David Penberthy is right that our public funding of elite sport is misguided
More pertinently, given that there is always a finite amount of public money which can be spent, I reckon it’s interesting that we have come up with an unchallenged model by which able-bodied people can play sport at the highest level, and travel the world having a hell of a good time doing so, but we still haven’t got a solution to fund the care of people with disabilities so that they can live their lives with dignity.
As I argued previously, we should have some HECS style funding scheme for Government funding of sport; better still we should defund sport entirely and transfer the funding to disability service where the need is demonstrably greater.
For those who argue that we need to have a lot of taxpayers’ money being spent on elite sport, let’s not forget that we criticise other countries for buying gold medals. It would be cheaper to have the Perth Mint produce gold medals for distributing rather than funding sports as present.
Further, it is not clear that the Australian Institute of Sport model has produced better outcomes. See my first chart below. The blue line shows the percentage of Australian athletes compared with the total number of athletes (so at the Melbourne Olympics in 1956, Australia fielded 8.9 per cent of the total athletes competing). The red line is a weighted percentage of medals won. I have given a gold medal a weight of 4, silver 2 and bronze 1. Taking 1956 again, we won 87 medals (using that weighting) against the total number of medals on offer of 1015 (again weighted): and hence we won 8.6 per cent of the medals.
If we divide the medal win percentage (red line) by the percentage of Australian athletes competing we get a score which indicates the efficiency (yes, I should also include the cost of sending the athletes but don’t have the data to hand) of our effort at the relevant game. The higher the score, the more medals (on a weighted basis) were won by Australian athletes relative to the size of the Australian contingent. This is the second chart. Our best games, therefore, were in 1900.
Let’s go back to the 1900 method of funding Australian athletes, where they were self-funded. Those afflicted by disability would thank the elite athletes for their sacrifices, as would the Australian taxpayer. This would be a gold medal contribution by elite athletes to those afflicted by disability. The Government could mint some gold medals to give to the Australian Olympic Committee in recognition of the removal of all future funding. I probably should run a line showing the gold price to give some context!
(2012 results as at 30 July 2012: Australian athletes have won 1 gold, 1 silver and 1 bronze).
UPDATE
Thanks to a couple of tips. Yes, we should consider gold medal only. Silver and bronze medals are meaningless: gold is the only medal that counts. In the Ancient Olympics only the winner got anything. So here is a new chart combining the two above (with efficiency on the right hand side axis) which counts only gold medal wins. Thanks to Edwin Flack, our performance in 1896 was the most efficient.
Finally, a chart to show the total number of Australian athletes and gold medal wins since 1896.
Synchronised swimming , tree hugging , shit can the lot ! The Olympic spirit is nothing today in comparison to its humble beginning , I agree, rip the funding out from under them , clean up our back yard get our priorities straight , many of these so called olympic champions would not know real sacrifice even if it kicked em in the groin hourly , go back to where it all started and begin again , fucking rent seekers !
Raven
31 Jul 12 at 6:34 am
The analysis is interesting, but doesn’t take into account all the variables – in particular the quality of athletes from other countries changing (for whatever reason).
James In Footscray
31 Jul 12 at 7:29 am
I’m sorry, but I don’t see a justification for government to be involved in sport or disability. These are issues to be dealt with by families and voluntary support. (And real insurance.)
Ellen of Tasmania
31 Jul 12 at 7:51 am
*cough* Para Olympics *cough*
jupes
31 Jul 12 at 8:21 am
Ellen. You are 100% correct. Why won’t they just leave us alone?
.
31 Jul 12 at 8:36 am
As hard hearted as it may seem at first blush, Ellen has a very good point. All government intervention in either area will do is crowd out the private sector.
All I think will happen now is that the long suffering taxpayer will have another load added to their back.
Winston SMITH
31 Jul 12 at 8:38 am
Cassandra Wilkinson has suggestions for funding the NDIS.
Practical suggestions but I’d also be looking at defunding green scams.
Gab
31 Jul 12 at 8:49 am
Just gut the whole carbon tax bureaucracy.
…and abolish the carbon tax.
Make the States and Commonwealth come up with savings. “Office for the Status of Women” “grant money for Tasmania” “bribing professional sport concern with new stadium”…
.
31 Jul 12 at 8:57 am
James is correct: the analysis is overly simplistic. Even so, there is a steady increase in ‘efficiency’ since 1976 and the establishment of the AIS. I am not suggesting that all this money is well spent but these events are popular with the public and it is the public’s money. Finally, suggestions that something be simply completely defunded seem to me (in most cases) to be so politically naive as to be pointless.
