Labels:text | cartoon OCR: SPORTS vised to withdraw its bid for the Games and proceeded with the bid. Games or introduce taxes to cover It insisted that the Olympics would the costs. break even financially. "I think the government needs To make matters worse, in Octo- to put a stop loss on this ber 1993, Australian officials said project; otherwise it will lock it- that the Games bill would be about self into an open-ended financial A$3.2 billion-double the budget commitment," the treasury secre- submitted to the IOC. tary, Percy Allen, said in a handwrit- State premier Fahey, who dis- ten memo in October 1992. closed the cost, came under fire A month later, he warned that from opposition politicians who staging the Olympics could threaten said that the city had been misled. the state's Triple-A credit rating. But he insisted that the 2000 Olym- "This is an extremely worrying de- pics would break even and said velopment-the projected deficiency that there would be no special Ol- of A$1.1 billion is beyond our ability ympic tax. to finance without a much higher "You have to recognise that in deficit which would endanger our any project the working papers ... Triple-A credit rating," Allan wrote have some variables in it," he said. in a November 9, 1992, document. For Sydney's sake, one hopes And on November 26 of the same year, he that the variables will not run out of control and wrote: "Serious consideration should be given to that the city will be spared the horrors of being withdrawing the bid." saddled with an awesome debt-like Montreal However, despite these warnings, the govern- when it hosted the 1976 Olympics, which it is still ment suspended a financial risk analysis of the paying off to this day.
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