Page 3544 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 23 November 2021
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This budget also failed to recognise the need to provide a boost to grassroots sports after the severe impacts from the recent COVID lockdowns. The sporting clubs and grassroots recreation groups have suffered greatly from being unable to offer competition. Many are experiencing funding issues due to the loss of player registration, as well as sponsorship from supporting community groups and clubs.
Ball sports such as netball and basketball, which cater for significant youth and social participation, have been largely overlooked in this budget. There are rapidly expanding deficits in meeting demand for participation in these sports within the northern suburbs of Canberra, yet no provision has been made for any new amenities.
Planning for sporting facilities needs a focused and professional approach, which is lacking at present. Take, for example, the need to allocate almost another 50 per cent of funding to deal with the watercourse problems associated with the new Home of Football development in Throsby. The government built a new suburb nearby, expanded the nature reserve and supported the new environment centre. You have to ask: wouldn’t the government already be aware of the potential watercourse issues close by those new developments?
A similar problem may occur in Amaroo, with the proposed new tennis facilities for Tennis ACT. That is very close to or is on a watercourse area as well. We may be expecting another blowout in the costs associated with that. Hopefully, the ACT government will pick up that bill and not pass it on to Tennis ACT.
I have foreshadowed the need for long-term infrastructure planning for sporting facilities and amenities in Canberra. I note that some major sporting clubs are echoing that need. That brings me to raise the issue of the ACT continuing to fall behind in the bidding stakes to secure major national events and international sporting events. The reasons given are that the requested contributions are too high and that the facilities here in the ACT are outdated.
If we do not start planning for an attractive multipurpose sporting and events facility here in the ACT, we will forgo significant economic benefit to the ACT and we will condemn Canberrans, plus visitors from the broader Canberra region, to being second-class citizens in relation to being able to attend high-level sporting events as well as entertainment events, theatre, concerts and the like in the ACT.
Canberrans deserve the opportunity to be able to attend these types of events in world-class facilities, yet it seems that that will be in the distant future, as there is no money allocated in the budget and nothing is being built here in the ACT by this government.
I call on the government to significantly increase investment in both elite and grassroots sports in the ACT, in order to maintain and build on the participation base, which, in turn, will help to foster our athletes of tomorrow. We said repeatedly in the last term that we needed to invest in our grassroots sports so that we can start building our athletes of tomorrow here in the ACT. We are the national capital, and we should have the capacity to host national events, to grow our grassroots participation and to build our athletes of tomorrow.
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