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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 7 Hansard (25 June) . . Page.. 2110 ..

MS McRAE (continuing):

We do not have a comprehensive linking programs other than through the community activity programs. There are quite a number of those community activity programs that try more pointedly to address the very problem that this Government claims its sport, recreation and racing program is trying to address. I think what we need from our budget papers, and specifically what we need from this Bureau of Sport, Recreation and Racing program, is a more comprehensive process of trying to come at just what it is that this Government will do in terms of real change to people's lives. I do not see it in these budget papers.

MR STEFANIAK (Minister for Education and Training and Minister for Sport and Recreation) (4.41): I am not quite sure whether all of what Ms McRae wants is really a matter for the budget papers. Some of the points she raised were dealt with in the Estimates Committee. As she conceded, on page 274 there are a number of dot points about the strategic plan. They deal with implementation of More Than a Game, implementation of Active Australia, expansion of the Aussie Sports leaders program and a number of other things. In a way, I am heartened by what she says. She makes some criticisms but seems basically happy with what is a very good program. It is aimed at maximising our advantages as a Territory.

Anyone who goes overseas or to other parts of Australia and looks at facilities there is impressed with our range of sporting and recreational facilities. Visitors constantly say to me how impressed they are with what we have, as opposed to what other parts of Australia and certainly other parts of the world have. We have the highest participation rate in Australia - currently over 40 per cent, although the bureau suspects that it is something more like 50 per cent. I suspect that that is probably right. I had a chance to look through that amazing opinion poll which was published recently and which showed that Mr Whitecross probably needs to be a little bit more active in upping his profile. I was delighted to see that in September 1996 some 84 per cent of Canberra residents surveyed were very satisfied with our sporting and recreational facilities and the service provided by that part of government. In the more recent one, which I think was in early June or late May of this year, the satisfaction rate had increased to 85 per cent. I think that is a terribly significant satisfaction rating. That is very pleasing, and I compliment the staff at the Bureau of Sport, Recreation and Racing on the splendid job they do. That amount of customer satisfaction just endorses the excellent job that they are doing on behalf of the Territory.

As I said, we have the best participation rate in Australia. Ms McRae mentioned a couple of points about recreation programs. I think it would be very difficult to say to someone who did tae kwon do but wanted to go along to line dancing, "I am sorry. You look fit. Out you go". We do have and we aim to have, as Ms McRae would recall from the Estimates Committee process, a more comprehensive recreation program. In the past when we ran them, we would often get perhaps only 400 or 500 people along per year. What we are aiming at is increasing that number, and I am told by the bureau that they hope to increase it tenfold in the new programs that they are to be running. There were some questions in relation to that at the Estimates Committee hearings.

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