Kate Ellis (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Youth and Sport) Share this | Hansard source

I am not intending to take up very much time; I just did not have a chance to respond to one earlier question of the member for Macarthur about a water safety initiative. In particular, the question was about the Remote Pools Program. Can I just outline that there are a number of different initiatives in this budget which are aimed towards water safety, snow safety and reducing the number of drownings which take place in Australia. The member opposite asked: what are the projections that the government hope to get to for the number of drownings? Frankly, we do not want to see any children drowning. We want to keep putting in place mechanisms to reduce the number of drownings until we get to that point. In this particular budget there is $10 million over four years, which has been put towards national recreation safety organisations. This is a continuation of expired funding. In addition to that, there is $12.2 million over four years for saving lives in the water. Of that, $8 million will go towards supporting the water safety initiative.

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