) 4WTRLIA
TRANSCRIPT OF JOINT NEWS CONFERENCE WITH MELBOURNE
OLYMPIC CANDIDATURE TEAM MEMBERS, NEW TAKANAWA PRINCE
HOTEL, TOKYO 18 SEPTEMBER 1990
E OE PROOF ONLY
Video presentation
RALPH: That was the video which we used to introduce our
presentation. We had more than two stars. We had two
particular stars who did a great job for us today. The
two girls in their gold blazers, Cathy Freeman and
Michelle Ford. The other three speakers were the Prime
Minister and I'll say something about him in a moment
and Kevan Gosper and myself. Among the members we havehere
with us at the table, the Lord Mayor Richard Wynne,
Prime Minister, the Premier Joan Kirner, Lord Mayor of
Brisbane Sally-Ann Atkinson, John Landy and Max Roger who
did a great job in answering the only question we got.
The Prime Minister was the star in terms of the
presentation he made and in the direct communication just
before the presentation itself with Melbourne. I'm going
to ask the Prime Minister now to just briefly outline
some of things he said and the messages that we received
of Melbourne.
PM: I was able to say to the members of the Committee
that no city was better equipped to stage the Games than
Melbourne and that no bid would have the greatest support
and degree of support that we had, not only in Melbourne
but the nation as a whole. I pointed out that at all
levels of government and across all parties there was a
unanimity of support. I referred with pleasure to the
fact that my political opponent, but on this issue my
ally, John Hewson, was there as was at the State level
Alan Brown with the Premier of Victoria, Joan Kirner.
And in those circumstances we were able to present a
picture of total unanimity. The financial guarantees had
come from the State Government and they were backed by
US. I was particularly able to make the point which I
think was unique for Australia when I said that I believe
that Australia was the living embodiment of the Olympic
ideal in that this nation, Australia, had thrown open its
doors to the people from 140 nations around the world
without discrimination in terms of colour, creed or race.
And that each day we were the living embodiment of the
Olympic ideal in that we had the people of all these
different nations, creeds and colours, living and
co-operating peacefully together. And that that gave us
the basis upon which we were able to make the promise to
the International Olympic Committee that if they
entrusted us with the honour and the responsibility of
conducting a Centenary Games that we would deliver an
Olympic Games that would never be forgotten. We were
assisted in that message, as I say, by being able to
refer to the fact that there in Melbourne at this time
were gathered thousands of our fellow Melbournians there
in the National Tennis Centre expressing their support.
May I just say, as I said out there a while ago, I've had
many moments of pride as Prime Minister of this country
but I don't think there's ever been anything which has
quite matched the pride, John, which I felt in you and
all the team, which did not only Melbourne, but you did
Australia proud. Have a look at the video now, from
Melbourne, which came directly by satellite just before.
Video presentation
RALPH: The Prime Minister just said to me the best is
still to come and you'll see that at the end. That was
filmed just a little while ago before we went in to make
the presentation. The people probably are finding their
way home now from the Tennis Centre in Melbourne.
Mr Hawke was in the garden just outside the hotel here
filming that and then the whole thing was sent by
satellite. So we were able to demonstrate just the
standard of the media presentation and what can be done
in Melbourne. I think it was an excellent performance.
Now I'd like to invite the Premier, if she would like to
comment on the presentation.
KIRNER: Thank you John. May I start off by saying
congratulations to the team and particularly to you John
from Victorians. It was a great effort. Fantastic
performance. You haven't seen all of it yet but the
spirit of the people of Melbourne in that fantastic
Tennis Centre actually permeated the whole of the room
where we made our presentation. That centre is an
example of the many excellent facilities in Melbourne
that John and the Prime Minister said were ready and
waiting to stage the 1996 Olympic Games. Those
facilities are a tribute to people like our former
Premier John Cain. Thank you John. People like him and
our commissioners and their partners who've done so much
to make this bid a great success. I think the hallmark
of our bid was that it has really drawn active
participation from the whole community our athletes,
our unions, business, the opposition, three tiers of
government and millions of people across the country, and
our schoolchildren. Weren't they terrific in the
program. All working together. All committed to a
victory for Melbourne. And you know, I think it might
just be possible. That sort of co-operation, that sort
of commitment has been here this week in Tokyo and in the
months leading up to it. If that sense of purpose and
teamwork which I'm proud to have been part of, which I
believe will enable us to stage a great Olympic Games.
