17th March, 2006

SIMON MANN

Has Melbourne missed a gold medal opportunity at these Commonwealth Games to really grab the world's attention - to make a real difference, launch something memorable, achieve something remarkable?

Well and good the flying tram, the breathtaking pyrotechnics and the metallic fish floating in the Yarra, not to mention Delta and Dame Kiri and the 12-day festival program that amplifies Moomba's perennial pledge to "get together and have fun".

As for the goodwill of the thousands of volunteers, it's worth bottling. And, despite the sniggers of sports purists who lament the absence of so many world champions, the prospect of competition between elite athletes at any time is something to relish.

But what Melbourne could have done was roll back the ever-escalating pressure to "outdo" the previous Games with increasingly lavish celebrations. It could have made a stand and acknowledged the gross inequities in the Commonwealth itself, put humanity ahead of hubris and challenged convention, just as it did during the 1956 Olympics. Then, Melbourne's simple gesture of allowing athletes to mingle with one another during the closing ceremony established a standard for the modern Olympics.

In 2006, Melbourne could have returned the Games to a more simple, more sustainable celebration of the Commonwealth's trumpeted ideals of humanity, equality and destiny. It could have used its fleeting appearance on the world stage for something more meaningful and memorable than discordant and cliched representations of a city's way of life.

Instead of blowing $50 million on its opening and closing ceremonies, and another $7 million on its river celebrations, Melbourne could have honoured the spirit of the Games with a gesture likely to make a real difference to the countries that compete in them. Is there not something slightly vulgar about splurging millions on a piece of theatre in honour of athletes, many of whom are from nations that, to coin the vernacular, are on the bones of their bums?

More than 50 of the 71 competing nations and territories are developing countries, many battling life and death issues of which ordinary Australians (and for that matter Britons, Canadians, New Zealanders) have little real understanding.

Sure, Melbourne 2006 has nominated Plan Australia as its goodwill initiative, a Commonwealth Games first.

More than $10,000 - interest earned on early ticket purchases - has already been handed over for Plan programs, and the aid agency expects the publicity to deliver a lift in child sponsorships and donations. But its windfall pales alongside the Games' $1.1 billion total cost - and the extent of poverty across the Commonwealth.

Take Malawi, long racked by famine and political unrest. Its 12 million people have a life expectancy of less than 38 years, compared with Australians' 80. GDP per capita is just $US600 (Australia, $US30,000). Its infant mortality rate is 104 babies per 1000 live births (Australia, 4.8). More than 14 per cent of the adult population are infected with HIV (Australia, 0.1 per cent).

Just 50 per cent of Ugandans can access safe drinking water. In Sierra Leone only three out of 10 youths can read and write. Half of Bangladeshi children under five are underweight due to malnutrition. There are not enough schools in Cameroon. Tanzanians and Zambians also bear grim statistics.

In many Commonwealth countries, people die daily from basic illnesses, from diarrhoea, measles and respiratory infections, and from more sinister ones such as tuberculosis and typhoid, and from the most destructive of all, AIDS. Longer term, some face a threat to their very survival. Will Tuvalu exist in 2050, let alone compete at the 29th Games then, given the dire predictions of climate change?

Don't get me wrong, the Games are worth having. They'll be great. Anything that brings so many nations together is worth celebrating in an era in which, increasingly, there seem to be more things dividing nations than there are uniting them. But could M2006 have stood for something more dramatic?

The ceremonies budget could have been halved, and the savings used for some special initiative. Maybe each fish floating on the Yarra could have represented a specific aid project funded out of the Games budget, with the public invited to get on board. Or perhaps M2006 could have accommodated a stunning bid to help end the AIDS rout in Africa, something to stop the world in its tracks and for onlookers to say: "Yeah, I get it!" Or maybe, if sport is a fitting totem for global goodwill, M2006 could take responsibility for making sure Africa can host its first Games in 2014 and not go under.

The possibilities are endless. It's all very well including an indigenous component in the ceremonies - that's de rigueur these days, and so it should be - but without something more tangible in support, it risks being labelled as tokenism. Even a supposedly cosseted monarch knows it. "For many indigenous Australians there remains much to be done," the Queen said on Tuesday. A day earlier she drew attention to the AIDS epidemic.

The creative director of last night's ceremony promised the spectacular would redefine what an event ceremony has to offer. If not, it would be labelled an "also-ran" and, he said, "Melbourne is not that sort of place."

Maybe so. But M2006 was a challenge not just for Melburnians - after all, Canberra is stumping up the $50 million for the ceremonies. And, sure, Australians don't need to beat themselves up about this. It's just that maybe we could have done even better.

Simon Mann is a senior writer at The Age newspaper in Melbourne. This article was first published in The Age (www.theage.com.au) on 16th March, 2006