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

The over $300 million which this government committed to sports infrastructure in the Nation Building and Jobs Plan has been the largest one-off federal injection into sporting facilities in our history. We know those opposite do not want to hear about it—because they did not want to vote for it—but we on this side of the House are proud that this is the largest single investment in sporting facilities in this nation’s history. It is providing tangible benefits for sports, benefits for communities and benefits for jobs right around the nation.

As examples to back this up, I can point to the $3.6 million for the Tambourine Mountain Sport and Recreation Complex that will be built in the hinterlands of the Gold Coast. I went and visited this site along with the member for Forde. The site is currently a cow paddock. It does not take too much imagination to realise that a huge number of jobs are created in the process of turning a current cow field into a state-of-the-art, multisport facility for the local community. These projects are providing real support for jobs right now, when it is needed for the community—but they are doing something else too. They are providing infrastructure that will deliver for our community into the long term. This is true of the $2 million which has been provided for upgraded lighting at the Bellerive Oval in Hobart and which will help to ensure that the oval remains a venue for One Day International and Twenty20 cricket matches—an outcome that is really very important for cricket and really very important for Tasmania. I know that my Tasmanian colleagues are looking forward to Australia taking on the West Indies under lights in their Twenty20 game in February.

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