for schools, hospitals and childcare centres?
Many are aggravated by the annual beat-ups to promote the race. But Walker has lately left it to his mate in London to come up with the regular “shift the race” threat each year.
Back in the era of Lex Davidson, Lou Molina and Stan Jones I was an avid GP follower, but not any more. For the past 10 years I have been paying off the repairs to my home after compaction work at Albert Park. And I have come to see car racing as a dishonest and reprehensible business that has no claim whatever to being a sport.
– Mark Hill, Middle Park
Chalk and cheese
RON Walker’s latest ploy to defend the growing waste of public money is to claim that other major events and venues like the tennis centre cost more. Maybe they do, but tennis is a sport and Formula 1 is a business. We can watch tennis and enjoy every serve and battle at deuce, and start at every grunt. We can even play the game ourselves.
In Formula 1 we are lucky to see the top of a driver’s helmet as he follows the leader through a concrete and steel mesh tunnel to the inevitable waste of a bottle of champagne, followed by the deposit of a large sum of money in a tax haven.
If I want to see businessmen strut their stuff I can walk up Bourke Street or William Street and there they all are, clutching their briefcases, glued to their mobile phones, hurrying from meeting to lunch to meeting. Be brave, Ted, get rid of it.
– Lewis Luxton, Ocean Grove
Stands are temporary
RON Walker frets that we don’t love his grand prix. A considerable part of the huge annual cost of staging the race in Albert Park results from having to move so much of its infrastructure in and out of the park. If the money were used instead to build a suitably-sited permanent racing circuit, say at Avalon, there would be no problem.
– David Cunningham, Castlemaine
Race encourages hoons
APART from the gross waste of public money, here are two reasons why the race is not embraced. The shrill shrieking of the cars permeates the inner suburbs, making even a visit to the Botanic Gardens unpleasant on the weekend.
And the race encourages extra-hoonish behaviour by some drivers. I was almost run down walking across a pedestrian crossing in my suburb on Friday by a car accelerating to more than 70 kmh. And on Sunday morning two motorbikes made a noisy “GP circuit” around our local streets.
– Peter Gerrand, West Melbourne
Different perspective
THE race loses millions, causes widespread disruption and pointlessly consumes large amounts of a dwindling, finite energy source. Ron Walker’s concern, however, is that the umbrellas are all arranged in a nice straight line for race day. He obviously has a sense of perspective. It’s just not the same one held by the majority of Melburnians.
– Benjamin John Doherty, West Melbourne
Figures don’t add up
IF THE Grand Prix Corporation wants the public to believe its attendance figures, it had better start by requesting no aerial shots of the park to be shown on television. The footage I have seen shows large areas with no spectators, very sparsely occupied grandstands and, on the ground, empty corporate boxes.
– Margaret Hilton, Aberfeldie
The grand prix
IS RON Walker kidding? Take the noise, the disruption to the city, the environmental issue and incitement to the hoons and petrolheads to behave badly. Does this give him a clue?
– Julette Alexander, South Yarra
RON, perhaps it’s time to realise the event has run its race.
– Allan Gibson, Cherrybrook, NSW
UNLIKE the cricket or the tennis, F1 has one major beneficiary at the top, and a lot of people don’t want to be seen putting a single penny into the pocket of Bernie Ecclestone.
– Pete Smith, Richmond
Edit, 28/10: “Albert Park inhabitants don’t duck for cover”, The Age, 18/9. “THE first study of Albert Park Lake’s black swans during the grand prix has found that while the birds don’t flee the annual event, the four-day car race is stressful and could have long-term effects on their lifespan and breeding.” The extreme noise levels from the F1 cars are highly stressful for any unfortunate creatures there – it must also damage their hearing, too. Try mentioning this to any fans, though, and you’d just get sneered at.
