Stephen Smith (Perth, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Many Australians are aware of the tremendous success of Australia’s national hockey teams, the Hockeyroos and the Kookaburras, and the success they have had over the last 20 years. Much of this tremendous national success has been a result of Hockey Australia’s high-performance program, which since 1984 has been based at the Perth Hockey Stadium near Curtin University in Perth. Hockey Australia is now reviewing where the home of the high-performance program will be. The board of Hockey Australia was due to make its decision about that matter at its meeting on 17-18 February. That meeting deferred the decision until the board’s next meeting on 20 April.

In the run-up to the board’s February meeting, I very much welcomed the following statement by the new Minister for the Arts and Sport, Senator George Brandis:

Not all the centres for sporting excellence in Australia are in the south-east corner of the country. Nor should they be.

I made the point at the time that both the board of Hockey Australia and the Australian Sports Commission should take very careful note of that message from the minister. I now have very grave concerns that the board of Hockey Australia and the Australian Sports Commission are deliberately ignoring that message sent to them by the minister.

The Australian Sports Commission have made it clear on a number of occasions at Senate estimates that they will simply rubber-stamp whatever decision is made by the board of Hockey Australia. There are clearly national interest issues here which the Australian Sports Commission cannot wash its hands of. I fear that the Australian Sports Commission is effectively engaging in a conspiracy of silence with elements of the board of Hockey Australia to move the High Performance Unit from Perth to Sydney, not on the basis of merit but on the basis of a Sydney and south-east Australia phobia of the west.

I am also very concerned that Hockey Australia is now engaged in a tainted process. When the board delayed its decision in February, it enabled Hockey New South Wales to have full and detailed knowledge of the bid by the Western Australia Hockey Association for the location of the unit to continue in Western Australia. There are members on the board of Hockey Australia who are clearly in a conflict of interest position. There is now a very grave danger that in a conspiracy of silence, without any transparency, without any objectivity, the board of Hockey Australia will change the location of the High Performance Unit from Perth to Sydney. This decision will be based not on merit but on a Sydney and New South Wales phobia of the west. The board of Hockey Australia and the Australian Sports Commission should pay heed to the message sent to them by the new minister. It is not in the national interest to have high-performance units located solely in the south-east corner, and this should be the subject of national attention and national interest. (Time expired)