Page 734 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 29 March 2006
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
and it will just make it even harder for a body like that, let alone the average punter or the average sporting group which has volunteers if they have to wade through a plethora of bureaucratic red tape and have difficulty knowing exactly what department they should go to. They might end up having to go to four different departments before they actually get the assistance they need. The ACTSPORT paper on this area concludes:
Any suggestion by the Functional Review that continued fragmentation of the sport and recreation industry is a viable option would further disenfranchise the sport and recreation industry’s links with Government, at both the state and national level. Creating disparate functions across the many government portfolio areas that may gain a benefit from sport and recreation is counterproductive to a cohesive sport and recreation industry and effective delivery of programs and services to the community.
The paper says a bit more about that and then it talks about a number of other areas. One area of concern is grants. The ACTSPORT paper says that it would be far more effective if all sport and recreation grants were available from, and determined by, one single sport and recreation agency with strong industry knowledge and relationships. They say that they have been concerned about suggestions that one single government grant unit could manage all government grants and that that approach is not supported by the sport and recreation industry. Might I say that it never has been.
Might I say in terms of the centralisation of grants that there have been suggestions and moves by the bureaucracy to do so under governments of all political persuasions. Over probably the last 15 years, certainly since self-government, I do not think we have ever had a centralised grants program. Certainly, governments of all persuasions have decided that that is not an efficient way to go. The sport and recreation program is a particularly efficient, cost-effective program which costs very little to administer as a result of finetuning over many years. I think that it was started by David Lamont. It was certainly continued by me, and Ted Quinlan most probably continued it as well. It is efficient, it does the job and there are rarely any whinges about how it is run. It is a moderate program. It was cut in the last budget by about $60,000, I am told, and it currently stands at about $2.4 million.
It helps the 120 or 130 sports agencies and other groups. There are usually about 200 grants, most of them small, which are of great benefit to and gratefully received by the industry. It is one of the reasons, I think, that we have such a huge participation rate in the territory. The amount of money is miniscule. I suspect that if the grants program were to be centralised with everyone else, not only would sport and recreation bodies probably miss out, but also administratively it probably would not save any money. It might not be a lot more cost-effective. Indeed, I would caution the government not to interfere with the miniscule budget for sport and recreation. It is a very small amount of money in terms of the territory budget, but the bang you get for your buck is huge. There are health benefits and social benefits and there is assistance to disadvantaged people to enable them to enjoy playing sport and the opportunities that gives.
I would hate to see this government go down the path of conducting a functional review and, at the whim of bureaucrats who might not really appreciate what they are doing, save perhaps a couple of hundred thousand dollars out of a budget of $12 million or so if, in the end, that led to a lot fewer people being active, a lot more problems in terms of antisocial behaviour, a lot more problems in terms of the community not having a feeling
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .