ARTICLES OF INTEREST
Pearls and Irritations
Thursday 13 March 2025
Victoria’s government and opposition put Grand Prix ahead of their citizens
by Joan Logan
With the nation’s worst state debt and the looming budget, we hear almost weekly of the Victorian Government’s desperate funding cuts to essential services. While, for example, our nurses, childcare and aged care workers and our police are very much valued and needed, they appear to come a poor second in financial support to the Grand Prix from the main political parties. Is this what Victorians want?
Pearls and Irritations
Saturday 11 January 2025
Melbourne’s Formula 1 Grand Prix: What price public accountability?
by Joan Logan
The Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix has already cost Victorians in excess of one billion dollars and will have cost us an estimated $3 billion by the time the contract ends in 2037.
The Australian Grand Prix Corporation, a Victorian Government agency, is taking me to the Victorian Civil Administrative Tribunal at taxpayers’ expense to withhold information it wants kept hidden.
The Age
Tuesday 13 February 2024
Inside Trace
CBD supposes that despite everything, Melbourne’s annual Australian Grand Prix isn’t going anywhere. But then again, neither is the long-running insurgency against the event by a determined group of Albert Park locals.
And the good folk of Save Albert Park have had a newfound spring in their step ever since the state Labor government cancelled the Commonwealth Games – with Premier Jacinta Allan at the heart of the action – figuring that once you’ve cancelled one big sporting waste of money, then why not another.
The rebels had a win late last year when the Office of the Victorian Information Commissioner ordered the Australian Grand Prix Corporation (AGPC) to hand over – after a freedom-of-information campaign by Save Albert Park’s Joan Logan – internal working documents on how the crowds at the event are calculated.
Save Albert Park has maintained for decades that the race organisers use every trick in the book to wildly inflate the number of paying punters at the race to exaggerate the economic benefits of the event.
But the corporation isn’t taking the decision lying down. It is taking the information commissioner to Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, arguing that releasing the docs would give rival cities some information that could be handy in any attempt to poach the race from Melbourne.
Logan’s husband, Peter, isn’t having any of that.
‘‘The AGPC has lawyered up – at taxpayers’ expense – to mount a case that it doesn’t have to release the methodology used to make up its attendances, even though it was demanded by the Office of the Victorian Information Commissioner,’’ Logan told us.
We asked the Grand Prix Corporation why it was bothering with the trouble and expense of the VCAT challenge, instead of just handing over the docs, but a spokesperson said that the corporation wouldn’t comment while the matter was before the tribunal.
The Grand Prix is a loser for Victoria
In order to settle the argument on the economic gain or loss caused by the F1 Grand Prix, Victoria’s Auditor General commissioned a full cost-benefit analysis in 2007 and found the event causes a significant loss to the state economy. This and subsequent updates in the next decade by economist Rod Campbell remain the only accurate economic assessments of the event.
To read ‘Blowout’, click on image below. It is Campbell’s update of the official cost benefit analysis.
Best Grand Prix articles from The Age’s Walkley Award-winning journalist, Greg Baum.
Greg Baum exposes the ridiculously exaggerated claims, in his words: “The grand prix is the acme of political brainwashing. When it comes to fake news, the Grand Prix Corporation makes Donald Trump look like an apprentice.” These articles are a lesson in real journalism. Baum shows facts are still important in the 21st Century.
“Releasing crowd figures a ‘security risk,’ grand prix officials claim.” Read here.
“Grand prix lessons take kids for a ride.” Read here.
“Plucking figures from thin, choking air.” Read here.
“All hail the grandiose prix .” Read here.
John Quiggin’s Blogstack
Originally published in Crikey
Thursday 30 November 2023
What is the actual economic benefit of the Grand Prix?
”Spoiler: there isn’t one.”
After the unhappy experience of the cancelled Commonwealth Games, Victorian citizens might reasonably ask whether the annual Grand Prix represents a similarly unaffordable drain on the public purse. No need to worry about that, according to Big Four consulting firm Ernst & Young.
Although the government lost more than $100 million on the 2023 Grand Prix, Ernst & Young found an economic benefit to the state of $266 million.
Read the article here.
Pearls and Irritations
Sunday 2 March 2024
Melbourne’s F1 Grand Prix a financial car crash for Victoria
30 years ago, then Premier Jeff Kennett told Victorians the grand prix would not cost taxpayers a cent. $1 billion later, it is obvious he was wrong. This is what Victorian taxpayers have paid so far to host a four-day Formula 1 car race. And the bill just keeps growing.
The race is now costing Victorians more than $100 million each year. Supporters of the event, however, continue to claim there are economic benefits of having the race in Melbourne. The evidence does not support this
Read the article here.
Michael West Media
Tuesday 19 March 2024
Melbourne Grand Prix, fuel efficiency standards and fake news
The long overdue introduction of Fuel Efficiency Standards in Australia is meeting with the usual resistance from fossil fuel lobbyists and car enthusiasts. The Melbourne Grand Prix is an annual reminder of the deceit, Dr Sarah Russell reports.
Read the article here.