Page 748 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 29 March 2006

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The Assembly voted—

Question so resolved in the affirmative.

Amendments agreed to.

MR STEFANIAK (Ginninderra) (11.58): I thank those members who contributed to this debate for contributing to the debate. This is an important debate. I appreciate the fact that even the Chief Minister certainly understands the sentiment of the motion.

Most of us have been involved in various sporting activities over the years in the territory. Those of us who have lived here for any period of time know how terribly important it is, not only for physical fitness but for social cohesion, to have a sense of pride. Tomorrow the Raiders will celebrate their 25th anniversary. Just think of the benefit they have brought to the territory as a team in a national competition. They were preceded by the Cannons. Think of the joy teams like the Capitals bring to the territory. Think of the sheer joy people get from seeing their kids running around playing various sports on the weekend.

It is not a big part of the budget. The demands and representations of the sports industry are more than reasonable. As much as anything else, apart from the fact that this motion will now go through as amended—and you tend to congratulate yourselves, as usual—bear in mind the points that have been made in this debate and the various letters of representation you are getting from this industry. They do not tend to complain much. They do not come to government, cap in hand, all the time. They do not tend to bleat a lot. When the industry comes to government, it usually has a very positive view on what it wants done, some positive suggestions, which governments of all persuasions have usually listened to.

You have made some significant improvements, for example, to the hockey centre at Lyneham as a result of representations made, as did previous governments of all political persuasions. There are some good programs that have emanated as a result of representations from the industry and various practitioners. They emanated as a result of actions taken by people in the sport and rec area and were actioned by various governments of all political persuasions. I certainly hope people in the government, especially ministers, have regard to the points that have been made here before and made here today about the significant health costs we would suffer if, for some reason, you went down the path of needlessly cutting into this miniscule area of the government’s budget that does so much for the people of the ACT.

One of the other things I stress is that you, having knocked back that part of my motion which asks you effectively to not disband the office of Sport and Recreation ACT, a very small office, have regard to what groups like ACTSPORT will say and have regard to

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