Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Democrats) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I present the report of the Environment, Communications, Information Technology and the Arts References Committee, About time! Women in sport and recreation in Australia, together with the Hansard record of proceedings and documents presented to the committee.

Ordered that the report be printed.

I seek leave to move a motion in relation to the report.

Leave granted.

I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

As a historical aside, this will be the final report by the Environment, Communications, Information Technology and the Arts References Committee, and it is about sport. The reference was made on 29 March this year and it is being tabled today, 6 September, so that is a fairly tight time frame to have an investigation into issues surrounding women in sport and recreation. Despite that, this is a substantial and substantive report, and credit must go to all those who were involved in bringing it together. That includes, of course, the many people in the general public who showed interest in this issue.

The committee received 81 submissions, conducted three public hearings, heard from 35 different witnesses in those hearings and, through the report, makes 18 recommendations for further action. This report does not exist in a vacuum; it builds on a large body of work over a couple of decades in addressing the various challenges and issues facing women in sport and recreation. A whole lot of those are listed in appendix 1 of the report. Towards the end of its inquiry, the committee also wrote to state and territory departments of education, asking a number of questions in relation to the number of physical activity programs in schools, and the responses that came in from the various departments prior to the report being finalised are also contained in an appendix within the report. They will be available on the committee’s website, as will be any future responses that do come in.

I think it is worth reading from the summary at the front of the report, because it does encapsulate quite well some of the key issues, even though it covered a wide range of areas, as inquiries always do. There are three important points that the committee believes are useful to express and to highlight as an introduction. Firstly, to emphasise:

… the challenges faced by women are not challenges they face alone. There are great health benefits for all Australians that come with being physically active, and there is a need for everyone—women and men, boys and girls—to be more active, and for governments and sporting organisations to play roles in facilitating that activity. There are hurdles that elite sportsmen and women both face in their efforts to compete at an elite level. Outside the sports that have the lion’s share of media coverage, and which are financially strongest, most elite sports people—

men as well as women—

are working hard with relatively few direct financial rewards.

1.10  Second, the solutions to the challenges faced by women’s sport are not for women alone to implement. It has to be a partnership of women and men working—

across the community—

together to create change.

We received evidence from men and women alike about various sporting endeavours and recreational activities and ways they can be enhanced through enabling equal opportunities for women to participate not just in playing but in the coaching, administrating, officiating and governance roles, where the role of women is just as important. And:

1.11  Third, all sportspeople have a part to play in ensuring everyone can enjoy their game or activity and all parents have a part to play—

and the community more widely—

in ensuring their boys and girls stay active and healthy.

In addition:

Everyone in the media, male or female, needs to take every opportunity to give the diversity of sports the coverage they deserve.

As the title of the report aptly says:

It is about time that women have enhanced opportunities ...

It is also of course a lack of time that leads to many women not being as involved as they would like in sport and recreational activities. The report also addresses some of those issues. It covers a range of areas—as I said, it is a substantial report—including the broad health benefits of participation in sport which, it should be emphasised, save governments and the public a significant amount of dollars in health budgets. Encouraging physical activity and participation in sport and recreation is, perhaps, one of the cheapest and most efficient forms of preventative medicine. It also has flow-on social benefits.

There is a chapter in the report dealing with grassroots participation, thereby building community healthiness and reducing isolation. Elite participation also gets some coverage in the report, as does the important role of leadership and governance by women in women’s sport and general sports. It finishes off with a chapter on women’s sport and the media. That is often where a lot of the focus is. That is understandable because, while there are a fair few of us involved in sport and recreation and physical activity, a much greater number of us are involved in just sitting back and watching it on television or reading about it in various ways. It is therefore no surprise that there is often a lot of focus on how much media coverage there is of women’s involvement in sport, as well as the nature of that coverage.

