Page 5574 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 17 November 2010
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space. Crace compares well with Franklin, 30 per cent open space; Amaroo, 29 per cent open space; Holder, 25 per cent open space; Hughes, 21 per cent open space; Torrens, only six per cent open space; and Kambah, only 13 per cent open space.
In terms of the configuration of recreation facilities in the suburbs, the new CRIP in Crace will provide integrated informal sport and recreation green space for the community instead of the traditional local oval. It will offer considerably more sport and recreation opportunities than any other traditional neighbourhood park in Canberra.
I think there are a couple of important facts that need to be put on the table. The irrigated grass component of the CRIP in Crace will be as large as the Chisholm or Charnwood neighbourhood ovals. The CRIP will have wide, sweeping pathways wrapping around a landscaped pond that will be great for cyclists, joggers or parents with strollers. Crace will have one hectare of irrigated turf suitable for football, oztag, soccer and a range of other activities.
Hard court space will also be provided to support basketball, netball and futsal. Cricket practice nets, a tennis hit-up wall, a children’s playground, barbecues, toilets, shade structures and lighting are also likely inclusions. Importantly, the new CRIP will use less potable water by utilising the non-potable pond water for irrigation on-site and through having the most drought tolerant varieties of couch grass.
I think it is important to put that on the record. I think that goes to substantially addressing the accusations that there will be no recreation facilities in this suburb. There will be enhanced recreation facilities, facilities greater than a mere neighbourhood oval. I think that in a mature debate we might be able to move beyond these sorts of wild accusations and look at the facts and what is being proposed.
I think it is a better model. It provides for more diverse sport and recreation activities and more diverse community activities to be incorporated—things like having shade structures, barbecues, children’s playgrounds, netball, basketball, cricket, support for futsal—support for all of those sorts of activities—in addition to an irrigated grass space suitable for football that is of a similar size to the Chisholm or Charnwood neighbourhood ovals. I think most reasonable people would agree that is a significant advance on what has traditionally been supplied in terms of neighbourhood recreation facilities in Canberra suburbs.
I would like to commend the team in Sport and Recreation Services for the work they have done over a number of years in working with sport and recreation organisations to look at community needs at a suburban level and to come up with this new model. I think it would be a great pity if, in light of what appears to be an argy-bargy over technical amendments, what is a really good model for sport and recreation provision at a neighbourhood level is somehow dragged into this and its good name ruined in the context of a debate over whether this is or is not a technical amendment.
That would be my plea to the shadow minister for sport and the shadow treasurer—to give the CRIP model a decent look. I know you are probably not opposed in principle
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