Damian Hale (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to put on record my congratulations to the children and staff from the Active After-school Communities program at the Manunda Terrace Primary School outside school hours care service. I had the pleasure recently to present Manunda Terrace Primary School’s outside school care service with the Northern Territory Active After-school Communities Super Site Award for 2007. To be selected the Super Site Award winner in front of 70 other participating sites around the Territory is a fantastic effort by all those involved. This award recognises the outside school hours care service commitment and excellence in being part of a national program where 150,000 children participate in a wonderful array of safe and fun structured physical activities and each term have been coming back for more. It is my understanding that during the program the children did activities such as canoeing, archery, Irish dancing and netball.

The Active After-school Communities program is offered to all Australian primary schools and approved out of school hours care services. It is free to participating children and their families and is offered in the after-school timeslot between 3 pm and 5.30 pm—a time of day when often both parents are still at work and a timeslot that ensures kids have great fun being physically active with their friends.

The program relies heavily on people who are delivering the physical activities to the schools and the out of school hours care services. I acknowledge the commitment of the staff and applaud the significant contribution of all those who are involved in delivering the program. I would like to acknowledge the hard work of Sandra Evans and her team at Manunda Terrace Primary and Tracey Parker, the Active After-school Communities regional coordinator supporting this site.

Eighty-five per cent of children currently participating in the Active After-schools Communities program were considered inactive, so it is through programs such as this that we can increase the physical activity levels of primary school age children in an effort to decrease childhood obesity rates in Australia. What has been most pleasing, though, is the retention rates of children involved in these programs, with over 80 per cent of children showing great enthusiasm to return to the program each term. Once again, I congratulate all concerned with this program and encourage all schools in Australia to engage in similar programs.