This chapter is an important one. I received some feedback from the public about this inquiry when I put various things about it on my website. People said, ‘It just doesn’t rate as well’—all the sorts of things that we hear all the time—‘people just aren’t as interested in it and people should just accept it.’ The chapter on this issue commences with a couple of fairly typical reports by a couple of journalists basically dismissing women’s sport as just something of interest or great widespread entertainment value for media coverage. But the fact is, as is said in this report, that is not always the case by any means. The 1999 Netball World Championship final, for example, between Australia and New Zealand outrated the Bledisloe Cup rugby held a few months earlier in New Zealand. We all know—it is a matter of great legend; anybody with a beer or a Bundy rum in their hand could tell you—how much New Zealanders and Australians love their rugby and, between them, how much they love their Bledisloe Cup. But, apparently, they love their netball championship finals even more.

One may say: ‘Don’t believe everything you read in the media about these things.’ There is interest in the community and a lot of it depends on how it is portrayed and, as with any of these things, quite frankly, how it is hyped. If the hype or the focus or the genuine interest and participation that is reflected in the community is portrayed in the right way then the interest is there.

There are 18 recommendations, as I said. I will not go through them all. I was pleased in a way because they certainly reflect my view that you cannot just regulate and force all media to show 50 per cent women’s sport. I think those sorts of approaches, whilst perhaps appealing on a surface level, are unlikely to work and in some circumstances could be counterproductive. However, the committee made some recommendations that I believe are likely to benefit and improve the situation. I think it is the sort of area where, once you get some momentum, once you get a shift in mindset, then a lot of it can look after itself. It is just a case of overcoming the barriers. It is not so much forcing people to do something they do not want to do as just removing some of the barriers and making them realise what is there in front of them all the time.

I would like to put on record the work of other senators in this inquiry. Senators Lundy and Ronaldson in particular did the lion’s share with regard to the conduct of this inquiry and the pulling together of the report. It should be emphasised that it is a unanimous report. Senate committees can pull together across party lines unanimous reports that are constructive, that produce strong recommendations and that, if taken seriously, will lead to positive improvements. I would like to take the opportunity to urge the government to do a bit better than it has done many times in the recent era by responding to the recommendations reasonably promptly. The report took only about three or four months to put together. It would be nice to have a response in that time frame.

I also thank the secretariat for their involvement and their very hard work in pulling the report together in that very tight time frame. I thank the secretary, Ian Holland, and particularly Peter Short and Dianne Warhurst with regard to this inquiry. As this is not only the final report from the references committee but will be my final formal act as chair of the committee, I should also thank all the other members of the secretariat who assisted me during my time as chair: Jacqueline Dewar, in particular; also Jacquie Hawkins, Robyn Clough and probably some others. It is always the people behind the scenes who do most of the work; it is the chair who comes along at the end and just drops the report in the Senate. I thank also the other senators on the committee who made it work quite effectively and cooperatively. It is a good example of how Senate committees can work effectively. It has been a privilege to serve in that position and it is good to finish with this particular report. (Time expired)

Michael Forshaw (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before Senator Ronaldson commences, I understand that informal arrangements have been agreed for Senators Ronaldson and Adams to speak for five minutes each and, with the concurrence of the Senate, I shall ask the clerks to set the clock accordingly.

Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Can I initially thank the chairman for his role, his leadership and his kind words. In some respects, I suppose, it is with some sadness that I speak to this excellent report of the Environment, Communications, Information Technology and the Arts References Committee. The fact that we had to prepare such a comprehensive report, I think, is a reflection on what has not been, and there is no doubt that it is ‘about time’. That of course is the title of the report and it is taken from the last paragraph of the introductory chapter, which reads:

It is about time that women have enhanced opportunities, access, media coverage and roles in all sports and activities.

This report, in part, is reflective and therefore a report which documents the exasperation of many women and men about a lack of progress in many facets of the role of women in sport. It is, nevertheless, a positive report. It contains positive recommendations, positive observations and positive suggestions. As chapter 2 of the report says:

One submission, reflecting much of the evidence received during the inquiry, commented that:

The individual, community and societal benefits of regular participation in sport and physical activity are well documented, as are the risks and costs of physical inactivity. Physical inactivity is considered to be the leading risk factor contributing to preventable illness and morbidity among women in Australia.

That was evidence given by New South Wales Sport and Recreation.