Keith
31 Jul 12 at 9:15 am
Have the Chinese been tapped out already?
Sid Vicious
31 Jul 12 at 9:26 am
Australia should consistently place in the top 5 in the Olympics. Anything else is out of step with our cutural identity.
We’ve got to have those areas of strength which give us identity as a nation. All this wailing and gnashing of teeth over the relatively small amouint of money required to achieve an acceptable level of sporting prowess is just silly.
Write it down as part of the cost of being Australian. Sport is the Australian art form.
Driftforge
31 Jul 12 at 9:30 am
“As I argued previously, we should have some HECS style funding scheme for Government funding of sport; better still we should defund sport entirely and transfer the funding to disability service where the need is demonstrably greater.”
It’s nice to completely agree with you on something, Samuel J.
“Australia should consistently place in the top 5 in the Olympics. Anything else is out of step with our cutural identity.”
I can’t tell if you’re being serious, Driftforge.
Jarrah
31 Jul 12 at 9:41 am
Australia is good at sport because we have a lot of open space and young people are introduced to elite competition at an early age.
If we suck, it’s because of fretting soccer mums not wanting their kids being beaten in A grade when they could be carving up U/13s.
We should place highly.
I strongly reckon China cheats. It’s just in their culture to win at any cost. Must have good drugs.
.
31 Jul 12 at 9:46 am
Of course I am. There are very few things as serious as sport in Australia.
Driftforge
31 Jul 12 at 9:55 am
Wanting to cut sport spending is like Republicans in USA promising to abolish the NEA. It’s totally irrelevant to overall spending. I’d like to see cuts in spending, not symbolic but meaninglessly small cuts which make us feel like progress is being made.
The Prince
31 Jul 12 at 10:09 am
What a weird thing for a Ron Paulian to say.
I’d make everyone of the current Olympic squad who are stinking up London worse than a blocked bog hole at a curry resistant write a letter of apology to the Australian public.
Infidel Tiger
31 Jul 12 at 10:18 am
Cassandra has made a good start but this is the tip of the iceberg – Catallaxy needs to maintain a permanent list of government waste. I would add public funding of election campaigns, and the Chief Nurse.
MACK1
31 Jul 12 at 10:20 am
We have a chief nurse? You’ve got to be kidding me!
No. All wasteful spending must end, small or large.
We are strangling ourselves by throwing our incomes away, after we collect it with prosperity damaging taxation.
.
31 Jul 12 at 10:27 am
Driftforge, don’t you think that if sport really is such an integral part of our Australian identity, that Australians would support it without a gun to their heads?
And if we really are compassionate towards those with disabilities, then again – why would we be FORCED to pay?
Real compassion, real passion, does not need to be coerced. Who we really are, and what we really value is shown in what we freely do and give.
Ellen of Tasmania
31 Jul 12 at 10:36 am
Gab – between the two family tax benefits and the superannuation tax concessions there is plenty of money to fund the NDIS. You wouldn’t even need to remove them as they are much bigger than the required NDIS funding, tut just more tightly means test them instead. But it won’t happen because both the LNP and ALP know that there’s a lot more votes in middle class welfare than helping the disabled.
I think the number of medals we get is really about how much we’re willing to spend compared to other countries. So its not surprising that as other countries get richer that we don’t do as well relatively speaking. We do way better than most countries based on population or GDP and its not because of the natural athletic prowess of our athletes, just how much we’re willing to spend.
No doubt. They also have a very large population and actively search their young population for potential candidates. Given the huge number of people living in poverty its a lot cheaper to motivate potential candidates too.
Chris
31 Jul 12 at 10:39 am
American working families do not consent to have their paycheques confiscated to fund the hellishly expensive dreams of sports-minded American Yoof.
That is obviously why the USA never wins any gold medals, ever.
Heartless bastards.
sdog
31 Jul 12 at 10:44 am
Well, it’s not a straight either/or – as Ray Hadley’s employment at the Games demonstrates.
C.L.
31 Jul 12 at 10:45 am
Sport is an integral part of our culture but suprisingly we are near top of the world in terms of obesity.
Not sure if obesity is considered a disablement as it is in the States, could be tho.
candy
31 Jul 12 at 10:46 am
The US olympic committee did have to be rescued once by the government though to stave off bankruptcy. And the US government does now provide some ongoing funding for the paralympic athletes. It is a case of where a much larger population does help as the major component of their funding comes through a cut of the television rights revenue via the IOC. I wonder how much the AOC gets for Australia’s TV rights?
That’s because most of the population spends its time watching sport rather than playing it! Its where the government funding goes too – hundreds of millions of dollars on stadiums that are used by elite sports that get billions in revenue anyway.
