John Alexander (Bennelong, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last week, I attended the Eastwood Ryde Netball Association's 60th year dinner. ERNA is a highly successful local sporting organisation that promotes the active participation of hundreds of netballers in the Bennelong community. ERNA was one of several organisations to receive Commonwealth funding through the Community Development Grants Program, which, according to the department's guidelines, is dedicated to 'upgrade facilities to provide long-term improvements in social and economic viability of local communities'. For ERNA it was $10,000 for refurbishment work of their clubrooms. There was also $20,000 to the Ryde-Carlile Swimming Club for new starting blocks, $93,000 to the North Ryde Dockers to upgrade the amenities block at the ELS Hall Park and $10 million to the Australian Rugby Union for the development of TG Millner Field as the new home of Australian Rugby. The ARU chief executive, Bill Pulver, said in a press announcement:

This funding will help to create a truly world-class training and community facility.

With the potential sale of the Rugby club, the current home of Rugby, this presents a fantastic opportunity for Bennelong to become the proud stewards of one of our nation's larger sports. Combining high-performance training and community health and recreation into a single facility is a key measure to capitalise on sport's position within the health portfolio by developing its role as a tool for preventive medicine. Exercise is the single best remedy to address one of our largest budget expenditure items—preventable illness. It is time for us to end the age of entitlement that has acted as a dead weight on the sustainable development of Australian sporting organisations. Professional sport is big business and, like any other industry, sports associations should be required to operate productively and profitably, rather than be hiding behind a veil of not-for-profit status. A cultural change should be encouraged to motivate sport administrators to focus on the development of facilities as community centres for participation sitting alongside elite athlete training programs and professional competition.

The addition of membership fees revenues can provide sporting organisations with significantly more ongoing income to support the construction of a profitable facility, offering elite players a greater range of high-performance training options and giving the community a world-class recreation club. The challenge is to get administrators and the sports club industry to work together to develop sites for athlete development and the community's development. This model will help achieve the Community Development Grants Program goal to 'support needed infrastructure that promotes stable, secure and viable local and regional economies'.