Page 1108 - Week 04 - Thursday, 22 April 2021
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As I understand it, Madam Speaker, the point of the concluding remarks in the last 10 minutes is to sum up the motion. Given Mr Parton’s insinuation that he did not quite understand it, it would seem that that needs to be done.
Sports are great. Sports groups should be part of the conversation. We need to know exactly what we own and what it looks like as we develop a facilities management plan. Poverty or household income should not be a barrier to accessing sport. That is a nice simple summary. I am glad that we are in unity on that one.
Mr Milligan, you raised a few points in your contribution to the debate that are factual inaccuracies that need to be clarified.
You made the suggestion that the motion did not necessarily include recreation. The word “recreation” is mentioned nine times in the motion. I very thoroughly have gone to the work of making sure that recreation is included. I just did a bit of a count; it did not take too long.
Mr Milligan: Just not in the title.
MR DAVIS: Just not in the title? Well, it is there nine times through the motion.
I give a lot of credit to my friend Mr Parton! I have a lot of time for my friend Mr Parton; he can turn any motion into a conversation about community clubs. I reckon that if Mr Parton tried hard enough, he could have made Mrs Jones’s motion about endoscopy into one about community clubs! It is pretty impressive.
I want to reaffirm—both on my own part and on behalf of my political party—my absolute endorsement of, commitment to and support for the great work that volunteers and community clubs do to support sports in the ACT. We are really committed as a party, and I am really committed as a member, to ensuring that clubs can continue to play that constructive role in our sporting community into the future.
I do not think it is helpful, and I think it confuses the debate, to try to conflate facilities management and sports and recreation funding more broadly with the very separate and very necessary conversation that the Minister for Gaming is having with sporting clubs to ensure that they have long-term, sustainable business models in line with their community expectations.
I put a considerable amount of work into bringing what is only my second motion to this place. In that work, I have liaised with a number of stakeholders throughout the community. You would be interested to know that there is not a stakeholder or volunteer who loves the idea of their kid’s jersey being funded by problem gamblers. There is nobody currently engaged in sports and recreation who has made the argument to me that sports and recreation in the ACT, and its future, are sustainable only if clubs continue to collect the same pokies revenue they currently do. Nobody has made that suggestion to me.
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