Page 4901 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 11 November 2009
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government’s “get a move on” policy statement, published in September 2007, the minister for sport intends to facilitate stronger community links through a closer relationship between Sport and Recreation Services and the Department of Education and Training.
The range of opportunities made available through community-based sport and recreation programs and Sport and Recreation Services will include sport leadership training for student-led activity in schools; skill development programs culminating in game play; and accessible pathways into participation programs and local competitions.
Programs targeting culturally and linguistically diverse groups are also integral to the government’s strategy. Programs aimed at reaching children with disabilities and Indigenous students will be further supported to ensure that all primary-aged children are provided with the opportunity to be physically active.
The ACT has the highest level of participation in sport across all demographics. However, it says much for this government that we are not satisfied with achieving national leading results: we aim to go one step further. There are compelling reasons to seek to further improve on these figures. We may lead the rest of the country in respect of participation in sport across all demographics, but we need to achieve an even higher level if we are to address health-related issues which are the result of an increasingly sedentary lifestyle and develop stronger communities throughout the ACT.
As I said, participation in sport and recreation brings significant health benefits. A recent study by Mathers, Vox and Stevenson found that sedentary or relatively inactive lifestyles are second only to tobacco as a cause of the burden of disease or injury in Australia. I believe that another recent survey suggested that over 60 per cent of Canberrans are sedentary or have a low level of physical activity, which costs the ACT many millions of dollars each year in terms of health services required to address the resultant health problems.
This is one of the reasons why the government continues to work to create more accessible pathways into participation programs and local competitions. However, this objective relies on the access local sporting clubs and other groups have to facilities. This is not a problem unique to the ACT. In fact, several sporting bodies across Australia have ceased to plan for participation growth within their sport, simply because there are insufficient facilities to support such an objective. Where growth exists, pressure is placed on already overused facilities and this increases the maintenance cost to government. This situation is no different in the local context.
If clubs across the country cannot actively seek to increase participation in sport and leisure activities due to the modest level of available facilities or the clubs’ incapacity to afford the existing facilities, then the capacity for these community-based clubs to contribute to community building and positive health outcomes is obviously diminished. Naturally, without local sporting teams actively looking to increase participation in sport and leisure activities, the capacity to encourage participation in sport is diminished.
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