Carina Garland (Chisholm, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm not surprised to hear it's difficult for those opposite to comprehend a grants scheme with integrity at its heart. But, nonetheless, I am very prepared to talk about women's sport and girls' sports. In fact, one of the very first political acts I ever participated in was in primary school, when I organised a petition in my class for girls to be able to play soccer. This is a cause very close and near and dear to my heart, and I'm proud to be part of a government that wants to see more girls and women participate in sport.

We were proud to deliver one of Australia's largest and most comprehensive investments in women's sport, with funding and reforms to help more women play sport. This is the single-biggest package for women's sport facilities ever. Play Our Way represents a $200 million fund to help our next Olympians, Paralympians, Matildas, Diamonds and so many more athletes. I know how passionate my own local community in Chisholm is about this. They are passionate about equality in sport and promoting girls' and women's participation.

I'm pleased that existing projects that I've been working on and advocating for will enhance women's and girls' participation through dedicated infrastructure. It was not too long ago that I had the privilege of turning the sod for a new pavilion at Mount Waverley Reserve. I'm looking forward to seeing that project for the football, netball and cricket club advance; it is a vital piece of community infrastructure that will mean facilities for girls and women and will further encourage their participation in sport.

My community knows how important Play Our Way is. We know that too often women and girls are changing in men's bathrooms or in their cars, wearing hand-me-down boys' uniforms and playing with men's equipment on poor fields that people would never let the boys play on. Too many girls drop out of sport and never come back as women; that's a particular issue with girls as they reach their teenage years. Play Our Way will address these issues to help women and girls enjoy sport for life. The Play Our Way grant program is robust and meticulous by design. We want to help clubs address participation barriers faced by women and girls.

This program was designed by experts to deliver excellent outcomes with lasting positive impacts on a wide range of communities, funding great ideas at a local level and across a range of different sports. This is a wonderful opportunity for local governments, community organisations and the not-for-profit sector and sporting organisations to show how they can create a better sporting landscape for women and girls across the country, and that's what we want to do—create a landscape for women and girls to participate in sport. Part of this is ensuring that the grant process has integrity. I'm really disappointed that the coalition have seemingly learned nothing from their awful sports rorts debacle, where they funded women's facilities for clubs that didn't even have women's teams, simply because they thought it was politically advantageous. I have to say that, when I was elected, I was really shocked when I saw locally the extent to which grants were mishandled. I heard from a number of clubs—and this was really difficult to hear—who were misled and were told things that were not true about their grant applications. They believed that there had been money budgeted and allocated to them by the previous government, and this proved to be false, and there was absolutely no record of paperwork. This is really appalling and so damaging to the community. When you hear stories like this, you understand why people do not have much faith in politicians at times. I will never behave in such a cynical way, and I absolutely believe that there must be integrity, transparency and accountability in grant programs such as this. I don't apologise for that. This is taxpayer money after all.

I am really pleased that we have received more than 1,600 applications from all over Australia for the Play Our Way grants. They are being assessed in the way that I think taxpayers would expect them to be. I'm so pleased to be part of a government that takes girls' and women's sport seriously and takes our responsibility to taxpayers seriously. I commend this motion to the House.

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