"Everybody wants all the investment by government, but as long as it's not in their backyard. It's a real problem…”
The fall-out from Lennox Head’s overwhelming rejection of the WSL can be likened, I think, to a successful small business refusing the buy-out of a corporate monster, an Amazon, an Apple.
An offer too good to refuse etc.
For some, and particularly on the right side of politics, the belief that there can be something more appealing and important than money, a town wanting to retain a village feel for example, beggars belief.
When the Ballina Council voted, eight-to-two, against a WSL event at Lennox Head-Sharpes, the state’s deputy mayor, Giovanni “John” Barilaro, said the decision was a classic case of Not-In-My-Backyard (NIMBY) syndrome.
“I think this area is a NIMBY area, sorry to say it,” Mr Barilaro told the ABC. “Everybody wants all the investment by government, but as long as it’s not in their backyard. It’s a real problem…”
Merewether, a lovely and on-the-up beachside suburb of Newcastle where two million Australian dollars barely gets you near the beach, meanwhile, is shouting to the heavens at the joy, and money, the event will bring the joint.
Newcastle’s Lord Mayor Nuatali Nelmes told the ABC the contest is going to inject, “conservatively” at least fifteen-mill into the city, almost double the eight-mill or so that flows into Torquay each easter.
The WSL’s Andrew Stark says the Merewether CT will “get a massive audience… We’re seeing audiences of like 10 million live across our linear and digital broadcasts and along with all the post production.”
Not real sure how those figures are arrived at, although the WSL’s Instagram and TikTok numbers are pretty robust.
