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So much for the World Cup bid taskforce

21st April, 2010
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Roar Guru
21st April, 2010
46
1663 Reads

It’s now almost eight weeks since the Sport Minister’s own deadline to her taskforce that all the stadium details for the World Cup bid be worked out with the various levels of government and the relevant sporting bodies.

It’s also three weeks since the head of the FFA announced that we were ready to finalise those very same details and that all relevant parties were now in agreement. That the date of that announcement was April 1 may or may not be significant.

It would be incorrect to think that there has been inaction on the government side.

For weeks now, there has been furious negotiating and bargaining over a kitty that is well into the billions of dollars.

We’ve seen claim and counter claim, public misgivings aired, back downs, claw backs, setbacks, with Federal and State public officials burning the midnight oil in an attempt to resolve a litany of intractable issues.

Yes, the Prime Minister is on the verge of nutting out a deal with the State Governments to put into effect his much vaunted plan for national health reform.

But here is the rub: the taskforce involved in organising the World Cup bid is in the same department as the one that’s been in meltdown over the last few weeks on this major issue which is bound to frame the forthcoming election.

Ask any Health official where the World Cup bid sits in relation to the health reform question, and they are bound to give you a quizzical look.

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Not because the order of priority is obvious, but because they are unlikely to have any idea that there is such a taskforce lurking in the depths of their department.

This goes back to the obvious question I raised from the moment the taskforce was announced: if the Prime Minister was truly interested in the World Cup bid as a high priority, needing cooperation from all States, Territories and national sporting bodies, why did he not create the taskforce in his own department, which is generally geared towards running with the Prime Minister’s priorities (and banging heads together when the need arises)?

With the May deadline now hurtling towards us, I think we have our answer.

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