Page 1242 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 11 May 1993
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MR STEVENSON (8.55): I believe that the Labor Party consulted widely on this Bill - apart from all the people from the various associations that came along to see me, none of whom were consulted at all. I found out from these representatives of the associations that, apart from the fact that they were not consulted by the Labor members, they agree with rules. They very strongly agree with the rules in their associations and organisations. They tell you about local rules, national rules and international rules. It is a wonder they do not have interplanetary rules. There are so many rules. Even the dreaded kick boxing has a rule book that is bigger than our standing orders.
It is not as though these organisations were going around like old samurai doing what they want. They understand. There has been regulation in all these organisations for a long time. The people involved in the organisations agree very strongly, and they would encourage good regulation. What they do not encourage is bad regulation. From the information we have had from some of the Labor members, you would think you would almost take your life in your hands if you went anywhere near a contest. Just yesterday, in the Daily Telegraph Mirror, on page 5 we saw the headline "Sport Alert as 66 Hurt". The article states:
Serious sporting injuries more than doubled at the weekend, with ambulance officers attending 66 accidents in Sydney.
As you would all know, kick boxing is right up there, or it must be tae kwon do, judo or one of the others! We heard that potentially some of these injuries could result in permanent damage or disability. That sounds like it. I thought that it was Mr Berry saying that. But it was not Mr Berry; it was an ambulance spokesman. He said:
There were 14 fractured limbs, six neck injuries, three spinal injuries, four head injuries, five injured their backs, three were knocked unconscious, three injured their knees and seven had fractured ankles.
That was on Saturday. He continued:
On Sunday there were a further 18 football accidents, a soccer accident, one hockey injury and a person who was hurt on a mini bike.
But we did have a good suggestion. At the end, the article said:
... the key to preventing spinal and most other injuries was to educate players, coaches and administrators.
Let me list the number of ambulance calls by sport. Football accounted for 41 calls, netball nine, soccer nine, hockey one, baseball one, aerobics one - anybody who goes along to aerobics wants to watch out - and rodeos two. We are going to ban them. Talk about cruelty to the animals - these are the people that are riding them.
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