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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 11 Hansard (28 November) . . Page.. 3295 ..

MR STEFANIAK (continuing):

to that to properly reflect the current situation. I am happy to give another commitment for this government that we are not going to sell any of those 27 low-maintenance ovals. I cannot speak for a future Labor government, obviously.

Let us see what happened under Labor, Mr Speaker. Why are we in this situation to start with?

Mr Corbell: Why didn't you tell Gary's department to stop looking at them?

MR STEFANIAK: It is because back in 1993 and 1994, when the previous Follett government cut the budget across-the-board by 2 per cent, which was not very good financial management, the sports budget lost 27 ovals to fund that 2 per cent cut. They were made low maintenance.

Mr Corbell: What about Mawson oval, Bill? Did you tell them about the Woden athletics track?

Mr Smyth: Name him, Mr Speaker.

MR SPEAKER: I am about to if he is not careful.

MR STEFANIAK: Mr Speaker, what has happened to those low-maintenance ovals since the Liberal government took over in March 1995? In July 1998 two ovals-Lyneham North and Isaacs-were transferred to urban parks for inclusion in local open space. They were small areas which had never served as formal sportsgrounds. More importantly, in July 1998, eight ovals were transferred to the responsibility of the adjoining primary schools, with financial assistance from Education and Community Services, helped along by some of the money which sport and recreation has allocated for low-maintenance ovals. That was done to ensure that kids at those primary schools and other people in the community could play sport on those ovals.

As a result of Labor government policy, ovals were in many instances reduced to dust bowls and completely unkempt grounds. Included in those ovals were the ones at Fraser, Macquarie, south-west Evatt, Red Hill, Narrabundah, Chifley, Weston and Fadden. In fact, they were transferred as a result of an experiment in relation to the Macquarie Oval which I undertook with the Macquarie school board and the Bureau of Sport, Recreation and Racing, as it then was, in 1966, whereby about a hectare of that oval was brought back to a decent standard of maintenance. I can attest to its coming back to a decent standard of maintenance because I played on it in a football match and it was pretty good.

As a result of that, we developed the policy of bringing some of these ovals back to full maintenance. We have given every primary school the opportunity to do so, and I am pleased to see that most of them have. Some have not. For example, Flynn Primary School would not necessarily need to bring its oval back to full maintenance because it already has a fair bit of green space there; indeed, a football-size area of good green space.

Mr Corbell: Why did you mislead the Assembly?

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