Skywhale price soars sky high

At least one group has baulked at the cost and organisational effort after it says it was told it would be charged between $3500 and $7000, although the owner of the balloon, Kiff Saunders, says he has been charging much less and sometimes as little as $1800.

‘‘It was a lot easier to look at Skywhale on television rather than organise and pay for it,’’ Tuggeranong Community Festival president Michael Lindfield said.

‘‘It really wasn’t worth my effort as a volunteer of a significant community group to jump through bureaucratic hoops. It would have been a bureaucratic and public liability nightmare. It was not worth the hassle.

‘‘We received advice that the cost of presenting the Skywhale would depend on where it was immediately located beforehand and that there was a good possibility that it would be in the ACT region around November.’’

Skywhale cost taxpayers about $300,000, which included planned appearances in Canberra. The balloon received national and worldwide media coverage.

Centenary of Canberra general manager Adam Stankevicius said the ACT government had tried to have Skywhale appear at a broad range of community functions in the ACT. Mr Stankevicius said Skywhale’s scheduled appearance at the Tuggeranong Arts Centre was cancelled last month because of bad weather.

Opposition arts and tourism spokesman Brendan Smyth said taxpayers were being slugged again because the government had not planned it well enough.

‘‘It’s simply a debacle,’’ Mr Smyth said. ‘‘It’s been a debacle from the start and the government needs to apologise to the people of the ACT for handling this aspect of the centenary so poorly.’’

Mr Saunders, Global Ballooning director, said he had greatly reduced his costs for Canberra events. ‘‘Perhaps the person asking these deep, probing questions would rather that no money be spent on performances or displays at community events,’’ he said.