I will talk about some of the recommendations in the limited time I have, but I think this report shows we need to break the cycle. There is no media coverage and there are no role models, and I think that has impacted on the participation of girls, as it has impacted on the participation of women who have been in sport and discontinued their participation. It is also reflected in the lack of women in leadership roles. The report says in chapter 5:

Negative perceptions and unreasonable expectations impact on the acceptance of women in leadership roles at all levels.

We simply have to break this cycle. It is just not good enough that, in this country, there are the sorts of barriers that we heard of time after time, from witness after witness. And this was not overtly gender based or feminist based—the report is not and the evidence most certainly was not. I think the committee got firsthand from the witnesses examples of their levels of frustration at what is happening. It is about time that was changed.

I think this is a fantastic report with very good recommendations. A lot of us worked very hard to make sure that this was a unanimous report and that we had a constructive document which we could take to this government, the state governments, other recreation authorities, the AOC, the Australian Sports Commission, the national sporting organisations and sport in general. I hope that future action will be benchmarked against the evidence that this committee received.

We have some recommendations in there to make sure that there is some benchmarking and, in the 40 seconds I have left, I will refer to just two recommendations. The first is that we are recommending to the government that up to $3 million per annum, to be reviewed after three years, is put into the Australian Sports Commission to provide specific opportunities for greater ongoing coverage of women’s sport. We believe this is fundamental to breaking this cycle. It is just not good enough that women’s sport in this country is being treated the way it is by the media. I do not say that it is overt; I just think it is a lack of understanding of what is needed. The second recommendation that I want to draw to the Senate’s attention is— (Time expired)

Kate Lundy (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Sport and Recreation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will have to take a guess as to what that second recommendation was and refer to it myself! I am very pleased to be able to speak to a unanimous report. It is a rare thing these days and has come about through a great deal of goodwill and compromise by members of the Senate Environment, Communications, Information Technology and the Arts References Committee. The title, as you have heard, is About time! Women in sport and recreation in Australia. That encapsulates the ongoing frustration of many activists, including many distinguished sportswomen and feminists, who have long fought for improvements to the status of women in sport and recreation. Hence, it is ‘about time’ something was done. The challenge now lies with the current government to adopt the report’s recommendations. For the federal Labor opposition, this report and its recommendations will inform our women’s sports policy for the next federal election.

I want to acknowledge that this inquiry would not have progressed without the support of government senators. This is a direct result of the government holding a majority in the Senate, and I interpret this support as an indication of a constructive approach and as implying a willingness to address this issue.

It is also the last report to be tabled by the Environment, Communications, Information Technology and the Arts References Committee. As from next Monday, the references committees will be amalgamated with the legislative committees. I would like to acknowledge Senator Bartlett’s chairmanship and thank him for it. He has done an excellent job.

This inquiry had wide-ranging terms of reference. This proved to be a real challenge for the committee in the time frame that the government permitted for this inquiry. Having put forward the original suggestion, I had envisaged at least six months and many more hearings than we had time for. So it is a real credit to the hard-working committee secretariat that such a comprehensive and excellent report has been produced on time, and I know I speak on behalf of all senators involved in thanking them for their efforts. Notwithstanding the short time frame, over 80 submissions and a number of supplementary submissions were received. Private briefings from the Australian Sports Commission, the department and three very full days of public hearings in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra were held.

Many submissions made it clear that the same problems identified over the last two decades have persisted. For example, women are still poorly represented on boards and in leadership positions in sport and recreation, and there is still precious little regular women’s sport coverage on TV.

The report addresses the terms of reference through chapters on health outcomes of physical exercise, participation, elite sport, governance and media coverage. In an environment where current trends show that about one-quarter of our children are either overweight or obese, there was a strong emphasis in submissions on the need for improving levels of physical activity for all children. For that reason, there was a great deal of discussion around the important role schools can play in providing those opportunities. Whilst there was some confusion about voluntary or mandatory targets for physical activity in schools, the report attempts to clarify this. The committee found that girls have consistently lower participation rates than boys by about five per cent. Girls also experience a significant dropout rate in their teens which lowers their participation in sport even further.

