Page 2904 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 13 August 2013
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courts, pool hire and the state of the facilities that they are hiring from this government.
In the lead-up to last year’s ACT elections, we canvassed the views of many different sporting groups—clubs, teams—across a wide variety of sports. At all levels the consistent comments were: “The ground fees are a major expense. Without the canteen generating revenue, we could not afford to pay them.” “Ground fees are a significant impost on the club.” “Ground fees are our chief expense for juniors, and they went up significantly recently.” “Our junior fees do not cover costs and will need to go up.”
Match and ground costs roughly represent between 25 and 33 per cent of total costs, with a higher proportion for enclosed grounds. That is why we went to the last election promising to cut ground hire fees for the junior clubs by 50 per cent. That is why we promised money to local clubs to help them upgrade ageing and old facilities. Labor MLAs suggested that high costs were not an issue and, in any event, the ACT Labor government would offer so much more for local sports. Indeed, they claimed they would spend $26 million over four years on extending the local sports facility upgrade program.
ACT Labor went to the election promising a whole heap of things for local sport—upgrades for various ovals at Kambah and Hawker costing $3.4 million, $2.6 million to restore Spence and Torrens neighbourhood ovals; upgrades to netball courts, new synthetic playing fields for football, and a south side synthetic athletic track costing $4.5 million—or is that $2.7 million for a project at Woden park that is one of the most curious decisions I have ever seen?
The majority of the sporting community wanted a venue where grand prix athletic events could be played and wanted it in Stromlo. The minister, instead, forced the community to have it at Woden park where the community will not be able to stage what they wanted—grand prix events—despite the expenditure of $2.7 million. The facility is not adequate. There is no parking for spectators beyond the 200 mark. So the 3,000-plus people that a grand prix event attracts will cause absolute parking chaos around the Hughes-Canberra Hospital area. Minister Barr’s offhand remarks that people can park at Canberra Hospital was just beyond the pale and is a great insult to the residents of Woden and Phillip and, of course, to all the people who have relatives staying at Canberra Hospital and who currently have a hard enough time trying to find parking. To just dismiss those issues is questionable.
The other thing that $2.7 million will not do for either the athletics club or the football club that share the Woden facility is provide the huge storage area that is required. They have nothing they can store their equipment in, and certainly not the sort of equipment an additional synthetic track would require them to keep at the oval. All in all, we are spending $2.7 million in an area where it was not required, and Mr Barr is saying to us that he is aware of the needs of our community. Well, this is one area where the needs have been very badly miscalculated.
The election costings document indicated the money in most instances would start to flow this year and, in some cases, the promised facility or upgrade would be
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