Chris
31 Jul 12 at 11:08 am
Sure. And we do. And it is precisely because we do that it makes this significant.
This is probably something I need to work through more in terms of how it fits with everything else.
But there remains, even in a Libertarian view, scope for a national character. Something more than place. And for Australian’s, a chunk of that ‘difference’ between us and them is our attitude towards sport.
When the sole reason you disagree with something that you otherwise would agree with is principle, its time to check both the principle and the agreement.
Sometimes, you just support something because you haven’t thought it through. Other times you enrichen your principles by working through the outlying cases.
As to the comment re Ron Paul, go listen to Ron Paul talk about the space program.
Driftforge
31 Jul 12 at 11:10 am
Just get rid of the olympics. It is SO BORING!
Lysander Spooner
31 Jul 12 at 11:17 am
That’s voluntary. Americans cannot be jailed for refusing to hand over their hard-earned to feed, house, clothe, train and otherwise support their “amateur” athletes.
American athletes do not get to skim the cream of American working families’ paycheques the way Australian athletes do.
And that is as it should be.
sdog
31 Jul 12 at 11:27 am
If Australians caaaaare so much about their sport, why do they have to be forced by the State (and its enforcement arm, the ATO) to support it?
sdog
31 Jul 12 at 11:30 am
They don’t have to be forced. While being forced remains an injustice (as well as the current revenue raising methodology of choice), there is a difference between forced to do something you would have done and something you wouldn’t.
Driftforge
31 Jul 12 at 11:36 am
Australians are always ready to buy endorsed products, buy into a pie drive or chocolate drive, boat raffle, holiday raffle, or contribute some unpaid labour to build/maintain facilities.
We don’t need no stinking taxes!
What we need is to free up the broadcast market so more sports can get a market value, be professionalised and lose the need for subsidies.
.
31 Jul 12 at 11:39 am
“need”
.
31 Jul 12 at 11:42 am
I do not and would not choose to pay for the care, welfare, development, housing, clothing, training, etc of rich white pampered Australian “amateur” athletes.
I do not have a choice. I am forced to do it, or face sanctions and even jail.
That doesn’t strike you, as a “libertarian,” as even passingly creepy?
sdog
31 Jul 12 at 11:51 am
Sure, that strikes me as a little creepy.
Driftforge
31 Jul 12 at 11:55 am
Considering a gold medal only costs $500, it would certainly be a lot cheaper for us to just mint them up even if we did need a Worthy Sportspeople Review Board (5 members, $100k salary each) to allocate them out.
Bron Suchecki
31 Jul 12 at 11:56 am
Driftforge clearly isn’t a libertarian.
I too, couldn’t care less about organised sport and the Olympics and don’t like my taxes being spent to subsidise sport in any form, or the yarts, or foreign aid, or the UN, the climate madness, the car industry or much of the social safety net that has become a hammock.
Just go away and leave us alone to get on with our lives.
One more thing, I don’t like being criminalised if I leave my car unlocked when I’m more than 3 meters from it (yes, that’s the law in Queensland). You listening Newman?
Eyrie
31 Jul 12 at 12:13 pm
Id burn down the AIS and salt the ground it stood on. Its a monster, dont win medals “we need more funding” win medals “we need more funding”..
Then theres the tenticles reaching into a lot of juniour organisations, allegedly to develop tallet, really providing an excuse for more funding.
I know its a cliche, but national sports institutes are a relic of Soviet style centralisation.
thefrollickingmole
31 Jul 12 at 12:17 pm
Heh, had a teacher who used to leave her car unlocked in the hope that it would get stolen. Insurance value was much more than what it was really worth. Unfortunately for her no one ever considered it worth stealing.
Chris
31 Jul 12 at 12:21 pm
Certainly still got things to work through. And yes, sports is a bit of an outlier for me. May well end up on the scrap heap of ‘good things that government shouldn’t fund’ eventually – but unless the thoughts get worked through for something I like, makes it a bit hypocritical when I dismiss others favourites onto the same scrapheap.
But.. Australians who don’t like sport? Seriously? Bloody rare breed that. Seem to have collected a few in here though.
Driftforge
31 Jul 12 at 12:26 pm
The perfection of mind and body in an athletes achievements is a privilege to watch
O sport you are beauty O sport you are justice
O sport you are happiness
The body trembles with bliss upon hearing your call
May the best athletes win in their respective fields
selen234
31 Jul 12 at 12:56 pm
I like sports. Always have.
A privately-funded sports scholarship, among other things, helped pay my way through a top-tier private Uni in the States.
