Page 2093 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 15 May 2013
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and physical activity organisations. The Australian government supported the recommendation in its 2010 vision for sport entitled Australian sport: the pathway to success, which did commit the government to delivering a national sport volunteer strategy to better engage, support, train and recognise our volunteers. The strategy supports the government’s broader national volunteering strategy.
The Australian Sports Commission is facilitating the development of the national sport volunteer strategy through a working group of key stakeholders with representatives from government, including relevant federal departments, the Australian Sports Commission, state and territory departments of sport and recreation, through the Committee of Australian Sport and Recreation Officials. Various non-government organisations, such as Volunteering Australia, Service Skills Australia and various national sporting organisations are involved in this important work.
In the time that remains I would like to focus on the volunteering effort in the areas of tourism and events. The Canberra and Region Visitors Centre, managed by Australian Capital Tourism, provides information to visitors to Canberra. It is open 364 days of the year, and the visitors centre prides itself on very high levels of customer service. During 2012 the centre welcomed 165,000 visitors through its doors, answered nearly 13½ thousand phone calls and responded to nearly 1,500 emails. Approximately 70 registered volunteers support the daily operations of the Canberra visitors centre, with half the volunteers having been in the program for more than 10 years. These volunteers are central to the centre’s ability to deliver a comprehensive visitor information service.
Australian Capital Tourism supports these volunteers through familiarisation and customer service training, networking events and a volunteers’ Christmas party. These volunteers are passionate ambassadors for our city, delivering exceptional customer service, whether that is face to face or over the phone. Their high quality of work is demonstrated by the outstanding results the centre’s annual customer satisfaction survey receives. Ninety-five per cent of the centre’s customers rated the quality of service delivered as “excellent”. It is a commendable result.
Thank you to all of the volunteers who do so much to assist in our community. I thank Ms Porter for this motion today.
MS BERRY (Ginninderra) (6.25): I too would like to thank Ms Porter for raising this motion to acknowledge the work of volunteers in our community. I would like to start by congratulating all of those winners in the ACT volunteer awards.
Volunteers come from all sectors of our society, and we have talked about them today. They are students and old people, public servants and parents. They volunteer in areas as diverse as education, conservation, sports and welfare. It is estimated that each year volunteers make a $70 billion contribution to the Australian economy, and we all know that they have an immeasurable impact on their local communities.
Today I would like to draw attention to a particular kind of volunteerism—the work many single parents do in their local communities to enrich and strengthen our city. Usually when we think about volunteers we think about people who give up time to
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