TFF interviewed Premier Chris Minns on Friday on the occasion of celebrating his first year in office, with the full piece being published in The Sun-Herald this weekend. Wait until you hear what he said on his options if nuclear energy gets up! Meanwhile, though, here is what he said on matters sporting:

Fitz: There was a brilliant piece written in the Herald last year – and as a matter of fact, I wrote it – noting that if you could put an infrared camera on top of Centrepoint Tower, looking out across the state for areas of terrible need for the state’s finances to flow to, it was very unlikely that it would spot a whole bunch of stadiums glowing red, where we absolutely need to put $600 million into Penrith Stadium and hundreds of millions into other boutique NRL stadia and so forth. Do you agree with that analysis, or do you think the infrared camera would pick up the terrible need for more stadia?

CM: No, I think the infrared camera would pick up that homelessness is increasingly a major issue in Sydney in particular, but also all over the state. So I would agree with you that in terms of the order of needs, there are other things that are far more important.

Fitz: We chat in a week when your Queensland counterpart, Steven Miles, has announced a cut-rate 2032 Olympic Games and there have been reports, which were denied, they’ve looked at pulling out of the Olympics altogether. If they pulled out, your treasurer, Daniel Mookhey, has hinted that as NSW already has the Olympic infrastructure built, we’d be glad to have them here. Do you agree?

CM: No. We’ve got major obligations in health and education and public transport and we’ve got $180 billion worth of debt. So I just can’t, with a straight face, say to you or your readers on a Sunday morning, “By the way, in addition to all that, we’ll be a failsafe for the Olympic Games.”

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Interesting, yes? We in Sydney, Australia’s largest and wealthiest city, have the Olympics infrastructure already built, but even if the 2032 Olympics was handed to us on a plate, our elected leader has no interest. If the numbers don’t stack up for Sydney, with all we’ve got, how can they ever stack up for Brissie?

“Dear TFF, As usual I was at Shark Park for the Cronulla game [last Friday]. The ground announcer told us all Scott Morrison had relinquished his No.1 ticket-holder status and then rambled on about what a great job he did in that role.