You can like things without demanding that the State force everyone else to financially support them or else be imprisoned.
It’s not exactly radical to expect that the people who want to support certain things – say, sports – can and will do so voluntarily.
That you can’t seem to get your head around this concept is frankly frightening.
sdog
31 Jul 12 at 12:57 pm
I can smell the nerds, Ted!
.
31 Jul 12 at 1:03 pm
We’ve got to have those areas of strength which give us identity as a nation. All this wailing and gnashing of teeth over the relatively small amouint of money required to achieve an acceptable level of sporting prowess is just silly.
I’m all for sport as part of the Australian identity, much like it’s part of the American identity. However, the cultural approach that Australians take to sport makes as look childish, unsophisticated chumps on the international stage.
John Mc
31 Jul 12 at 1:10 pm
I’d like to taser anyone who does that fucking Oi chant.
.
31 Jul 12 at 1:15 pm
I am one of those people who loathe sport. But, I can see driftforge’s point. Sport is in the contry’s DN, but that doesn’t men Government funding is required. WOuldn’t it more typical of the Australian way to let people contribute directly to fund their sports heroes?
My wife came up with the best solution, drop all government funding of the AIS and let it be funded from a lottery instead.
With a good bit of marketing I’m sure that Australians would be queuing up to buy tickets in such a lottery.
Rococo Liberal
31 Jul 12 at 1:19 pm
That’s a good idea, Poindexter.
.
31 Jul 12 at 1:22 pm
Careful, Mark Pee will see that and report it to the finkelstein police.
SteveC will report it to getup.
Jc
31 Jul 12 at 1:23 pm
Don’t worry, they probably said the same thing on Stuff Bogans Like or the utterly woeful, useless, deceptive and misguided macrobusiness blog.
.
31 Jul 12 at 1:25 pm
Paddle faster, I hear banjos
Rococo Liberal
31 Jul 12 at 1:26 pm
I love rooting, drinking, gambling and smoking too. Will the government pony up for me?
Infidel Tiger
31 Jul 12 at 1:26 pm
You’ve got city hands, Mr Hooper.
.
31 Jul 12 at 1:28 pm
Sooooeeee!!
Rococo Liberal
31 Jul 12 at 1:33 pm
Jesus. I thought Jaws had universal appeal.
.
31 Jul 12 at 1:34 pm
i like the Aussie Aussie Aussie oi oi oi
it’s unique and really catchy.
candy
31 Jul 12 at 2:02 pm
It’s moronic and should be punishable by a gruesome public death in a an abandoned taxpayer funded sporting stadium.
Infidel Tiger
31 Jul 12 at 2:06 pm
What a great idea! Mrs Rococo has just suggested that we could sell tickets to the event and use the money to repalce the Government funding of the AIS. Maybe we could Craig Emerson to be the warm-up act.
Rococo Liberal
31 Jul 12 at 2:19 pm
get Craig Emrson
Rococo Liberal
31 Jul 12 at 2:20 pm
Wow, disgusting.
I guess they have banjos at Eastern suburbs dinner parties too.
.
31 Jul 12 at 2:21 pm
It might have such appeal, but we were talking about Deliverance.
Rococo Liberal
31 Jul 12 at 2:23 pm
Not that I have noticed. I did see a concept piece once that had what looked like a dessicated cello, but never anything in the slightest banjo-like.
Rococo Liberal
31 Jul 12 at 2:30 pm
Eastern suburbs is more dueling cellos Like deliverance but with more hypenated names and less chins.
thefrollickingmole
31 Jul 12 at 3:38 pm
Driftforge, you d be surprised at the number of peoplewho dont really care about “sports”,they consider REAL things much more important .”sports” are important only to the flippant minded ,who consider real problems TOO HARD,
Borisgodunov
31 Jul 12 at 3:43 pm
In Canberra the ACT Government – the ratepayer – pays the Raiders Rugby League Club a ‘performance fee’ of around $1.5 million per annum. This supposedly commits the Raiders to ‘a range of community activities’ in the Territory.
The payment works out at around $300 per first grade player per day, at which rate one would expect to see a Raider doing something community minded pretty much everytime one left the house!
It is, in fact, a politically motivated bribe to an already rich club which, incidentally, doesn’t disclose the salaries it pays to its players, managers and executives, even though these are subsidised from the public purse.
The subsidy doesn’t include an additional mates rates deal on the use of Canberra stadium as well as various other perks and exemptions enjoyed by the club.
Des Deskperson
31 Jul 12 at 3:46 pm
Didn’t a Canberra Raider player recently get caught fellating a dog? That was rather civic minded of him.
