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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 9 Hansard (26 August) . . Page.. 3199 ..

MS DUNDAS (continuing):

It appears that, even though governments are proud to promote sport and to promote our teams that are playing at the national level, we need to do a lot of work here in the ACT to make our local ovals better, to promote local sport at a local level. We continue to throw money at elite teams, but what is the real situation for our development players, for people having fun on the weekends? They are playing on substandard ovals, even though there have been continual reports put to governments that this needs to be fixed. Women who are playing at national level are being injured on ACT playing fields.

Even though Mr Stefaniak has brought this debate to the attention of the Assembly today, the situation while he was sports minister didn't appear to be any better; and the initial reports were coming through in his term. I hope it doesn't take another damning report or a series of serious accidents to local players to see the condition of our fields actually improve.

We can explore the situation in terms of water maintenance-and I know that that is something that does need further discussion, which is why we raised the issue of the grey water-but exposed sprinklers, pot holes, markings being downgraded, are all things that can be addressed even when we are in water restriction time.

So I call on the government to look seriously at these reports that they have before them and not devalue community sport, especially not women's sport, as it appears that they are doing.

MR SMYTH (Leader of the Opposition) (4.30): Mr Deputy Speaker, many good points have been made in the debate today, and I just want to just touch on a few of the things that Mr Wood spoke about. He said that the government didn't expect the community to do something that they wouldn't match. I think in most cases that's an appropriate thing to do.

But I would put to you-and Mr Wood himself admitted this-given the actual high level of activity in the ACT, the high number of people who engage either in competitive or organised sport or who use the ovals for personal pleasure with their families, what we might do is actually create a better sense of community out of giving people somewhere to play. If backyards and personal gardens are going to deteriorate-and they must deteriorate some, with the limiting of watering-perhaps it is appropriate to actually give people in their community somewhere where they can go and kick a football with their kids or chase the kids or play on fresh grass. What we don't want to see is an accompanying decline throughout the period of the drought, which may go on for some time, of people joining organised sports simply because the ovals are not up to grade.

The second point to make there is that most people who care about their garden will actually take some preventative measure. They've got a number of things open to them. You can put on a water tank. Nobody's putting on water tanks to supply the ovals. You can empty the bath, the dishwasher, the washing machine-use that water. There are various taps and hoses that you can actually put on to water your valuable plants.

Mr Wood: That's a good idea.

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