The committee found that elite female athletes are far less able to earn a living from playing their sport. Liz Ellis, the Australian netball team captain, made the point that about 3,000 elite male athletes earn over $40,000 per annum through their sport. No woman in team sports can earn a living like this from their sport. Therefore these women must also work; if they have a family as well, it ensures that they must carry out a phenomenal juggling act just to stay involved in the sport.

With respect to governance, the committee found that women continue to be underrepresented on boards. Labor senators expressed the view that the lack of improvement warrants some intervention. We encourage the board of the Australian Sports Commission and national sporting organisations to move to a 35 per cent representation for each gender on their boards, in the way that Hockey Australia did upon amalgamation of their men’s and women’s associations.

While quotas are certainly not universally supported by women, I believe the situation demands action. It will be interesting to see if any changes occur without the need for quotas, given the range of efforts that are currently undertaken. The committee found that setting targets for greater gender equality was in the interests of boards. I know we will all be watching changes closely. We all agree that having greater numbers of women on boards is in the best interests of sports organisations because it ensures that a full range of skills, experience and expertise is available to these boards.

Finally, the committee observed the continuing lack of regular women’s sport coverage on Australian TV and in other media. This is disappointing and unfair because many children and adults of both genders miss out on seeing their female sporting heroes on a regular basis. This perennial problem has women’s sport caught in a vicious cycle that sees a lack of media coverage mean less sponsorship, which means less income, which means fewer resources to invest in the product to promote better media coverage. It is very frustrating.

Women’s sports find it almost impossible to get regular coverage, for a couple of reasons. First, the commercial risk for TV broadcasters, free and pay alike, is considered too high. This is because it is perceived that women’s sport does not rate highly enough to attract advertising, and therefore revenue, to offset production costs and the costs of the rights. When existing sports programming is jammed full of very high quality footy, cricket and other proven rating content, there is very little commercial incentive for networks to try something new like a range of women’s national leagues.

Because the coverage is not there, sponsorships are less lucrative. Because sponsorship revenue to the sport is limited, the sport is less able to purchase coverage. This means there is no opportunity to demonstrate rating credibility and therefore little chance to attract the interest of media buyers and hence break that vicious cycle. It is very frustrating, as I said.

Second, there is the appalling ongoing sexism that is perpetuated by many media jugheads who seem to derive some pleasure from denigrating female athletes and their sports. This immature and unintelligent approach is reinforced by commercial decisions in networks that see less than two per cent of women’s sport on our TV. I say immature and unintelligent because there is ample evidence that women’s sport rates—and rates strongly—when a quality product is produced and promoted well. As we have heard from Senator Bartlett, Netball New Zealand has a product which attracts 20 to 30 per cent audience share for weekly national league games and up to two-thirds of audience share for finals and international matches. This is extraordinary. At the Olympic and Commonwealth Games—to use an event example—we see female athletes rate as well as the men, if not better.

I would like to mention that the ABC has and does make an effort as a result of its charter, although moving weekly netball games in the Commonwealth Bank Trophy competition to its digital channel has pros and cons. It is good because they are aired live, but it is not so good because not everyone has access to digital TV.

What can we do to solve the problem? The committee heard arguments for government intervention in the form of content regulation. However, the committee believes that this would not have the desired effect of creating sustainable quality product and would instead create a ‘content on the cheap’ mentality when it comes to women’s sport. It would relegate women’s sport content to being second rate in perpetuity.

The committee has instead recommended intervention that recognises the commercial realities and economics of television content production. That is why the committee is recommending to the government that up to $9 million over three years—$3 million per annum—should be made available to sports and media organisations in order to subsidise production costs. That would be coordinated through the Australian Sports Commission. The aim is to break the vicious cycle by lessening the initial commercial risk to media organisations in exploring the potential of new, regular women’s sport content.

The report expresses many findings and contains 18 recommendations. If these are fully implemented, the committee is confident the recommendations would make a discernable positive difference to the experience of girls and women in sport and recreation in Australia. The recommendations fall roughly into two categories. Some recommendations are directed to organisations other than the Commonwealth government and its agencies. We hope these are considered in the spirit in which they are intended: the widespread understanding that many stakeholders have the ability to make a difference and have a role to play in improving the experience of women and girls in sport and recreation. I am also very conscious that some of these recommendations may appear familiar. If they do, it is because in some areas the committee found there has been little change over the last decade or two but is of the view that it is worth having another go.

