Why should taxpayers’ monies be used for any church event ?

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,22012293-5001021,00.html

Tax funds for Pope tour
Article from: Daily Telegraph
July 04, 2007

TAXPAYERS’ money is being mentioned as a way to end a deadlock over staging the Catholic Pope’s World Youth Day at Randwick Racecourse next year.

Acting Premier John Watkins flagged using taxpayer funds as part of a “shared” compensation payment to the Australian Jockey Club to cover its losses for halting its racing activities for up to 10 weeks.

“We’re in the middle of some pretty positive negotiations . . . between the church and the state and the AJC, and I believe that will resolve the issue positively,” he said.

“If there is some compensation that has to be paid legitimately, because a business is being impacted on, well okay, we are willing to look at that.”

Mr Watkins would not discuss the amount, other than to say reports of $50 million were not coming from the AJC.

He also it was still too early to comment on who would pay.

“Until some determination that compensation will be paid, I don’t want to open that up,” Mr Watkins said.

“The funding of the event, of World Youth Day, is between the church, State Government and the Federal Government and it comes at a huge cost. (Any compensation payment) will be shared, perhaps, but we’ll do this with a need to have this event on, because we’re committed to it, but in a way that protects the taxpayer as well.”

Racing NSW chief executive Peter V’Landys yesterday said the industry was committed to working towards a resolution that was satisfactory to all parties.

“We’re trying to calculate the figures to see what the impact is going to be on racing. We need to make sure that our participants are protected and not out of pocket in any way.” he said.

For much the same reason as it’s been used to fund other white-elephants such as the Olympics (or so their rationale goes.)

But Michael, Surely sport IS Australia’s NATIONAL religion of ALL the people - not just one section of it !

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Kevin Goddard - 04 July 2007 12:27 PM

But Michael, Surely sport IS Australia’s NATIONAL religion of ALL the people - not just one section of it !

Not for Bob Carr - or me.

Fair enough Michael. So make that 20,999,998 - instead of “ALL”.

Cheers, Kevin

( or should that be “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oi, Oi, Oi” ? )

G’day,

I think that Michael has got a point. With the Olympics, our governments spent a couple of billion dollars on an event for 10,500 sports people to compete in. WYC will apparently involve 500,000 people and cost much less.

Yours in Christ,
Mark

I don’t expect ( and don’t want ) the taxpayer to pay for any ‘religious’ gathering - be it a Hilllsong Conference, a Billy Graham crusade, a ‘new age’ festival etc - or a Catholic Mass. Let’s really have separation of state and church.

Also, Mark, to limit the statistics from the 2000 Olympics to 10,500 sports players, fails to take into account the crowds of spectators - not to mention coaches, media and other workers etc.  I googled the official statistics and found this;

“More than 5.5 million people attended Sydney Olympic Park across the Olympic and Paralympic Games.” And after it was over, we now have world-class facilities for all of us to enjoy.

G’day,

Kevin said:

I don’t expect ( and don’t want ) the taxpayer to pay for any ‘religious’ gathering - be it a Hilllsong Conference, a Billy Graham crusade, a ‘new age’ festival etc - or a Catholic Mass. Let’s really have separation of state and church.

But why not also have a separation of state and sport? After all, sport is a religion to many. I’m not advocating that the Government should fund WYD, I’m advocating that there should be consistency. IMHO, it’s a secular viewpoint which would see sport as being different to religion when it comes to the issue of Government funding. I’m challenging such an assumption.

Also, Mark, to limit the statistics from the 2000 Olympics to 10,500 sports players, fails to take into account the crowds of spectators - not to mention coaches, media and other workers etc.

My original point was one about being a participant as opposed to an observer, even an active observer. The participation rate of WYD will be much higher than the Olympics, whereas the Observer rate for the Olympics is higher.

“More than 5.5 million people attended Sydney Olympic Park across the Olympic and Paralympic Games.”

I’m probably right in saying that this does not mean that 5.5 million individuals attended the Olympics. My wife and I went to the Sydney Olympics on 3 of the days. The volunteers would have gone each day. My guess is that the true number of individuals who attended would probably have been around 500,000-750,000, but I’m happy to be shown otherwise.

And after it was over, we now have world-class facilities for all of us to enjoy.

Which is why I’m curious to know why WYD is being held at Randwick, meaning that the Government will have to fork out tax-payer funded compensation to the racing industry, instead of at the world-class facilities that we have at Homebush as a result of the Olympics.

Yours in Christ,
Mark

Mark Tough - 05 July 2007 01:14 PM

Which is why I’m curious to know why WYD is being held at Randwick, meaning that the Government will have to fork out tax-payer funded compensation to the racing industry, instead of at the world-class facilities that we have at Homebush as a result of the Olympics.

Particularly considering how much easier it is for traffic to get to Homebush than Randwick.

I think the arguments against taxpayers’ money paying for church activities are a bit simplistic.  It is planned that the event will generate large amounts of revenue from all the overseas visitors who will be paying for air travel (hopefully on Qantas) and then on food, accommodation and entertainment when they visit Sydney as well as the promotion of the city through publicity about the event throughout the ROman Catholic world. 

Also before you rush to criticise the state providing funds for any church activity you might like to look at sources of funds for the restoration of St Andrews Cathedral.  We won’t even get onto the fact that religious groups are exempt from tax, should the atheists have evey right to get uptight about that? I don’t think that’s a path we want to go down.

Gordon, thanks for your reply to my earlier post but I’m not going to drag this thread off topic and cover ground that I think has been covered multiple times before on this board (I think you and I may have even disagreed on this particular topic before) by debating whether or not Roman Catholicism is “Christian” or whether particular RC activities proclaim the gospel.

Post removed by originator for fear of potential negative inferences being drawn.

Melinda Seed - 05 July 2007 04:27 PM

Gordon, thanks for your reply to my earlier post but I’m not going to drag this thread off topic

Fair enough. However, my view is that the question of what message is being proclaimed is significantly more important than the question of taxpayer funding.

The parading of the icon of Mary alongside the wooden cross seems a strong statement of what is being promoted. It doesn’t suggest to me an exclusive focus on the gospel, which is worrying.

Mark Tough - 05 July 2007 01:14 PM

G’day,
Which is why I’m curious to know why WYD is being held at Randwick, meaning that the Government will have to fork out tax-payer funded compensation to the racing industry, instead of at the world-class facilities that we have at Homebush as a result of the Olympics.

Mark,
the WYD website answers that question for us…

Why was Randwick Racecourse chosen as the venue for the World Youth Day Final Mass?
The Final Mass at previous World Youth Days has traditionally drawn very large crowds of people.
The WYD08 organisers therefore wanted a site that could accommodate hundreds of thousands of people with uninterrupted views of the altar.

David Clarke - 06 July 2007 12:24 AM

Mark Tough - 05 July 2007 01:14 PM

G’day,
Which is why I’m curious to know why WYD is being held at Randwick, meaning that the Government will have to fork out tax-payer funded compensation to the racing industry, instead of at the world-class facilities that we have at Homebush as a result of the Olympics.

Mark,
the WYD website answers that question for us…

Why was Randwick Racecourse chosen as the venue for the World Youth Day Final Mass?
The Final Mass at previous World Youth Days has traditionally drawn very large crowds of people.
The WYD08 organisers therefore wanted a site that could accommodate hundreds of thousands of people with uninterrupted views of the altar.

Hmmm, 50 million dollars of tax-payers money so that people can see an altar.

Yours in Christ,
Mark