Page 1447 - Week 04 - Thursday, 26 March 2009
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Looking to the future, in around 2012 we propose to invest money to begin the feasibility and design work for a new pool to meet the needs of what will then be a growing community in Molonglo and to assist also the residents of Weston Creek to have access to a major indoor sporting facility.
We of course continue to support our national league teams through significant investment in the Brumbies facility at Griffith Oval. At times that has been controversial, but I am pleased to see that the work that was funded, particularly in relation to placing a fence around the Brumbies training facility, has, now that the work has been completed, been well accepted and supported by the local community. There was some initial concern, but now that the work is complete I have heard some very positive feedback, not only from the Brumbies in terms of the protection it provides to their training facility but also from the surrounding households who now believe it is a much more pleasant outlook there at Griffith Oval. And we will continue to provide support for the Brumbies. Members would be aware, including the shadow minister, that the government has committed $2.5 million in support of Ivan Slavich’s bid as bid leader for an A-league team in Canberra, and we continue to supplement the national league team program. The most recent supplementation there was in the second appropriation last year.
So the government will continue to invest in sporting facilities across the territory, at the elite level through our major and more recent investment in planning studies for Manuka Oval and Canberra Stadium. Members would be aware that I have recently commissioned HOK Sport Architecture, together with a number of other consultants, to undertake extensive community consultation and design and development options for future development of Manuka Oval and Canberra Stadium. They are our premier sporting facilities in this territory and provide world-class sporting facilities for our elite teams, but are also important in terms of the activities and the opportunities they provide for each of their local communities.
The government will continue to invest in sport and recreation grants programs and in recent times have sought to expand the available funds in those programs for capital assistance, noting now that sport and recreational organisations are, through the sports loan interest subsidy scheme, able to apply for multi-year capital grants that can be up to $250,000 a year. That is important because what it does is enable those sport and recreation organisations to invest in their own facilities—they have received some government assistance in terms of meeting interest payments—but it will also create revenue streams for those sports to be able to further meet their own needs into the future.
If there is a challenge in terms of facility provision into the future, it is to ensure that those facilities are viable in the long term and that means that they are able to generate income from a range of sources. A number of sports are looking towards that approach in terms of co-locating like facilities; for example, sports medicine, physiotherapy, childcare and other useful services that are aligned with increased participation in the various sports but also provide a very good financial basis for the continued success of individual facilities and individual sports.
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