Gold Coast Commonwealth Games chief Peter Beattie has slammed Australia’s “Big Four” banks for refusing to give sponsorship support to the event in April next year.
Speaking at a Melbourne Press Club media lunch on 27 October, Beattie said the banks were ignoring their social responsibility by not supporting the Games despite their massive wealth.
“We have four banks in this country that are making an absolute motza but not one of them is a sponsor for the Commonwealth Games. I just think that’s an outrage,” he said.
Beattie, a former premier of Queensland premier and chairman of GOLDOC, the Games organising committee, said the banks had an obligation to invest back into the community.
“If they were in real trouble I would understand it. But if you want to invest in the future, where we want to inspire a whole new generation of athletes, surely a small million or a million and a half? Maybe it could come out of somebody’s bonus.”
He said the culture of the four banks, Westpac, NAB, Commonwealth Bank and ANZ, had become bureaucratic and out of touch.
“For four banks that are as popular as a pork chop, frankly I would have thought there was an advantage for them to re-engage with the community.”
The former Queensland Premier was joined at the event by Australian team chef de mission Steve Moneghetti AM, athletics legend Cathy Freeman OAM and Australia netball captain Caitlin Bassett to discuss the Games on the Gold Coast next April.