Page 4930 - Week 16 - Tuesday, 26 November 1991
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But, at the other end of the scale, we must also cater for elite sport, through the Sports Academy and also by having major sporting events come into the Territory. When the Alliance Government was in office, we showed that the Summernats, in fact, brought in about $5m for the expenditure of about $113,000 - $80,000 of which was police overtime. I will have a bit more to say about that matter in relation to the police budget when we come to it - with reference to another more topical and current issue.
That shows just how much can be brought in through a major event. In relation to the Australia Day carnival, studies have been done which show how much comes into the Territory for an event of some 40 sports which lasts about three days. Perth recently got about $20m into its economy from having the Golden Oldies there - 5,000 players and about 3,000 wives, spectators or supporters for a period of about 10 days. Hopefully, Canberra will get that magnificent event, because it really is a big tourism and revenue spinner.
Any sporting event which brings in over 1,000 people and lasts for more than two or three days is going to bring several million dollars, at least, into the ACT economy. Any government has to be aware of that, and I am pleased to see that in this First Assembly everyone is starting to realise that fact. This is a quite important area, especially considering its relevance to tourism, as much as anything else. We are talking about a sport industry.
I note that it is one of two areas in the budget where there are in fact no cuts. Whilst something might have been done in terms of cost saving in the housing area, despite the Commonwealth-State agreements and looking at the Grants Commission findings, this is one area where, whilst I have some reservations about how the Government is going about its sporting policy, its budget is probably not terribly different from what the Alliance Government would have brought in. I reiterate those points which were partly made in the Estimates Committee report but which I would like to see on record now in this debate.
MR COLLAERY (8.21): I rise to support the comments of my colleague Mr Stefaniak, and to add a little more, perhaps from a perspective of having had ministerial responsibility for this area until a matter of days before the budget was set. The hard decisions have generally been avoided in this budget. There are some ideological decisions, but what was required in this city - a city where there are 130,000-odd registered sporting participants - was a decision on a proposal that had received unanimous support from the sporting community, and that was for the establishment of an independent sports body, or commission, by whatever name.
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