Member

It is even more important, in that context, to recognise that we have no idea what would then be in the Olympic contract: the contract that is absolutely critical and drawn up by the IOC, not by the Government, with the host city to host the Games. After all, we have hosted the Games three times. We hosted the Games in 1908 and it was another 40 years before we hosted it again. We hosted them after the Second World War because very few countries were in a position to host the Games in the circumstances that were apparent in the world at that time. Then it was another 64 years before we hosted the Games again. It is very rare for one city to host the Games three times. In fact, if we look around the world, we see that the only country that has concertinaed that timetable is Australia, and that was because of the quite unique and outstanding contribution of John Coates, the IOC member who has brought the Games back to Australia again—as I will come to in a moment—in the Gold Coast.