The other category is those recommendations more directly aimed at the Australian Sports Commission and the federal government. The ASC is in the best position to be an effective change agent, to lead by example and to coordinate strategies. Its capacity to do so will depend on the quality of the administration, the will of the commission members and the political leadership and resources provided by the minister.

The report contains, in an appendix, a list of some previous reports. I want to express my gratitude to the authors and contributors to this important area of public policy over many years. (Time expired)

Judith Adams (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As a member of the Environment, Communications, Information Technology and the Arts Committee, I would firstly like to congratulate Senator Lundy on the report About time! Women in sport and recreation in Australia. She was the one who brought the idea forward. I also congratulate Senator Bartlett on his chairing and Senator Ronaldson on his activity. I was involved with another inquiry by the same committee at the same time, but it gives me pleasure to be able to comment on the report.

This morning I was at a presentation by Senator the Hon. Rod Kemp, Minister for the Arts and Sport. He was discussing the merits of the Active After-school Communities program. This is a great program for our most valuable asset, our children. I was pleased to note there was a high proportion of girls involved in this program. With the Active After-school Communities program, instead of heading home after school to sit on the couch and watch TV or play computer games, children stay at school for another half an hour, sometimes longer, with a team of fitness and nutrition specialists. They can play sport and snack on healthy foods.

I agreed with the ambassadors for the program, Olympians Kieren Perkins and Cathy Freeman—a great role model for women in sport—when they said they would love to see the Active After-schools Community program become a permanent fixture in Australian schools. And I feel this would really benefit those issues that have been discussed in the report.

Instead of talking about the problems of obesity in our country, this government is taking steps to improve the lives of our children by engaging them in physical activity that is fun and involves them with their peers and the community as a whole—which brings me to the committee’s report. As Senator Ronaldson is the chair of the Parliamentary Friends of the Paralympics, I would like to speak about recommendation 16, which reads that—

Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The co-chair was Senator Lundy.

Judith Adams (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The co-chair was Senator Lundy. The committee recommends:

… that the government consider allocating up to $1 million to the Australian Paralympic Committee to assist with production and associated costs of televised coverage of the forthcoming Paralympics, and that the arrangement stipulate that a condition of accessing this funding be that there be balanced coverage of male and female athletes.

I think this recommendation is highly commendable and I hope that it is adopted.

One of the major findings of this committee during this inquiry was that physical activity in the form of organised sport involves people with their communities and expands their social horizons. As a rural person I could not agree more with this because sport is important in rural communities, especially for women. I can say this as I am a bowler and I am a golfer. Sport really does benefit all age groups. And for rural women participation in sport means that there is one day they can get off their farms or out of their businesses, come in and enjoy their sport and have a social day. That is the only day that many rural women are able to have to themselves.

The inquiry had three important points which were revealed. The challenges faced by women in sport are challenges faced by everyone. The changes needed to encourage more women to go into leadership roles in sport and to participate more should be addressed by a partnership of men and women; otherwise they will not get to those leadership roles. All sports people have a part to play in ensuring everyone can enjoy their game or activity, and all parents have a part to play in ensuring their boys and girls stay healthy and active.

The committee found that participation in physical activity contributes to the overall physical and psychological health of individuals of all ages and social groups. Submissions to the inquiry emphasised the health benefits for women of participation in sport and recreation. The National Heart Foundation stated that physical inactivity is a significant risk factor for cardiovascular disease and is the leading cause of disease for Australian women.

Physical activity has also been linked to a reduction in the incidence of diseases such as diabetes, osteoporosis, depression, some forms of cancer, and injury among older people. Evidence also indicates that participation in sport and recreation has benefits for all age groups. ABS data and other social research confirms that physical activity provides girls and young women with leadership and teamwork skills, skill development, improved self-esteem and a reduced likelihood of making bad choices. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.