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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 7 Hansard (23 September) . . Page.. 2077 ..

MR STEFANIAK (continuing):

Shortly after that I met with representatives of the Summer Festival of Sport to discuss future grant funding for the festival. Bureau officers also met with the festival organisers and outlined the major results of the recent review of the triennial assistance category of the sport and recreation development grants. It was through that triennial assistance category of grants funding that the festival received its funds in the past. In future, funding will be refocused to ensure that the government support promotes opportunities for lifelong participation in sport, recreation and physical activities. That is best achieved by sporting organisations which deliver long-term participation programs of a high quality and target them to the changing needs of the Canberra community.

That is a program, I repeat, that was worked up in consultation with ACT sports themselves, a process, to my understanding, which started in 1997 and was completed earlier this year, in time for the grants announcements which started in about May of this year. I accepted that advice. Part of that advice was that an event of this nature did not necessarily deliver lifelong participation. I saw members of the Festival of Sport. I have also spoken to ACTSport about it. Mr Quinlan might like to have a little chat to ACTSport about it, too. I do not think he will necessarily find that they have too many concerns as a result.

I am well aware of the Summer Festival of Sport. I have gone to a number of its events over the years. Rather than delay any advice on this matter until the completion of the current grants process, I certainly believed it was better to tell the events' organisers that the festival might not receive triennial assistance. That is not to say that they would not qualify under some other category, but I do state that the grants process now and the grants which we are administering as a result of the consultation are somewhat different from what they were before. The emphasis is on lifelong participation. So, we have that bit of background there.

As I said, I am well aware of the festival and the various events which surround the Australia Day sports carnival. As a result, I raised the issue of festival sponsorship with a number of potential sponsors. I followed that through, as I am sure the grants organisers could tell you, by writing to some of those organisations. Indeed, the events body, CTEC, was one of them. Unfortunately, that was not successful. That is the basic background to it. There may well be a couple of other organisations which could be approached for sponsorship of this event. I am happy to do that.

Mr Quinlan made a couple of other points. He talked about bed nights. In fact, the Canberra Tourism and Events Corporation have indicated that futsal accounted for about 80 per cent of the visitor bed nights accredited to the festival in 1996. Indeed, my understanding is that futsal, which will actually continue here, receives funding from other sources, including some separate funding from the Canberra Tourism and Events Corporation.

MR QUINLAN: I have a brief supplementary question, Mr Speaker. Minister, is it some sort of cruel and sick little joke that this event is still listed on the home page of the Canberra Tourism and Events Corporation?

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