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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 7 Hansard (4 June) . . Page.. 1822 ..

MS DUNDAS (continuing):

We have not been told what level of sporting organisations will benefit from any additional funding. It would be far from optimal if all funding for women's sport was directed at a few elite teams, which would benefit very few people. I have seen nothing that would prevent this.

The government seems to have left very little room to move in the time frame for implementation. For this legislation to be implemented, it needs to be passed and gazetted and the ministerial guidelines finalised before the end of June. It would have been more helpful if the government had either waited for the Gambling and Racing Commission report or at least introduced the legislation much earlier in the year to allow more detailed consideration. Considering that the guidelines will need to be ready by the end of June, it is unfortunate that we are not able to see them at the beginning of June.

This all means that the Assembly is being asked to pass legislation without full information on the issue and under great time pressure. This is a situation I am not very happy about. If this Assembly is to make informed, reasoned decisions about the laws of the territory in the best interests of the people, the government has a duty to implement its legislative program in a timely fashion, with adequate information being made available to members.

Even if we confine ourselves to gaming revenue funding options, the mechanism the government has come up with has many problems. I understand that the government wishes to use a market-based mechanism to allow the clubs flexibility to determine where their allocations will be directed.

However, this mechanism creates the odd situation that a club's calculated contributions will not reflect the actual amount they pay. Clause 5 of the bill states that for every $3 of women's sport community contributions that a club contributes the club's community contributions must be calculated as if the club had contributed $4. This means that we are going to purposely use fictitious figures in calculating community contributions. This legislative sleight of hand also means that the total amount of community contributions may fall. If we are looking for statistics about how much money is going to women's sport, this sleight of hand will not help us.

The bill attempts to increase the women's sport allocation by decreasing the contribution to other groups. We have no information about which groups this will come from. However, given the strong commitment ACT Clubs has already shown to sporting organisations, we might infer that they would be more likely to cut funding from charities and social welfare organisations. I admit that this is speculation, but once again we are in the dark about how clubs will respond.

Furthermore, there is an issue about what impacts this incentive will have on decision-making processes within clubs. I note from the Gambling and Racing Commission's report that in the last financial year over 70 per cent of clubs donated over 6 per cent of their net gaming revenue to the community, even though they were required to donate only 5 per cent. Those 70 per cent of clubs accounted for over 90 per cent of community contributions. I am still to be convinced that a club which voluntarily contributes more than is already required will see any incentive in a discount for donating to women's sport. Why would anyone seek a discount if they are already happy to pay much more than is required?

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