Page 743 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 29 March 2006
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Mr Stanhope did not address that. We have been specifically asked to make sure that sport stays within the one department—Sport and Recreation ACT. Further, I believe we have been asked to make sure that the coordination improves—that people go to one point so they are not necessarily shunted off to other areas.
Maybe one way this could be done is by asking Sport and Recreation ACT to produce an annual report that brings together all the spending in those other areas so that we have a clearer picture. It might be that more than 0.4 per cent is spent on sport and recreation but, while our spending is fragmented across these other departments, it is hard for us to know. That is a job Sport and Recreation ACT could do to justify its position, show the government’s goodwill towards sporting organisations and ensure that a great deal more is not involved in the budget spend. In fact it may be an efficiency measure. I hope the functional review addresses this issue; I hope it is going to be innovative; and I hope it will look not just at the dollars but also the way government can best work to service groups like the many sporting and recreation consumers in our community.
MRS BURKE (Molonglo) (11.39): I will be speaking both to the amendments and to the motion as a whole. It is interesting to note that Mr Stefaniak’s motion calls on the government to give a guarantee that the office of Sport and Recreation ACT will remain in one department and will not be spread across a number of departments. We now see that the whole tenure and spirit of the motion have been watered down to nothing more than a motherhood statement, which is a bit of a shame.
I note that the substitution in paragraph (2) that Mr Stanhope has tabled seems to allude to some veiled message. That is a concern. However, it is likely that the industry is rising up and having its say. I was listening to Mr Stanhope carefully. He said, “Constituents are making representations. We welcome submissions. We consult the community. I know all about physical activity.” It is good to hear that. Accordingly, I feel more confident that, now the community has spoken so loudly in the way that they have, the government may, just may, stop and really assess what they are going to do.
The fear of the sporting and recreation community was that the government would go ahead carte blanche with its agenda of perhaps decreasing the effectiveness of sport and recreation as a unit. The concern I have is that the department will be split so that it dissipates effort and really devalues the organisation as a whole. I know that we have heard in this place many arguments about health and fitness and so on.
As I said, I rise in support of Mr Stefaniak’s motion today and will not be agreeing with what the government has tried to water this down to. I agree with his comments that, if the government attempts to split the portfolio across several departments and move to a centralised grants scheme, it will destroy sport and recreation in Canberra. There are no two ways about it: it needs one centralised body—and they were Dr Foskey’s words—where coordination can happen effectively, money can be focused and targeted, and organisations can work to one body.
This motion ensures that the community are supported in their efforts to make their case clearly known before any major decisions are made. As I have just said, it is very good to have on the record that the community has risen up so strongly. I have had representations—Mr Stanhope said he had not—and I understand that many of the
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