Governments warned on Olympic gouging
Posted: Monday October 26, 1998 04:55 PM
SYDNEY, Australia (AP) -- A leading tourism spokesman has warned that the industry would be hurt if Australian governments gouged Olympic Games visitors with increased taxes.
Tourism Task Force (TTF) chief executive officer Chris Brown said the federal government's plan to introduce a goods and services tax in time to slug Games visitors and the New South Wales government's bed tax showed they were leading the way in gouging.
Brown said it was "kind of obscene that governments are the first ones to start price-gouging the Olympics."
"It's just not appropriate that the Olympic Games be a cash cow for the treasury," Brown said Monday.
The TTF is the national lobby group representing larger interests in the tourism, tourism transport and leisure communities.
The federal government was reelected earlier this month on a platform of tax reform, including a GST. Treasurer Peter Costello has set July 1, 2000 as the launch date and said he wanted Olympic visitors to share Australia's tax burden.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Sydney Organizing Committee (SOCOG) is concerned that the GST would cause an Olympic budget blowout of up to A$200 million (US$126 million).
The IOC and SOCOG met with new Sports Minister Jackie Kelly on the weekend with all parties saying they were confident a solution could be found.
Brown said he wanted an exemption for Olympic visitors so that more would come and they would spend more money on tourism.
"While I fully support the views of the NSW government and SOCOG that there should be no GST applied to the Olympic Games, I go a little bit further and say there should be no GST applying to the people coming in to see the Olympic Games, to generate jobs, generate exports and help the economy," Brown said.
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