Subjects: Olympic Aid funding; success of the Olympic Games; performance enhancing drugs
E&OE................................
Well thank you very much Johann, to you and Debbie and Kate and ladies and gentlemen. I am delighted to express the Australian Government's support for Olympic Aid by announcing a donation by the Australian government of 1.5 million Australian dollars towards Olympic Aid.
At a time when the best athletes of the world, many of them supported by the best sporting facilities that the world has yet produced, are competing in these first games of the 21st century, it is important that governments devote some resources and encourage others to devote resources towards assisting children around the world in particular with an eye to giving some hope of access to sporting opportunities and facilities that are currently denied to them.
Olympic Aid is a splendid humanitarian concept. It was developed and conceived by Olympic athletes who had derived a lot in terms of good facilities and the opportunity of competing on the world stage and decided to give something back, and in the best traditions of human philanthropy Johann and others who developed this concept should be commended.
Olympic Aid will assist certain programs and Johann mentioned them within Australia and they are all ones that we would want to lend our support to, but it will also support programs outside of Australia. And the need to provide those programs is very strong and very necessary.
We've had the opportunity over the past, almost two weeks, to see the best athletes of the world competing in superb conditions. It is important that we take a pause from that and in different ways provide our support.
I hope that what the United States government, the Canadian government and Norwegian government and now the Australian government has done will encourage other governments to match those contributions and the combined efforts of government will encourage people in the private sector and individuals around the world to also contribute to them.
There is, certainly within Australia, and I imagine within the Olympic circles and broader sports circles around the world, a sense of great pleasure and elation about the success of these games and the sense of international goodwill that they have generated. And a practical expression of the sporting world's gratitude and the gratitude of supporters of sport, whatever that sport may be around the world, is to give support to the concept and indeed the practice of Olympic Aid. And I am delighted to associate my government and my country Australia with its objectives and I know that the contribution that the Australian Government has made will certainly assist in a very practical way the goals and objectives of Olympic Aid.
I congratulate Johann and all the others associated with this very worthy pursuit.
JOURNALIST:
I suppose the most important thing with this announcement is that the money gets there. I'm just wondering whether though you'd consider using a more lateral means of doing so and that is perhaps channelling it through the Olympic Aid option process perhaps then leaving the Government with, I don't know, something like Ian Thorpe's swim suit, or one of Kate's oars, that might maybe find its way into the National Museum or something like that.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, as you are aware, I am notorious for market-based solutions to all challenges. So if a serious alternative, but nonetheless effective ways are put forward to deliver resources, I am very happy to consider them.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Prime Minister. Do you consider this to be seed money, sort of a one-time donation or do you see this becoming an annual donation?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I've got an open mind on that. When I heard about, I had the goals and objectives of Olympic Aid explained to me, it seemed certainly appropriate that we make a donation of this magnitude at this time. I wouldn't certainly rule out the possibility of other contributions. On the other hand I'm not going to sort of automatically commit myself to that. As you know, governments have many demands for many worthy causes and this is certainly one of them. I hope though that we can get something, some momentum going amongst other governments, that's important. But it certainly, as Debbie said, it expresses in a small way the recognition by those, and I speak in a national sense, of Australia and she has spoken in an individual sense of the experience of so many athletes, not only here but around the world of their good fortune and therefore what a difference this kind of help can make for those who aren't in such a fortunate country or in such fortunate circumstances within their own country.
JOURNALIST:
Question for Kate or Debbie. Do you have a target for the Gold for Gold Campaign?
KATE SLATTER:
It was $5 million is what the target has been set at, and which we would definitely like to challenge the Australian public to take up especially with the fantastic medal haul that has been coming in. I mean, I remembered when we first heard the objectives that the AOC put out of 20 gold and 20 silver and 20 bronze, I thought it was totally unattainable. But just have a look at the performances that are now on the board. And hopefully the public will take on this campaign with the same sort of oomph and achieve it as well.
DEBBIE WATSON:
Can I just add to that, I would actually like to see the school systems within Australia because children are very generous towards other children and there are plenty of less fortunate kids out there and I think that it would be a really good idea if some of the schools could organise some fundraising activities, having sports days and the donations and the benefits going to the indigenous children of Australia.
JOURNALIST:
Johann, you mentioned $31 million had been raised through previous Games. How much has been raised at Sydney so far?
JOHANN KOSS:
We have raised in Australian dollars about $7.5 million if you include the [inaudible] you will get from the, you have a kind of...we expect certain funds from the auction, has been mentioned on olympicaid.com, that's included those expectations. Though there is, as I understand mainly government funds from the outside of Australia so far but we have big belief in the Gold for Gold campaign and being clo-charied by Debbie and Kate.
JOURNALIST:
And if I could just ask one more. Kate or Debbie are you concerned about reports that Australian school kids fitness, their fitness levels aren't necessarily improving where like elite athletes, our athletes are getting better, but the general fitness of our kids is not improving?
DEBBIE WATSON:
Yes, I think that is something that the Department of Education is really aware of also. You know, it's very important we don't need all of our kids to be elite athletes, we just need them to be fit for life. And I mean, sport and PE and activities are compulsory in school, so it's just a matter of encouraging everyone to participate and you know, with the schools being multicultural it's very difficult with some, you know, children not really being allowed to participate in all activities. So, I mean, the Education Department is aware of it and it's something that we are certainly working towards.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Prime Minister, you are asking all Australians to donate one gold coin each per Australian gold medal. How much money should that generate to [inaudible]?
