Page 2798 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 29 June 2011
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ACTSport, which is the organisation that currently represents all of the sporting community in Canberra.
Instead, we have a number of very highly respected individuals, I agree, but individuals who represent basically their sport. I believe they are Capital Football through Heather Reid, who is on the committee, Stephen Hodge, who is also on the Cycling Australia board, and individuals who are respected in their own fields of endeavour, but where is ACTSport? In order to fully engage with the sporting community, minister—through you, Mr Assistant Speaker—I suggest that that should be looked at as well.
The strategic document is a significant planning document for the sports portfolio, but where does it fit within the current budget process? And when is the 2011-20 plan meant to start? The minister suggests this is an unprecedented opportunity and that he looks forward to working with his strategic advisory council to progress the initiatives in each of the seven strategic priorities. But there was not one mention in the estimates process. He was much happier to talk about the big-ticket media items like the upgrade for Manuka Oval, and more recently a roof over Canberra Stadium.
If we examine each of the strategic priorities, there is much that can be achieved. But we need only go to strategic initiative 1.3, and already there is current evidence that shows a lack of commitment on behalf of the government. At the very least, this plan provides an opportunity for considerable improvement.
Strategic objective 1.3 is about maximising availability for facilities for people to get involved. I certainly know that this has to get better. We have a football club at Lanyon that cannot get a local playing field for their junior teams, even though the field in question is currently only used in summer. I am sure there are examples in other sport in other parts of Canberra.
We brought this to the minister’s attention in estimates, and I will be talking about this later on. It took 30 days to give an answer which is still wrong in terms of what the real situation is about. So this is what I am saying: we have a wonderful strategic plan but where is the actual application in reality of following the plan that is already laid out and so highly recommended by this minister?
Strategic initiative 1.5 talks of programs that support population groups, including disability. We know from our discussions with VISACT about their difficulties in getting any sort of consistent agreement with government on sports programs in schools. They do some fantastic work in engaging with the sighted and hearing community to promote such sports as goal ball for the visually impaired. As we have already discovered during the estimates process, they have had requests for funding moved between health, education and sport departments. Again, the ability of all of the various departments to engage in delivering the vision for this strategic plan is also quite important, Ms Porter. If anything, we should be calling on other departments to join with Mr Barr in this.
VISACT just want a consistent approach so that they know how to best represent the stakeholders. It would also help if the minister got to understand something of what
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