Mardi Gras funding a welcome bungle
The State Government’s decision to finally provide in-cash resources for the running of Mardi Gras is to be welcomed despite the odd timing and a bungled announcement that’s resulted in backlash.
Why now when Mardi Gras is solvent again? Why not six years ago when the event desperately needed money to save it from collapse?
Failure to disclose the figure in this time of economic crisis was bound to attract tabloid attention and lead to confusion -” it even spread to the broadsheets where a letter in Monday’s SMH claimed the figure to be in the tens of millions. Considering the $30 million that Mardi Gras brings into the NSW economy each year, the actual amount is tiny -” in the vicinity of $400,000. With crowds approaching half a million on a good year that’s an investment of less than a dollar a head.
At this level of funding the State Government would have to fund Mardi Gras every year for the next three centuries to even come close to matching what it spent on World Youth Day and at least 100 years to match planned expenditure on five years of V8 Super Car racing at Olympic Park.
Moreover, the government could have delivered far more in the way of practical benefits for gay and lesbian Australians by simply introducing a statewide relationship register for same-sex couples as has been done already in Tasmania and Victoria. This would have smoothed out nearly all the bureaucratic and legal hurdles same-sex couples still face in this state while costing the taxpayer practically nothing.
Instead the fires of intolerance have been fed by the Daily Telegraph yet again this year. The ugliness of some of its readers’ comments have to be seen to be believed.
You pink pansies will get smashed in the country. Just try to push your weirdo lifestyle on them and you will reap what you sow.
Best case scenario -” sodomites battle Muslim drug dealers at post-parade Sleaze party and all are eliminated.
Forget poofter-bashing, let’s go hunting!
Children are -˜groomed’ by gays from an early age with the view to later when they are of legal age, seducing them into the gay diaspora.
The repugnant spectacle of children from infants to adolescents appearing in the parade expresses the NSW government attitude to sex with minors.
These people have a mental imbalance … The same goes for pedophiles. Sick. Sick in the head.
Shame, Telegraph. Shame.
Reaction to the Mardi Gras announcement is proof homophobia is still rife.
$400,000 would buy 20 hiop replacements for those porr elderly people who are waiting in a State hospital queue for a knee replacement. Govts should be ensuring we do not die and live “normal” lives, rather than funding parties, and companies that cannot stay “afloat”!
Ben Oz, the bungle wasn’t announcing the funding to the gay press, it was not announcing the numbers for it.
That the figure was not revealed seems fishy to me. In terms of funding $400,000 is a fairly small and non-controversial amount.
Why keep it a secret then? Did someone want the community to think we were getting more than we were and then have this blow up in their faces when the Telegraph assumed the same?
I still do welcome the Premier’s funding (I said so in the first line of the column), I just think other things were more urgent because they would have made a real difference in a lot of people’s lives.
Considering the state of the Government’s finances, cost is precisely the issue.
Why do I get the impression that same sex couples with children all rely on centrelink for an income?
The more you write, the less clear your issues.
Your column headline claims the MG money is a welcome bungle (I’d think the SSO would call it a scoop). But along the way, you digress into a rant about relationship recognition, ALP Conferences, progress on a pledge never made by the Government and how much a Register does or doesn’t cost (as if cost is the issue!).
None of that relates to the need for MG to receive recognition in the same way other straight events do.
How about we just welcome the new Premier’s long overdue funding for Mardi Gras? Simple.
Ben, before the last Federal election the Australian Labor Party through its national conference pledged that if it took power federally, it would move to enact relationship registers nationwide at a state level.
This was supposed to be a sop to placate gay Labor voters while the Rudd lead Federal team refused and continues to refuse to countenance marriage or civil unions.
Since taking power federally the only State Labor government to do so has been Victoria which already had plans to do this before that promise was made. Tasmania’s -the model for these schemes- had been in existence for years and the ACT’s attempts to establish civil unions also preceded this. This means Labor is yet to deliver on this pledge anywhere in the country.
I’d much prefer marriage (or civil unions which will inevitably lead to marriage) but they haven’t been promised. We were promised a bandaid at a state level and that bandaid is yet to be applied.
I’d estimate introducing a register in NSW would save the gay and lesbian population of NSW more than $400,000 in time and legal fees each year while costing the Government practically nothing.
Yes Mardi Gras should receive Government assistance as well (and should have done years ago) but practical reform that effects people in their everyday lives is more urgent.
I expect we will be promised a register if we vote Labor back into government at the next State election. Unless Rees and Tebbutt can perform miracles before then (and I dearly hope they can) that is going to be too late.
Luke, the Federal government will save money in some areas, but they’ll also have to spend more in others because same sex couples will receive the full benefits of their tax dollars that they haven’t been able to access before. I’m a pretty cynical person, but this is clearly more than a grab at savings.
Rudd’s reforms are for a tax grab because of dwindling income for the governemtn
He actually recognised the G&L community is a tax loophole to be cashed in on. In the sense that same-sex couples with children are no subject to the same means/assest test on centrelink so there children can still receive youth allowance etc…when the reforms happen both parents incomes will be taken into account and they will lose these payments. Hence savings for the govt thats all it is. Not to appear “accepting” if this was the route they were taking more would be done eg civil unions/marriage being legalised. That is acceptance
A new Premier and the rise to prominence of Verity Firth and Carmel Tebbutt is the difference to six years ago when MG was in real trouble.
I don’t accept that the Government should have “given” us partnership registers instead of funding for NMG. They are completely, utterly, separate issues.
And as far as recognising relationships, some in our community, like CAAH, want marriage. Others want civil unions. And then there are those that want no Government recognition and oppose Rudd’s reforms.
Apologies to readers, when this column was written I was under the impression that the amount of funding was around $300,000. The figure as stated above is closer to $400,000.
This would mean Mardi Gras would have to be funded for over two centuries (as opposed to three) to come close to what was spent on WYD and nearly a hundred (as opposed to over a hundred) for the V8s.