Page 897 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 27 February 2013
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maintenance staff to maintain and improve ACT government owned and operated sporting facilities. These extra staff will work within Sport and Recreation ACT to provide extra capacity to undertake improvements to the quality of our facilities, including fixing irrigation, lighting and restoring playing surfaces.
There is a $5 million commitment to further upgrades of the Narrabundah Ball Park, the home of baseball in the territory; funding to establish a family water play area as part of the Lakeside Leisure Centre at Tuggeranong; a commitment to the University of Canberra sports hub; and funding for community recreation parks, to deliver three new facilities across the city.
So all of this is a clear track record of strong support for community sport and a clear agenda for the next four years. We will continue to provide funding and high-quality facilities to ensure that Canberra remains the healthiest and most active community in the country.
The contrast is the policy that the Canberra Liberals took to the 2012 election, which was, in effect, a cut in funding to community sport. Mr Doszpot, as the shadow minister for sport, supported cutting the lease variation charge, a significant proportion of which is spent on upgrading facilities and supporting local sport. This would have meant that sports clubs would have had to drastically increase their player registration fees in order to fully fund facility improvements, which would otherwise have been offset through government contributions. Whilst they only make up a small part of player fees, ground hire fees are also an important contribution to continuing to maintain facilities at a high level. So a policy to cut fees by 50 per cent would lead, in the context of sports teams, to a cut of a few cents per player per hour but in fact would have resulted in a decrease in funding available to maintain sports facilities.
Mr Doszpot also took to the election a policy of running only $3.5 million worth of sports grants over the next term of the government, which would have represented a significant cut to grants delivered under Labor. Since becoming minister for sport six years ago, I have delivered more than $13 million worth of funding through the sport and recreation grants program. So it can only be assumed that Mr Doszpot’s policy to gut money from community sport and recreation by handing tax breaks to rich property developers instead of investing in community facilities, to cut the sport and recreation maintenance budget and to reduce funding for sports grants would have been a detrimental step for community sport and recreation and one that we will not be supporting.
The ACT has a range of high-quality facilities catering for a wide range of sports, and fees play an important role in helping to pay for the upkeep and running of those facilities. Fees are, as Mr Doszpot indicated, adjusted annually to keep up with the cost of maintaining sportsgrounds and facilities. However, it is important to note that I have not signed off on any increases in sportsground fees since the 2011-12 financial year fee schedule.
New fees would normally come into effect at the beginning of October each year, to encompass the coming summer season, but with a predominant impact upon the
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