How to make the 2006 Games cheaper, safer and greener

August 21, 2003

The attack on the UN in Baghdad suggests terrorism will still be a major issue when Melbourne hosts the Commonwealth Games in 2006.

Securing the Games village will be a major task.

According to Derek Woolner, a visiting fellow at the Australian Defence Force Academy and one of the organisers of a terrorism conference held in Melbourne recently, securing the Royal Park site will be a nightmare compared with the alternative of accommodating the athletes in cruise ships docked at Station Pier.

Effective security requires a controlled environment to expose abnormal movements on which security can focus. Such an environment can more easily be created at the end of a pier.

To monitor the unpredictable traffic environment surrounding Royal Park would require massive security resources. There would have to be radical changes to traffic arrangements, impacting on CityLink, Brunswick and Flemington roads - all major arterial routes.

Readers of this column know that I have opposed Royal Park as a village site on the grounds of economy and the environment. Unfortunately, it is too late now to put a Games village at the Jolimont or Docklands sites. But it is not too late to adopt the cruise ship option.

Commonwealth Games Minister Justin Madden says this option has been examined, and was found to cost between $80 million and $100 million.

Last week I sent the minister's office a series of questions relating to the cruise ship option.

This is the answer I received last Thursday to one of those questions:

"The cruise ship solution would have required three ships at a cost of $US50.5 million ($A77 million) per month. The installation of overlay would have required access to the ships for longer than a month... P. J. Scott and Associates (Shipping Brokers) provided a written estimate as detailed above. The cruise ship proposal also raised issues with availability, security and lack of permanent legacy for this level of expenditure."

This answer was so far at variance with my understanding of the cost of the cruise ship option that I tried to contact P. J. Scott and Associates. The only listing under that name in Australia was at Normanhurst in Sydney and the number produced a recorded message to the effect that it was no longer operative. Nobody I spoke to in the shipping industry had ever heard of a shipping broker by this name.

I sent a further email to the minister's office last Friday asking for P. J. Scott and Associates' address, telephone number and email address. This is the reply (in full) that I received: "Sydney-based ship Brokerage of international standing."

I have again spoken to the Australian representatives of Star Cruises. They operate the SuperStar Leo and SuperStar Virgo, which have a carrying capacity of up to 2900 and which have visited Station Pier this year.

Again I have been told that the cost of chartering such ships is a fraction of the amount claimed by the minister. According to a spokesman for the line, the going rate for a vessel of the superstar variety is about $US1.2 million a week, which could vary by up to 20 per cent either way depending on the season and demand.

Star Cruises said about 10 to 15 cruise ships visited Australian waters each year between December and March.

The spokesman pointed out that ships already in the vicinity could be chartered on more favourable terms if the charterer didn't have to pay for the travel time from say, Singapore or Hong Kong.

It should not be beyond the wit of the authorities to maximise the benefits and minimise the costs of chartering a ship that would bring custom to Melbourne before the Games and take passengers out of Melbourne after the Games.

In any case, the Bracks Government should get a second opinion on the cost of the cruise ship option.

Even if three ships were required - and that is arguable - the cost would be in the order of $US14.4 million a month, and possibly less if the ship charters were co-ordinated with cruises to and from Melbourne.

Athletes were accommodated on ships at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics and cruise ships were used as floating hotels at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

The $22 million cost of three ships for a month (or $15 million for two ships, which may be able to do the job) compares with the Government estimate of a net $85 million cost to taxpayers of the Games village. The savings of $63 million to $70 million is money that could be better spent reducing the urgent waiting list for accommodation for Victorians with an intellectual disability.

So by taking up the cruise ship option, the Government would be saving a park, improving athlete safety and ensuring it had some spare money to spend on extra services for Victorians - all at the same time.

The win-win-win option is so obvious that I keep wondering what we haven't been told about the Royal Park deal.

Kenneth Davidson is a staff columnist.
Email: kdlv@ozemail.com.au

This story was found at: http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/08/20/1061368350904.html