Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 6 Hansard (18 June) . . Page.. 1999 ..

MS DUNDAS

The ACT government does spend vastly more on supporting men's sporting teams than it does on women's sport. Given the far higher contribution by private sponsors to men's sport, there is a very cogent argument that sporting contributions made by government should be biased toward women, rather than reinforcing the disadvantage that women's sports already endure.

Equally, the government's so-called women's sporting funding initiatives-and Mr Hargreaves and Mr Stefaniak both believe that the past and present governments have been so successful in these-I will actually say, do not appear to have made much of an impact. The proof of any impact will appear in the Gambling and Racing Commission's annual report on contributions.

With regard to the changes that this Assembly made allowing clubs to reduce their donations below the legal minimum by increasing their donations to women's sport, it is going to be interesting to see whether or not clubs are using their donations to women's sport to reduce their contributions to other community organisations or whether or not there has been an increase in the contributions going to women's sport based on the government's success in leading the way.

While we do welcome community and club support and contributions that they do make to women's sport, it is disappointing that clubs have had to step in to fill gaps that were left because the government wasn't providing that support.

I think it is important that we are having this debate and that we can bring to the attention of the community and, as Mr Hargreaves has wanted to indicate, other governments that we do need to lead the way in recognising women's sport and women's sport initiatives. But I do question whether or not we have gone far enough and whether or not we are leading the way.

When I was having this conversation with Mr Hargreaves earlier, he said, "$1 is a success, no money is not a success."That is a very worthy comment to make, but when we are supporting teams who receive huge amounts of sponsorship, huge amounts of support, sell-out crowds at first-class sporting facilities, far above teams that are struggling to support their players to be able to be dedicated to their sport and support players who, as Mr Hargreaves mentioned earlier, didn't even have uniforms, are we actually making a success in the inroads into women's sport? I believe that there is more work to be done in this area and that we will have to wait to see whether or not just amending the Gaming Machine Act is going to make a difference.

Earlier this year, when the Matildas were playing New Zealand in the soccer competition, I was talking to some soccer players. They were saying that, because they're in a women's competition, they don't get to play on the same level of facilities as those in the men's competition, because they're not deemed to be playing at the same grade. This actually has an impact on their fitness and on the number of injuries they get, which then has an impact on their performance, which then reinforces all the stereotypes that we already know exist in the community about women's sport. If the commitment was there to women's sport, then they would be able to play on first-class facilities and not run the risk of unnecessary injury or uncalled-for injury, just because their facilities are substandard.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .