House debates

Thursday, 27 February 2020

Statements by Members

Community Sport Infrastructure Grant Program

1:57 pm

Photo of Amanda RishworthAmanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Early Childhood Education) Share this | | Hansard source

The plot thickens when it comes to the sports rorts saga, with more evidence of the Prime Minister's office's involvement. Frustration and anger is growing in communities around Australia, including within the Coromandel Valley Ramblers Cricket Club. This club has next to no facilities. They applied for a Community Sport Infrastructure grant to construct a clubroom. Sport Australia gave their application 90 out of 100.

An opposition member: Ninety—that sounds good!

It was. If there was a fair playing field, the Ramblers would've received this funding, but of course they missed out. The anger and disappointment felt by so many across the country was articulated by Roslyn, a parent who has two sons who play for the club. As Roslyn outlined, it's not just a sporting club; it's a grassroots group of volunteers who go above and beyond to mentor and support their young players. They deserve support from this government. Roslyn asked me, 'Is there anything you can do to highlight the enormous lack of fairness at the recent funding process?' Well, that's exactly what I'm doing for Roslyn and all of those young people and parents here today. Parents like Roslyn have questions for this Prime Minister, and they deserve answers. To what extent was the Prime Minister's office involved in vetoing deserving, highly rated applications, leaving young people without the facilities they deserve?