Page 1195 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 2 April 2019
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There will need to be police checks, blood tests and medical clearances. Hopefully, common sense will prevail and the minister will declare this to be a non-registrable event, which, funnily enough, will still have to register, though at least, as a non-registrable event, the applications and conditions will not be as arduous.
We believed that the process and time frame around decision-making across the bill seemed unfairly weighted to the machinery of government and did not give procedural fairness to applicants. Amendments have been put forward to ensure that bureaucrats provide reasons for decisions and there is guidance for making these decisions in a timely manner. A statement of reasons is a simple mechanism to outline the rationale for a decision. I am very pleased that the government has taken this idea on board. This should assist to not only make compliance more reasonable and realistic but also reduce the number of reviews by ACAT.
Madam Deputy Speaker, I found it unsettling in many ways that this was the approach the government was going to take with decision-making for participants in sport. There seemed to be an assumption that applicants had the time, the literacy and the confidence to interact with bureaucracy in this way. An example is a former inmate of the AMC or a reformed person who might have made mistakes in their youth. As is often the case, young men and women have used boxing and combat sport as a positive force for rehabilitation. Combat sports have the potential to provide great outcomes in terms of health, fitness and personal discipline. These individuals may have had a chequered past but they have served their sentences. To potentially deny them registration and not provide reasons for this decision, or a right of reply, seemed unjust. Again I was pleased to work with the government to make amendments on this particular matter.
The Canberra Liberals have worked hard to fix this legislation. The amendments we will be proposing today will help, but we will also have to wait and see what the subsequent regulations have in store for combat sport. The devil will be in the detail. Unfortunately, the government has not finished drafting that important part of the framework. Overall, I thank the minister for agreeing to many areas of improvement, but we will wait and see how these rules and processes play out.
Before I sit down, I would like to thank my staff, and the team from PCO—David, Clare and Karen—for their hard work and assistance to put forward many of these changes. And I want to thank the many local clubs and combat sports enthusiasts I spoke to over the Christmas break. All of these conversations helped me shape my thinking. It was your stories, your businesses and your sporting endeavours that made me so determined to put forward practical changes to this legislation.
MR RATTENBURY (Kurrajong) (4.10): The Greens will be supporting the Controlled Sports Bill 2018. Canberrans love their sports. We know that Canberra is one of the most active cities in Australia and that our sporting events are generally well attended. To improve the safety of contestants and to ensure integrity in the industry, the bill establishes a legislative framework to update regulations on combat sports events here in Canberra. The bill seeks to regulate commercial combat sporting competitions and contests rather than suburban or local combat sports competitions.
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