Infidel Tiger
31 Jul 12 at 3:52 pm
Chez Irish Ape we are a very sporting household – (well, he is anyway so that means me too). He adopted Aussie life long ago, being an energetic sort of guy who excels (in a rough sort of way) at these sorts of things and knows all the rules to an amazing lot of stuff. I dance and swim and skate and fence and ski, but hate organised sport and never remember rules unless I absolutely have to.
Da Ape became an Australian because number one, he hated the British class system (although a well-turned-out member of it), and number two, he liked the sunshine and sports.
Aussies define themselves by sport and this image needs to be maintained, so that nice men like HIA and Aussie men of his ilk continue to be available to Aussie girls. Best argument for funding, imho, although I’d secretly like to pedal back on a lot of it.
Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.
31 Jul 12 at 5:00 pm
It might surprise you to know that I was once an Australian Champion at my chosen sport, driftforge.
It just doesn’t seem that important now and I would never extract money at gunpoint (that is what taxation is after all) from somebody to finance someone else’s sport.
I think you are right, Boris. There are lots of interesting real problems to work on.
Eyrie
31 Jul 12 at 5:14 pm
‘Didn’t a Canberra Raider player recently get caught fellating a dog?’
He was transfered to Mount Barker!!
Des Deskperson
31 Jul 12 at 5:40 pm
Sports tend to be more important to people who aren’t so up themselves that they can’t enjoy some fun.
Obviously there are things that are more ‘important’ and ‘significant’ that sports. It’s not really the point.
Good to see a bit more fun around here on the afternoon shift.
Question for the more thoughtful – what mechanisms for funding does government have that are not coercive?
And were those methods employed, would it be more appropriate for government to fund sport?
I think that the methodology of collection – although clearly unjust – isn’t actually the issue here.
Driftforge
31 Jul 12 at 5:50 pm
Talk to Craig Thomson about that.
Driftforge
31 Jul 12 at 5:54 pm
Schutzenfest in Adelaide gets government funding. Crown Casino has had millions of subsidies from the government over the years. I’d be surprised if they were isolated incidents. Its generally not that hard for events to get at least small amounts of government sponsorship or at least help in kind.
Might be hard pressed getting money for a brothel though
One thing that the US government funds much better than Australia is their national parks. Wherever I hiked/travelled there trails were very well marked and maintained (much better than in Australia).
Chris
31 Jul 12 at 6:10 pm
A rising tide raises lifts all boats. Once the commies and the Aussies (how odd that we fall in amongst them?) started nationally funding Olympic sport we changed the game and now its quite obvious that there’s a strong link at the elite level between performance and funding. Refer to the massive improvement in the British cycling team over the past few years for a great example.
It would be much better if the Olympics became wholly amateur and wholly based on donations (government funding disallowed) to even the playing field. No idea how to police it though.
Jeremiah
31 Jul 12 at 6:30 pm
woops “a rising tide lifts all boats”
Jeremiah
31 Jul 12 at 6:31 pm
I actually really love the way the Norwegians embrace their sport here. Unlike many Aussies they tend to play sport far more than they watch it. They still love elite sport but amateur sport is far more mainstream. I swear every second person here has run a marathon or done some endurance cycle race. Fatties on the streets of Oslo are a rare sight indeed.
Jeremiah
31 Jul 12 at 6:34 pm
Keeping up with the jones’
So every country is paying more and more per athlete for exactly the same result…. It really is disgusting how much wealth is wasted on sport, but I expect it is needed to feed our biological thirst for physical competition.
Mundi
31 Jul 12 at 8:55 pm
Jerry,
A lot of fat aussies play sport.
You do know who david boon and liesel jones were, right?
.
31 Jul 12 at 8:57 pm
Yeah true dot, our embrace of the beer gut is also something that makes me cringe…
Jeremiah
31 Jul 12 at 10:24 pm
Like that Oxbridge graduate we met at a party that was over the Olympics and over fancy dress
the only one who didnt dress up for it
be normal people
what a bore he was all night!
selen234
31 Jul 12 at 11:56 pm
Arts and Sports. Hobbies. Zero taxpayer funding please.
derFRED
1 Aug 12 at 8:06 am
Still like Mrs Rococ’s idea of a lottery to pay for the AIS, and no government funding whatsoever.
Rococo Liberal
1 Aug 12 at 1:43 pm
[...] the very outset of all of this, Samuel J at Catallaxy argued that it might be better to get rid of government funding for sport all together and use that [...]
Skepticlawyer » Going for Gold
14 Aug 12 at 9:47 am