Money well-spent

What would you think of a family down the road who threw out their still-working colour television and spent three grand on a two-metre plasma while their kids suffered from rotten teeth? “We need to take the kids to the dentist,” they tell you, “but we just can’t afford it.”

We have a state government like this. They are spending $30 million of our money on an “upgrade” of the Great Southern Stand at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. This stand is all of twenty years old, you see, and apparently it needs an upgrade. You’ll have noticed how football supporters are staying away from it in droves. You’ll have heard people complaining about how old and substandard it is. You’ll have read the endless letters to the newspaper decrying its decrepitude.

Oh, you haven’t? Indeed. According to AFL boss Andrew Demetriou 2.7 million people have attended AFL matches at the MCG this season. So what are they spending all the money on? The upgrade will actually cost $55 million and the Melbourne Cricket Club is spending $20 million of their members’ money to make up the difference. They will be improving:

• food and beverage areas, concourses and toilets;
• entry points to the stadium, ensuring a more streamlined ticketing process;
• function rooms and sports bars to provide improved viewing areas, similar to those offered in the Northern Stand; and
• audio visual equipment, including installation of plasma screens.

Now how exactly do you spend so much money on so little? And while Demetriou insists that the works will be a “boost” for fans, wouldn’t the fans appreciate something a little simpler? Such as cheaper tickets? Or the right to go along to a game and sing and shout and create their own atmosphere without the corporate tyranny of blaring advertisements and inane announcements?

Much of this money – our money – will be spent on “function rooms” – that is, corporate boxes. Why should my hard-earned be spent here? Corporate boxes are a complete drain on the atmosphere of a football match. Face it, if we all watched the footy behind a glass window there would be no atmosphere at all.

This football fan would be happier if a fraction of the money was spent ripping out the corporate boxes and replacing them with seats for people to sit in. If you want to watch the football without going outside then stay at home.

But it would be even better if the money were spent on something that we actually needed. Such as homes for disabled people. For the sum in question the government could provide homes for several hundred disabled adults who are now living with their ageing parents. There is a great shortage of supported accommodation, so that older carers feel pressured to keep their grown-up children at home. In desperation they sometimes get their adult children into respite care and leave them. Consequently, respite beds are in short supply too.

Don’t people like this deserve our money just a teeny bit more than a grandstand that was built, brand new, only 20 years ago? A stand that people flock to in their tens of thousands, week after week?

Or are we just like those people with the big new plasma who can’t afford to take their kids to the dentist?