Page 2804 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 29 June 2011
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I am quite happy to accept the amendment that is now before us, which says:
… encourage, support and provide meaningful financial assistance to sporting clubs and organisations, and engage community volunteers …
This is what this government does all the time. There is no doubt about it. We have just listened to the minister talk about the valuable support that our community volunteers and our sporting clubs and organisations receive. There is no doubt that this is a continued program and that we strongly support these clubs and organisations because we know the valuable work they do in the community and we know that they need this valuable support from the ACT government.
So I have no problem in accepting this particular amendment but I am really surprised about the other ones that were circulated before.
MR BARR (Molonglo—Deputy Chief Minister, Minister for Economic Development, Minister for Education and Training and Minister for Tourism, Sport and Recreation) (12.10): That is the fastest and most efficiently delivered backflip I have seen from Mr Doszpot. He has backed away from all of his silly amendments to this motion. That is good to see. It is good to see that common sense has prevailed. As Ms Porter indicated, the government is happy to support the insertion of those words in (2)(b) as it reflects current practice within the sport and recreation portfolio.
I was pleased—I will give him credit—that in his opening remarks Mr Doszpot was able to refer to the most recent exercise, recreation and sport survey, a joint initiative between the Australian Sports Commission and state and territory governments that has been in place since 2001 and that measures the frequency, nature and type of activities within the sport and recreation sector for persons aged over 15 years in a 12-month period prior to the interview.
It is good news, and something perhaps we could all join in acknowledging, that Canberra is the most active part of this nation. Some 87.8 per cent of our fellow citizens participate in some form of exercise, recreation or sport. That has increased from 83.4 per cent in 2001. It presents the sort of measurable improvement that Mr Rattenbury likes to see, and I certainly will advise the Assembly of that in response to baseline indicators and future targets that we have been called upon to provide. But this particular survey provides an annual snapshot of this information and is one where the Sports Commission partners with all state and territory governments. We provide a financial contribution to enable this survey to occur, and we will continue to do so. This will be the method, through that partnership with the Sports Commission and other states and territories, that we will continue to use to measure these outputs.
I note that, within the ERASS data for 2010, again men and women in the ACT have the highest level of activities across the nation. That is not surprising given that the combined result is the highest. And we have seen increases for both men and women for participation in sport and recreation since 2001. Some 86,000 Canberrans participated at least five times per week, representing just under a third of all
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