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What we do know is that our schools have their own curricula and they have autonomy as to how best to manage their schools. We have given our educators the responsibility to develop a full and well-rounded student, which must include levels of physical activity; but it also gives them the discretion to allow choice and variation in that theme. What has been happening since the Minister first made his decree is that schools and parents and concerned community members have been trying to demonstrate how the schools solve the problem in each school and how they approach the issue.

We still do not have a full range of facts. Even the bland and easy statistic the Minister throws out, that in many schools Year 9 and Year 10 students do no formal physical activity or sport, does not have any basis once you examine the argument further. We do not know whether those students are actively involved in competitive sport outside of the school, whether they are actively involved in elite programs which prevent them from participating in sport in school. We do not know whether they go to aerobics every night and have taken personal responsibility for their fitness, which is ultimately the goal we want to reach, rather than relying on the school. Years 9 and 10 are extremely crucial years in terms of a child making decisions about where they are going to go for Years 11 and 12 assessment. They are positioning themselves, and we simply do not know why the students who opt out of physical education and sport have done so; nor do we know whether they are doing any alternative activity which is either equivalent to or better than whatever the school has been offering.

On top of that, we do know that the resources are simply not there. Perhaps the finger can be pointed at us and people can cry “Shame!”. Okay; but just today I heard from a constituent that the Evatt Oval is no longer going to be watered and the activities that the Evatt school was going to undertake on that oval can no longer be undertaken. It is not as simple as saying that there will be 100 minutes of PE and 100 minutes of sport. It needs follow-through in terms of resources, and resources as diverse as water, proper maintenance of the surface, and facilities such as somewhere to park the buses - complaints I hear about in terms of access to sporting facilities. It is not as simple as saying to teachers, “Take these 1,000 kids out to do an activity for at least 100 minutes a week”. We have a collective responsibility to ensure that those resources are there, and we know that the resources are not being maintained or kept up to a satisfactory level, even when this push is on to move more teachers and students to the sporting arena.

The other thing that has happened in recent years and that greatly worries everyone involved with outdoor education and sport is the far higher level of responsibility that teachers are expected to take, must take, for the security of their students. We witnessed in Canberra about four years ago a tragic accident in which a girl who was taken rock climbing was permanently brain damaged. The ripples from that accident have been felt throughout the entire ACT system. I have a brother-in-law who works in outdoor education in Victoria, and throughout the entire system in Victoria and everywhere else teachers are very wary of taking students anywhere where the level of physical damage could be high. Any rugby match fits into that category. Any cricket match fits into that category. Most sporting activity fits into that category.

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