Page 2121 - Week 06 - Thursday, 8 June 2017
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MRS DUNNE: Minister, will you undertake to keep full and proper records of people who reoffend while on bail or parole, which has not happened to date, despite the calls by the Canberra Liberals to do so over more than five years?
MR RATTENBURY: As Mrs Dunne well knows—and I agree with her—the opportunity to extract records from our criminal justice system in recent years has not been what we would expect it to be. But, as Mrs Dunne also knows, the government has made an investment in recent budgets to upgrade the database system of ACT courts. I would certainly have an expectation that we would have a better level of data coming out of that to give us an ability to look more accurately at a range of measures. I am happy to take her request on board.
Sport—women’s participation
MS CODY: My question is to the Minister for Sport and Recreation. Minister, can you please update the Assembly on how you are delivering on the government’s commitment to support greater participation of women and girls at all levels of sport?
MS BERRY: I thank Ms Cody for her question. We have had a great year for women’s sport, both here in the ACT and nationally. But this has not happened by accident. The ACT government has set a goal to build more support and opportunities for women’s and girls’ participation in sport and recreation.
We have set this direction for a couple of key reasons. Participation data consistently shows that girls often move away from sport in their teens, and we need to turn this trend around as a means to better physical and mental health as they move into adult life and create a lifelong love of active living and sports participation. The second reason is that sport offers a vehicle to improve equity and culture around gender right across our community. There are so many great leaders and role models in our local sports community and the government know that with their help we can reach out and empower more people to understand and embrace the need for gender equity.
This has been a consistent priority of the ACT government and of mine. Some of the positive steps we have taken on this agenda include coordinating a big “women in sport” week leading into the Giants AFL women’s game and Giants netball playing their first matches ever in the ACT. This year we have ensured that available funding within the national league team program was, for the first time, split evenly between male and female teams. Last week I was pleased to visit the recently completed Gowrie neighbourhood oval pavilion, along with Mr Gentleman, which included refurbishment with a focus on being female friendly through the provision of individual cubicles for showers and toilets within the change rooms.
MS CODY: Minister, what new initiatives is the government doing to continue this important work?
MS BERRY: The government took extensive commitments in this area to the election last October, and this week’s budget puts those into motion.
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