Page 4917 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 25 October 2011
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that boost participation in sport for all Canberrans. And I look forward to working with the Minister for Sport and Recreation and local sporting community groups to deliver better outcomes for sport and recreation in the ACT.
MR COE (Ginninderra) (4.27): I think Ms Porter summed it up correctly when she said that the government’s record on community sports speaks for itself. It does indeed. We are at a point where many Canberra families are excluded from this activity due to the excessive fees and charges this government is putting on community groups, including sporting groups, for the use of their ovals and other government facilities. What we have here is a government that is in effect stinging Canberra families, stinging children, to prop up its inability to manage the books. In effect, what we have here is a situation where, because this government is so cash strapped because it spends our money so poorly, it has to increase fees and charges for Canberra families to register their kids to play sport.
This is where there is a key difference between those on this side of the chamber and those over there. We on this side recognise that community ovals are there for the community. They are not there as a revenue measure. They are not there as some way for the ACT government to squeeze Canberrans for even more money. They are there for the community to use. What we have now is a situation where those community ovals are inaccessible in effect for many Canberra families.
That is why the Canberra Liberals have a plan to address this. The Canberra Liberals’ plan, I am confident, will have a real and tangible impact on the accessibility of junior sport for Canberrans. It is not just junior sport; it will, of course, affect senior sport as well. But it can be most profound in junior sport, where often there is a cost inhibitor for a family with three or four kids when you take into account other costs such as tracksuits, mouthguards, shin guards and boots. All these costs add up, and to have the government sting these families for even more money through the cost of hiring a ground is really inappropriate. It is a matter the Canberra Liberals will address if we are elected to government in October next year.
We also have a situation where the government’s policies are a paradox at best and a genuine and deliberate contradiction at worst. We have a situation where they pay lip service and say: “We want people to be more active. We want people to get involved in sport.” Yet here we have a situation where there are excessive barriers stopping many Canberra families participating in sport. At best it is a paradox, at worst a deliberate contradiction. What we have is a situation where, simply because of this government’s inability to manage our money, it has to increase the fees and charges for many Canberra families.
We heard on the radio today that many not-for-profit organisations are struggling with the administrative burden in the Community Services Directorate when tendering for government projects. I do not think it is any different in other aspects of government management. Community sporting organisations primarily are run on volunteers. It would only be a handful of larger organisations that have any paid staff, and those organisations with paid staff are still dependent on the manpower of volunteers. These volunteers do not have the time and may not have the expertise to fill out all the tender forms and all the paperwork that this government demands. We believe that there needs to be a more streamlined operation.
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