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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1995 Week 9 Hansard (23 November) . . Page.. 2443 ..

MS McRAE (continuing):

All of this was particularly disappointing because the Minister has made such great play of being the most energetic Minister there has ever been in promoting greater participation and interest in sport for the entire community, but in particular for our poor defenceless schoolchildren. Whether they like it or not, this is going to be the brave new world of the ACT under the Liberals: 200 minutes a week running up and down on the spot if you do not have any sporting equipment, but that is too bad because "You will be active" is the new plan. Fine, one thinks; I have yet to be convinced of the merit of all of this, but he is pursuing, despite all my protestations - - -

Mr De Domenico: You always whinge.

MS McRAE: Yes, but it is not a bad role to be in, Mr De Domenico. It is better than yours, of always being wrong. I would rather be whingeing with good cause, and I have plenty of good cause. Whenever we try to find out some reason, some rationale, some idea as to why anything is being done, we are told either that it is for greater efficiency or, in this particular case, that it is good for you, that it is good for our young ones to be running around in circles. We will see.

The worry with this budget is that, against all that noise of the fitter, faster, leaner ACT community that is going to be involved in all this amazingly wonderful sport, there was absolutely nothing in this budget, as it was presented, that indicated how the sport and recreation budget is going to assist in the implementation of this new program in the schools budget. What we find is that, rather than having some overall idea of what on earth they are doing, this Government has made a series of ad hoc decisions that all seemed like a good idea at the time, without any overall integrated sense of purpose or design as to how those objectives are going to be reached.

It is well known, because the Minister has taken the trouble to point it out repeatedly, that whilst Mr Lamont was Sport Minister and we were in government there were some ovals that we left, that were not watered and not maintained. There was a very clear purpose for that, which was to save money and to reduce the amount of expense to the community of seemingly unnecessary maintenance work. Against that background, which the Minister well knew and has often taken delight in criticising us about, the Minister has launched into a program that demands that every child in the ACT spend at least 200 minutes on their feet doing something active and then denied them the very ground on which to do it. How can we possibly have a sport budget that takes no account of the expense that is involved in maintaining ovals, in maintaining sport facilities - - -

Mr Berry: Why do we not get them all little push mowers?

Mr Connolly: Get the kiddies pushing the mowers and solve both problems.

MS McRAE: Yes, a whole new sport. Mr Connolly has the answer. Mr Connolly, when you are Minister for Sport, this will be the new Olympic sport. How fast can you run behind the mower? There is no indication whatsoever in this budget of the Minister having for one minute considered the impact of every child in the ACT pounding up and down on these ovals. We do not know what the plans are for the maintenance of these ovals. We do not know how on earth all the children he wants to be

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