Page 3812 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 30 November 2021
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Having sports and recreation facilities close to where people live has benefits beyond just physical fitness. Research shows that shared sports and recreation facilities that can be accessed easily by small, informal groups helps to build social connection and community resilience. These facilities are needed by everyone in our community. Community halls and sports courts that can be booked for short periods by small community groups provide opportunities for participation by children, adults, older Canberrans, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander sports groups, people with disability, LGBTIQA groups—and I just want to give a shout out to Queer Zumba for being fantastic—and our multicultural community. They enable us to engage in all kinds of sports, as well as yoga and fitness classes, dance, meditation and many other activities.
As our communities recover from the public health, economic and social isolation impacts of COVID-19, and as we prepare for a future where heatwaves and bushfire and smoke events are more common, indoor sports and recreation facilities are even more important. They are spaces where we can shelter from natural disasters during an emergency and where we can build community connections and resilience and take care of our physical and mental wellbeing.
I look forward to the ACT government’s facilities management plan that was agreed to in Mr Davis’s motion in April this year and which I hope will provide community sporting groups with greater certainty about where and when there will be work on sports facilities across our city so that we no longer need to petition or lobby for facilities for individual sports or in specific geographic areas.
Health—eating disorder support services—petition 34-21
Woden—indoor sports facilities—petition 23-21
Phillip—swimming pool—petitions 42-21 and 47-21
MRS JONES (Murrumbidgee) (10.12): Today is a unique day, as all three petitions that have been tabled are of special interest to me. On the indoor sports facility petition, this is something that I support as well. I believe that facilities in the Woden town centre must cater to the future and the very many people who will be living in that town centre.
On the eating disorders position statement, from very early in my time here in the Assembly I have met with and spoken to people who were struggling in this area and for whom there were not appropriate services in the ACT. I am sorry to see that we have not really sorted this out yet. I am very much in support of that petition as well.
The Phillip pool petition asked the Assembly to provide a grant to upgrade the Phillip pool and to get the maintenance done to ensure that the pool is kept open until another outdoor pool, or the current one, is available in the long term for the people of Woden. The people of Woden deserve a swimming pool. They have always had a swimming pool. The fact that that swimming pool was sold to a private developer on a 99-year lease should not mean that there is any possibility that they will end up without their own swimming pool.
The Phillip swimming pool is the only outdoor swimming facility on the south side open to the public—the only one. The north side has many, in particular Dickson,
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