Staying at the Sofitel, or any other superior hotel, is not a rort!

TO insinuate that Ballarat councillors staying at so-called luxury hotels are living high-on-the-hog at taxpayers’ expenses is, at best, spiteful, and at worst, deliberately misleading.

In defence, it is not unreasonable for government employees, politicians and councillors, away on genuine business, to be housed in accommodation which is of a standard.

In some instances, the emotively judged “luxury hotels” – and do not be fooled, the epithet is applied to provoke optimal taxpayer outrage – would not be equal to that of their own homes.

Not everyone lives in a lean-to with a rag door and a mud floor. Many homes in Ballarat are far more luxurious than any categorised five-star hotel.

As it happens, the renovated Provincial Hotel on Lydiard Street is rated as a five-star hotel, by Australian standards. It is a beautifully appointed hotel; chicly decorated, extremely well managed by Simon and Gorgi Coghlan, and they keep a first-class dining room table.

It comes highly recommended; however, it is not, by any reasonable standard of supposing, luxurious.

Indeed, set against the six-star Ritz in London – where I have stayed for extended periods of up to three-months, it is a poor country cousin, and that is a reality, not a criticism.

Whenever the urge is felt to provoke angry public sentiment, the word ‘luxury’ or ‘mansion’ is applied, and more often than not, erroneously. It is one of the oldest tricks. Regrettably, it still manages to stir the public’s indignation.

The Sofitel, under the experienced supervision of General Manager, Clive Scott, is not a luxury hotel. It is, as a fair judgement, up-market. If, as a simple example, it were a luxury hotel, you would not be admitted to the dining room wearing jeans, and certainly not shorts and thongs. Ties are mandatory in luxury hotels, even at breakfast.

Governments, in their various manifestations across the nation, have accommodation contracts with hotels.

The nightly rate is determined by the number of nights to which they contractually commit to take in any financial year. It makes for prudent accounting. It saves the taxpayer.

Why that should cause such consternation is incomprehensible. No-one pays rack rate, if they can avoid it.

It is too easy to suggest public servants, and those elected to public office, have their trotters in the trough.

Unfortunately, we have witnessed countless examples of people rorting the system; however, legitimately staying at an ‘up-market’ hotel at government expense cannot be deemed a rort, or an extravagance.

The election is looming. Let us devote our collective energy to concentrating on those issues which really matter to the city of Ballarat.