Page 846 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 9 April 2014

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MR DOSZPOT: Minister, what financial assistance by way of reduced ground hire charges or similar support has or will be offered to Woden?

MR BARR: The government will look at the relevant issues, and if assistance can be provided, we will.

MADAM SPEAKER: A supplementary question, Mr Gentleman.

MR GENTLEMAN: Minister, what feedback have you had on sporting grounds upgrades from the community across the ACT?

Mr Doszpot: On a point of order—

MADAM SPEAKER: Mr Doszpot, can you tell me what your first question was?

Mr Doszpot: The whole question is around Woden Football Club, not generally.

MADAM SPEAKER: And it was about why the club based in Woden was offered Hawker or Kaleen and what support was offered. The next question was: what financial assistance was offered? However, you, Mr Barr, did talk about the upgrades in your answer. I will rule the question in order.

MR BARR: Thank you, Madam Speaker. The government is undertaking an extensive upgrade of sport and recreation facilities across the territory. The locations include Tuggeranong in the south, Gungahlin in the north, Molonglo in the west and places in the eastern part of Canberra. At Watson I was recently able to open the refurbished oval, new cricket nets and upgraded pavilion.

Also this week, we were able to open the Gungahlin town centre enclosed oval that provides a world-class facility for four sports, the four football codes. It is a wonderful investment in sport and recreation in the territory and will certainly provide for the growing Gungahlin community and the needs of the premier league teams in their respective football codes.

I think the value of the sport and recreation industry to the ACT is more than $300 million each year. There are 30,000-odd Canberrans who volunteer their time to support sport and recreation in the territory in any given week, which is a fantastic level of community support for sport and recreation, and the government, through our annual sports grants funding, our sports capital funding, our asset repair and maintenance funding, certainly are providing timely support to assist a wide variety of sports—sports as diverse as volleyball, archery, grid iron, the football codes, cricket.

Each year we provide support for nearly 80 different sport and recreation organisations through our annual grants round. So we are very active in our support of sport and recreation and, as a result, Canberra’s—(Time expired.)

MADAM SPEAKER: A supplementary question, Mrs Jones.


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