Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On Saturday, I regret to say, the Victorian Premier announced a three-year extension to the Melbourne Grand Prix—it is now locked in till 2023. In my view and the view of most local residents, the race is a waste of public money. The state government is keeping the budget for this year's race and coming years' races a secret, but previous years' costs are indicative. The race cost Victorian taxpayers $60 million last year. Indeed, over the past five years it cost, on average, $50 million per race, but these costs are rising. I expect next year's will be over $60 million. Some of this money goes to the cost of setting up the event; however, a large part of it goes straight into the pocket of billionaire promoter Bernie Ecclestone. Victoria paid him $30 million in 2013 for the license alone. That increased to $35.9 million last year and $37.7 million this year. What will be next? Ecclestone has received hundreds of millions of dollars of cash payments from Victoria. He has threatened that, if the cash is cut, Melbourne will lose the race.

Attendance is it an all-time low. At the moment, the $55 million accounts for $800 per person attending the Melbourne Grand Prix, by my calculation. It would be better if members of the state government stood in Burke Street and distributed $100 bills to Melbournians—it would cost them less. Perhaps they could spend the money saved from the Grand Prix on many problems that the Victorian government is justly going to fix, but paying $800 per person attending this event is not a good expenditure of money.

Mr Ecclestone is a person who has faced various fraud charges in Germany. He was charged with bribing a German banker. The extraordinary decision of a Munich court was to let him off for a payment of $100 million to charity. I do not think this race deserves the kind of public support that it continues to receive. It is extremely unpopular in my constituency, where most residents of Albert Park, South Melbourne and South Yarra leave the city and often go interstate or up to the country. It is a race that, for that amount of public expenditure, is not worth the support that it receives. In a local survey regarding the Grand Prix responded to by over 6,700 people, only 87 supported the race.