A "cranky" Peter Beattie has condemned the Gold Coast council's decision to gift specially reserved tickets for next year's Commonwealth Games to councillors, saying it is "totally unacceptable".
The Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games Corporation chairman said it was customary for a major partner like the council to be offered a small allotment of tickets to buy.
"What the council does with them we don't control that, that's a matter for their conscience," he said on Monday.
"The important thing is though you don't give them free to councillors. That's what's wrong here."
The former Queensland premier said there was precedent for the tickets to be used to host business delegations, to give them to the homeless or to children to encourage them to get involved in sport.
"I just say to all the councillors, return them, give them back to GOLDOC," he said.
"We're happy to put them in the pool because at the end of the day I think the community and the Gold Coast would not see that as acceptable."
Mr Beattie said someone at the council had leaked the email about tickets in an attempt to undermine and embarrass chief executive Dale Dickson, whose contract expires this year.
"Clearly there was an act of bastardry here designed to undermine the CEO and his reappointment," he said.
"Those sort of stupid games have got no place in the Games at all. None."
Gold Coast councillor Glenn Tozer said he was of the view any event he attended would be in a professional or ambassadorial capacity.
"It was my understanding that the tickets would require my attendance and may require me to host a person or persons with whom the city had some planned partnership, community program or advocacy objective," he said on Facebook on Monday.
"I anticipated that when this was not the case, a local community volunteer might be considered appropriate to attend as a guest of the city.
"It was clear to me that taking my family or friends to the sessions purchased by the city was not the intent of the activity."
Mr Beattie said he would be "stunned" if a councillor who had nothing to do with the Games chose to keep their tickets and attend.
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