There are severe rumblings of discontent in Australia over the Pope’s “World Youth Day” which is coming up next month.A huge amount of tax-payers’ money is being spent on the event and the New South Wales government has just announced that it is adding another A$60.7 million in the next financial year to fund operations and services for this global gathering of Catholic youth.
This is on top of the $75.9 million that will have been spent by the time the Pope sets foot in Sydney, and on top of the $3 million in start-up costs to establish the World Youth Day Co-ordination Authority.
That takes the total budgeted cost of World Youth Day to $139 million, $20.5 million from the federal government, the Catholic Church $10 million and the NSW taxpayer the rest.
This vast amount will be used to fund a pilgrims' sleepover and a Papal Mass at Randwick Racecourse.
A$49 million will be spent on extra rail and bus services, health, ambulance and fire brigade services, overnight accommodation in about 412 public schools, coordinating traffic networks… and so it goes on.
The Australian Jockey Club has also been compensated so that the Church could get access to Randwick Racecourse.
The NSW Government maintains the economic benefits of World Youth Day could exceed $180 million, but no one has released any documentation justifying this assessment.
Neither the Church nor the Government is releasing any precise figures about the numbers of people coming.
But with the cost of air tickets rocketing, the credit crunch biting and the general lack of spending power of young people in the first place, disaster looms for the event.
Hotels, too, are seething that the promised bonanza has failed to materialise.They are saying that there will be about a 30 per cent occupancy rate during the event, as opposed to a 75 per cent occupancy rate normally at that time of the year.
Most of the pilgrims will be staying in private homes.
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