As Kevan Gosper said in a magnificent speech to the
gathering, we are ready and we are waiting. This week
has been tremendously exciting. The presentation was
exciting. Cathy and Michelle had the spirit of Australia
just oozing out of them. When Cathy forgot her lines she
said ' And I want my mum and dad come and see me run'.
Wonderful. FREEMAN: And they will.
KIRNER: And they will. In Melbourne. In 1996. It
created a great spirit that I believe will carry our
state and our country forward. This is a great day for
Victoria and for Melbourne and for Australia. Thank you
team.
RALPH: I now invite the Lord Mayor Richard Wynne to say
a few words.
WYNNE: Thank you very much John. It's a fantastic day
for me to be Lord Mayor of Melbourne and I'm so proud
that it was our city, that fine city of Melbourne, which
initiated this bid for the 1996 Olympic Games. I'd
particularly like to single out my two predecessors as
Lord Mayor, Councillor Winsome McCaughey and Councillor
Bill Deveney who are here tonight, who have worked so
tirelessly on behalf of the city for our bid. Over the
last 20 months Melbourne has gained the confidence to
project itself as a truly international city. We're a
city of style, we're a city that has competed superbly
and our bid today I think has been absolutely first
class. And it's because I believe that many IOC members
have felt a great affection and some have great
confidence in Melbourne, its people and its potential as
a great city to host the 1996 Olympic Games. Our city
has grown with this bid and has gained great impetus to
improve itself over the coming years. I also believe we
can look forward tonight with great expectations. To our
colleagues and friends at the Town Hall and to the
thousands who are gathering tonight in our city square,
thank you, thank you sincerely for carrying the torch for
Melbourne. The support of those wonderful people of
Melbourne has been absolutely fantastic and without that
the strength, and that has truly been the strength, of
our bid. But it's been fantastic. Thank you very much.
RALPH: Michelle would you like to just tell them what
you told the people inside, but in English this time.
FORD: Would you like it in English this time. Firstly
I'd like to say that I was very proud to be selected on
this team and to represent Australia, and not only
Australia but all my colleague athletes who have done
just as well as I have. I really feel an honour. I also
tried to tell the IOC members, if they could understand
my French, that the Games is for the athletes and it's
the athletes spirit and the emotion of the athletes that
carry the Games and the spirit of the Games and the
feeling of the Games. This is what gives you a great
Games. I believe, as do we all here, and I'm sure we
will show it to you, that Melbourne will show you this
great Games.
RALPH: Now Cathy, you can just tell them how much you're
looking forward to competing, not only in Barcelona but
also in Melbourne.
FREEMAN: Well as far as I'm concerned, I think I'm happy
as long as I'm at the Olympics. But it will be extremely
special to have it in Australia, in Melbourne. I've
learnt so much. I've learnt so much. It's incredible.
I'm proud. I'm so honoured to be here. I've learnt so
much in the way that we've all been working as a team and
we've become closer friends. We've stuck in there and
really grown close together. I think that's the
important thing. I don't care. I think Melbourne's won.
I don't care.
RALPH: Just before inviting questions, there are two
points I'd just like to make. Firstly as has already
been mentioned, Kevan Gosper made a direct appeal in a
very effective and very nice way to his colleagues on the
IOC that half the world should not be living in shadow
and it was time to come to the Southern Hemisphere. He
did quite a remarkable job. The Prime Minister made, as
you would expect, an excellent address and carried, set
the tone for that video that you've already seen. Also I
should refer to our two musicians who were a star act
We'll take questions and then we'll show you just that
last clip that brought the whole thing to a climax, which
runs for about three minutes. Questions please, and I'll
share them with my colleagues.