PRIME MINISTER:
How much will it generate? Well, I'll have to do a quick calculation. Quite a lot. Some millions. I mean I think it's a worthy objective. And it's a very neat way of expressing or describing the way in which people should support it. But if you think we have got 19 million people. Not all of them earn incomes, so you have got to cut that down by at least half and then you multiply it by the number of gold medals, so it would raise quite a lot of money wouldn't it.
JOURNALIST:
These Games have been remarkably trouble free and I think by everybody's assessment, well organised. Could you give us your assessment of the way the Games have gone and in particular what they've done for the image of Australia in the world?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, they have gone incredibly well. They have been well organised and I congratulate unreservedly the people responsible for the organisation of the Games. What have they done for the image of Australia around the world? I think importantly they have demonstrated to those people who didn't already know it that this is a modern sophisticated, very capable country which has a capacity to, when it puts its mind to it, to perform any task, and it's peopled by 19 million very open, warm, friendly people.
I think we've not only got the technological side of the Games right, but we've got the human side of the Games right. And that's, you need both. You can't just run a technologically efficient Games. You can't just have the buses running on time and so forth. You've also got to have people putting their all into it. We're greatly aided in this country by the fact that we have a natural love of sporting competition. Australians are great sports lovers, as you will know, of all sports. And we've really thrown ourselves into this and I think we've probably demonstrated to some sceptics, not only around the world, but here in Australia, that we have got it all together and I'm tremendously proud of that as Prime Minister, that that's possible.
But I do congratulate those responsible. I do congratulate the athletes. I think they've been terrific. I thank very warmly the volunteers. We are a great volunteer society we Australians. It's a part of our psyche, to get in and do something for the common good and that's really been to the fore and I shall never forget the lady who must have been over eighty years of age come up to me and say it was wonderful and the only problem was that each stint was only eight hours a day. And she was having a lovely time and that just crystallised for me the mood of the community and I'm very happy and I hope everybody who's come to our country has been well received, has been treated courteously and decently and I'm sure they have. I hope they go away with very positive thoughts about Australia.
JOURNALIST:
Regarding the gold for gold incentive. The Australian medal tally is also very strong in the silver department. Why not silver for silver as well. I mean because there are charities when we board a plane we give our shrapnel, put it in a bag and we send it to whatever the relevant charity is and I think that works really well. What about silver for silver as well.
KATE SLATTER:
I would love to see a silver for silver contribution given that I won a silver. I mean for me I feel really good in Atlanta and I really thought that..I mean I went out there and did my personal best and won a silver. For me the ad that's on TV that's 'celebrate humanity' and the weightlifter jumping for joy for winning silver. Yes it would be fantastic of the Australian government...Australian people wanted to donate to silver as well. I'd definitely get behind that one wholeheartedly.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister, just a follow up to your comments there about the success of these Games. It's not unprecedented for the IOC to award Games to a country, you know, within reasonably quick succession of one another. There was LA of course and then Atlanta. I'm just wondering whether you would support or encourage any other Australian city in perhaps looking at a bid. I think the next one that becomes available is 2012.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well you have a touching faith in my political longevity - 2012!! But, well look, I don't think any Australian Prime Minister should ever rule out the prospect of them returning to Australia again and I think generally speaking we would want to always at a federal level encourage people around this country to seek them. I think one of the great successes of the Olympic Games is that Sydney is by any measure a very big city and it's got the infrastructure of a modern cosmopolitan metropolis and you do need that. I think one of the reasons why the Games have been successful is that the sheer size of Sydney and the capacity of its residence. You need a ticket buying capacity of the residents of the host city to make Games a success and that by definition means that the city that hosts the Games has to be large and it has to have a fairly high level of affluence. I think that's becoming more and more the case because in the end it's filling the stands that has made a huge difference and the way in which people right at the end came behind the Games and bought the tickets that hadn't been bought before was really quite crucial. So look I wouldn't, certainly wouldn't rule it out. But I think being realistic you're looking some years down the track. I think it's a bit unrealistic. I think the United States is rather a special case and there was of course the complication I think that 1984 followed 1980 and there'd been a lot of controversy surrounding the Games in Moscow in 1980. Some countries didn't turn up. I think there were some particular circumstances from recollection. I think being realistic you're not looking at them returning to Australia for some time yet and I don't quite know who'll be calling the shots then.
JOURNALIST:
Following on from that there's been a lot of talk around here that Greece may not be ready in 2004. If the IOC was to turnaround and ask you would..
PRIME MINISTER:
Look I'm not going to get into...look you know, great try. But I'm not getting into that. Greece has got the Games. We wish them well. We'll do anything we can. There's always been, there seems to me to be a, you know, a great sentimental symbolism as well as the capacity of the Greek people to do something effectively and in a very warm open-hearted way for the Games to go back to Athens. And I'm quite certain that the people of Greece and Athens will rise to the occasion very effectively and they'll do it with their great flair and style and warm heartedness.
JOURNALIST:
Just quickly what did you think of the hockey last night?
PRIME MINISTER:
Fantastic. I've got one very happy patron at home.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister, given all the glowing goodwill and praise that Australia and programs like the Olympic Aid has received for what's been a trouble free and pretty good fantastic Games, would it be a shame if the whole thing was marred by the drugs scandals that have sort of dominated recent press?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I don't think anything has marred the Games. There have been incidents relating to drugs. They have been dealt with according to the protocols that have been established. There is a view of some which has a lot of force that the fact there have been a number indicates that the system is working. I don't have any sense and I don't think any of the people of Australia, or those involved in the Games here and around the world have a sense that the Games have been marred by the drug issue. It's there. It has to be dealt with. There are some strong protocols. The Australian Olympic Committee and the Australian government are very tough in their view in relation to those protocols and we'll continue to encourage the International Olympic Committee to maintain its tougher line. And I don't think the Games have been marred by that at all.
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