Page 2922 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 15 August 2018
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Allocate all community contributions to a centrally administered fund.
Mr Ramsay and everybody in this room knows that if indeed the government were to allocate all community contributions to a centrally administered fund, most of the in-kind donations would go out the window. Virtually all of the local sporting funding would go out the window the Probus clubs, the seniors groups, the dance groups, the social golf clubs, the rugby league clubs, the gymnastics clubs, the Spanish language classes, the jazz clubs and the girls’ AFL, we could go on and on; the list of clubs and groups is a thousand strong. Many of them do not fall under the guidelines of what Hands Across Canberra supports. I am sure that many of them would not fall within the scope of what the Chief Minister sees as being important, but they are vitally important to all of those who are involved in them, vitally important.
I love it that the discussion paper says that it favours “a transitional period where changes are phased in … to ease the burden of adjustment for organisations that have relied on current funding arrangements”. Let me be clear on what the burden of adjustment actually means. The burden of adjustment translates to “You’re on your own now, Jack; you’ve got nothing.” It translates to social clubs and sporting clubs folding. It translates to kids from economically challenged families not playing sport.
Even if all of the clubs’ community contributions are not siphoned out for the comrades to deliver to their charities of choice, even if it is only a portion of those funds, the reality of life in this space is that there is only so much money to go round. If a large portion is taken by the government, it ceases to be a community contribution. That is not a community contribution. Let’s get serious; what we are talking about here is a tax. It is a tax; it is not a community contribution at all. It is a vindictive tax, Madam Speaker. It is a way to punish the clubs for daring to exercise their democratic right at the last election and have a clear position. That is their right. You can argue all day long as to whether they should have campaigned in that space, but this is what you cannot argue with: the clubs formed a view that they would be much better off if a Canberra Liberals government were elected. I would suggest that they are probably right. I would suggest that that was a pretty good call. Seriously, it is not difficult to see why they went down that path.
To the clubs—and when I say “to the clubs”, I mean the clubs boards, their grassroots members and all those who have a connection to their local club, and I note that some are in the gallery today—the thing that stings most out of all of this, the thing that hurts the most, is that Mr Barr, Mr Rattenbury, Mr Ramsay and, by definition, every single elected Greens and Labor member of this place do not trust them. They do not trust you to make the correct decisions in serving the communities that you have served for years; they do not trust you to do it. They do not believe that you have your community at heart. I can understand why so many have been offended by this. I think this is outrageous.
In the discussion paper, one of the risks mentioned in option 1 is the “need to ensure clubs can still meet the purposes for which they were established”. Even the government have indicated that if they follow through with some of these proposals, some clubs may not actually meet the purpose for which they were established. The
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