JOURNALIST: What sort of response did you get when you
were in there? Did you feel that there was the sort of
warmth that you were giving to them?
RALPH: I think the response inside from where we were
sitting, it was just fantastic. I think you could feel
that the whole mood was becoming more positive as the
presentation went along. I felt that it was very good.
We had a lot of people come up to us after to tell us
that they thought it was an excellent presentation.
JOURNALIST: Did the IOC ask you any questions about your
bid and can you tell us what things they wanted to know
more about?
RALPH: We only had one question and that was in two
parts I guess, from one questioner. That was to help his
colleagues who hadn't been there because he had what were
the arrangements in relation to accommodation and the
charges that were involved. We explained our support
package where for the first one hundred members of any
team for US$ 350 they will be provided with travel and
accommodation. The second was to ask for a bit more
detail on the other venues and Max Roger gave a rundown
on those to be built and on the ones that are already in
existence. That was the only question we had.
JOURNALIST: You sound very confident. I mean do you
think you've swayed any votes in there?
RALPH: I don't think we went backwards.
JOURNALIST: I wonder if you can explain if there's any
significance in the presentation in the salutation to our
Olympians for the absence of Dawn Fraser, our greatest
Olympian? And can you reassure us that her absence had
nothing to do with the pending of sensibilities of the
IOC.
ROGER: I can do that. Dawn Fraser was to be involved.
In fact, she was one of the first to be involved and one
of the first to accept but unfortunately at the last
minutes some other commitments intervened. She couldn't
get to rehearsals and so she thought rather than run any
risk of a less than top performance she'd better not do
it. But she was very strongly with us in spirit.
JOURNALIST: Your bid like a few others has been based to
some extent, if not a great extent, on emotional factors.
We are in a technological age. How important do you
think it is, or does the Melbourne Committee think it is,
that the decision should be more on technical aspects of
a city's capacity to stage an effective Games than on
reasonable but emotional issues?
RALPH: David I think that what we have done in the bid
document was to lay that out in great detail. I think
that it's probably fair to say that we went to much
greater level of detail in all of the work that we did in
preparing our bid. our planning is well advanced to the
extent that we have gone past just conceptual design of
facilities that have to be built into detailed drawings
in order to be able to come up with a budget in which we
could have complete confidence. We've had the
opportunity of showing nearly 70 of the members who are
in that room the facilities. They've been to Melbourne,
they've seen them, they've had it explained to them,
they've asked questions, so that they've got, those
people who have been to Melbourne, have received all of
that detail previously. Those that haven't been have
been visited by our commissioners on at least two
occasions each and they've had the opportunity to ask
questions, they've had all the detail explained to them.
I don't think that before that we went into that room
there was very much need to explain the facts except we
wanted to cover those and that was drawn up out of those
shots in the early part of the video. I believe that our
bid was already, we had already, been given quite a lot
of commendation on the standard of the bid itself. We
had given all of that technical detail. The second
6.
volume of the bid document has it laid out and every
member has a copy of that. This presentation we didn't
believe that we had to repeat that but we did in the
speeches which you haven't heard, we gave quite a few
facts in terms of our planning for security, our
financial planning, about the state of the art in
communications We gave a number of facts because we
haven't repeated the speeches here. You've only seen the
video section.
ROGERS: Because some of Australia's venues are not
necessarily as well known we had brought 20 plus of the
sports federations to Australia in the past 18 months.
We have worked very closely with them and once again here
and I believe we had a completely clean bill of health in
respect of each of the international sports federations.
RALPH: Thank you Max. Now what we will do is we will
show you the final video in which we wound up our
presentation.
Video presentation
ATKINSON: Can I have a microphone. Just before we all
go. I'm speaking, I guess, on behalf of the rest of
Australia. The cities like Brisbane and Sydney and
Adelaide and Perth who all backed Melbourne and I just
want you to know, John, Prime Minister, Cathy of course
who comes from Queensland, and everybody else who was
part of the team, that I felt very proud to be part of
Australia. And I know back home everybody else is going
to think Melbourne is fantastic and we are all looking
forward to going to the Games there in ' 96.
ends