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A council-commissioned survey has raised questions over the future of the Newcastle 500, but there are also questions over the validity of the survey itself.
A majority of local residents are opposed to a new deal for the Newcastle 500, according to the survey which was conducted by KPMG during March and April.
This year’s Newcastle 500 was the last of the initial, five-year contract, the fulfilment of which in fact took seven seasons due to disruption arising from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The contract is a three-party agreement between Supercars, the state government’s Destination NSW tourism agency (DNSW), and the City of Newcastle (CN) council, and talks over a new deal have been ongoing for months.
CN announced last December that a decision on a new contract would only be made after completion of the survey, which has now been finalised and released to the public.
That survey has found that a majority of residents are opposed to the event, with only 37 percent voting in support via an online survey while 55 percent voted in support via a phone survey which had far fewer respondents (490 versus 11,000).
Worth noting, however, is that respondents to the online survey were dominated by residents of ‘Ward 1’ of the Newcastle LGA, which takes in the suburb of Newcastle East where the street circuit is located and the adjacent suburbs of Newcastle and The Hill.
The phone survey data was weighted post-collection to match the demographic breakdown of the LGA, with each ward scaled to 25 percent of the total sample.
Unsurprisingly, the perception of the Newcastle 500 became more positive with distance from the race track, with support increasing from Ward 1 to Ward 2 then Ward 3 (somewhat west) and Ward 4 (furthest west).
Across the council area, the phone survey found 45 percent agreed that the benefits of the event outweigh the disruption compared to 43 percent disagreeing.
However, the online survey broke the opposite way, with only 30 percent agreeing while 60 percent disagreed.
Similarly, 59 percent of business respondents to the phone survey supported continuation compared to only 41 percent with respect to the online survey.
However, there have been concerns raised over the integrity of the online data, according to the Newcastle Herald.
It reported in March that residents claimed to be able to fill in the survey multiple times from the one device, notwithstanding KPMG’s report stating, “Due to privacy laws the weblink does not track IP addresses and prevent users from submitting multiple responses, only from doing so on the same device.”
Furthermore, 1061 people live in the suburb of Newcastle East according to most recent ABS Census data (2021), yet KPMG’s report claims that 964 responses to the online survey (notionally) came from Newcastle East residents.
The report notes, “As it is unusual to receive this number of responses relative to population size, it is likely that some respondents used incorrect postcodes or made multiple submissions.”
There are also positives noted in the report, including that Newcastle Airport reported the 2023 Newcastle 500 period being its busiest since Easter 2022.
Nevertheless, Newcastle MP Tim Crakanthorp, who previously expressed support for the event, has now come out and backed resident opposition.
“I have spoken with residents, businesses and stakeholder groups over this year, and have also looked at the results of this consultation to inform my view going forward,” said Crakanthorp, according to the Newcastle Herald.
“The majority of respondents have indicated that they do not want the Supercars event being held in the city and I will be supporting that view when communicating with the NSW government.”
Crakanthorp is a member of the governing Labor party, although has been referred to the state’s anti-corruption commission earlier this month over non-disclosure of commercial property holdings by his extended family, and was sacked as a minister by Premier Chris Minns.
He will be of the party altogether if the Independent Commission Against Corruption does launch a formal investigation, says the Premier.
On the Newcastle 500, according to New South Wales government spokesperson, “productive discussions” are being held between Supercars, DNSW, and CN.
“The NSW Government assesses the viability of a range of events for the NSW events calendar to help achieve the goal of making NSW the premier visitor economy and the events capital of the Asia Pacific, contributing $65 billion in total visitor expenditure by 2030,” said the spokesperson.
“The NSW government’s tourism and major events agency Destination NSW assesses events on the economic, strategic and community benefits they can provide to the state and the region.”
A Supercars spokesperson told Speedcafe that talks are ongoing and “progressing toward an official decision on the future of the Newcastle 500.
“The goal is to ensure a positive outcome for all parties and further updates and details will be communicated in due course.”
This year’s Newcastle 500 was the best-attended since the very first since the inaugural, 2017 event, according to Supercars, with a three-day crowd figure of 167,197 which was well up on the 2019 figure of 154,000 (according to CN figures).
Speaking as set-up for the event began in February, Cr Nelmes referred to “overwhelming support” for the Newcastle 500, and claimed a $36.2 million economic injection into the local economy in her LGA alone, with benefits presumably also for neighbouring LGAs such as Lake Macquarie.
How much new light the aforementioned KPMG report actually sheds on the views of residents is up for debate.
Meanwhile, Supercars has announced its return to New Zealand next year, with a three-year deal to race at Taupo, while The Bend is bullish about its place on the 2024 calendar.
