Harry Jenkins (Scullin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Progressively during the years of the Howard government we have seen decisions that are breathtaking in the way in which they are inconsistent and the way in which they show a degree of the victory of good politics over good policy. The example I am going to give tonight might seem minor, but in an electorate like mine, which is culturally diverse and has migrants from various backgrounds, it is important that we support the diversity that that means.

The decision by the Australian Sports Commission to cease funding the sport of bocce and other similar sports beyond June 2006 is breathtaking if you take it in the context of the type of funding that was thrown around to sporting bodies in the run-up to the last election. The reason given to the Bocce Federation for this change in funding is that there has been a directive from the federal government to the Australian Sports Commission that it must assist Olympic, Commonwealth and high-profile sports to meet their increased costs.

What we are arguing about here is the $51,000 per annum that bocce receives at a national level. Compare this with high-profile Australian sports such as Australian Football, Rugby and Soccer, which receive in excess of an average $900,000 per annum in Australian Sports Commission grants. Bocce is played throughout Australia. It was brought here by migrants from countries such as Italy and Malta. In my electorate of Scullin there are formal bocce lines that have been put in place by the Italian, Maltese and Croatian communities. If you go to any picnic ground or park around Australia you will see the way in which sports like bocce, boules and petanque have been picked up by the wider Australian community as a recreational pursuit.

As I said, this defunding of the Bocce Federation of Australia can be contrasted with the run-up to the 2004 election, when there were promises of around $2 million made as election commitments—no program, no criteria, no accountability, no contestability and no way in which people knew that they could apply. For instance, of that $2 million, marginal seats such as McEwen, which is the neighbouring electorate to mine, received $340,000. Now the federal Minister for the Arts and Sport would simply say, ‘This isn’t a Commonwealth responsibility. This is something that should be picked up by the states.’

In fact, Minister Kemp said to the Senate committee in November last year that he did not consider instituting a formal sports facilities program through his department prior to the last election, and he specifically ruled out introducing one in the future. Minister, explain how $2 million went to a handful of electorates without people knowing that these funds were available. Now, under his administration, we have genuine national bodies like the Bocce Federation of Australia being told, ‘You’re on your own.’ Here is an organisation that in the past had an agreement with a tobacco company. But, because of the change in laws relating to tobacco sponsorship in sport—which I wholeheartedly agree with—it has lost that funding.

At the time that legislation went through this place the government said that it would make transitional arrangements to ensure that sporting federations were not out of pocket because of the change in policy. But we see in this case that nothing happened. Again, I maintain that this is an example of the way this government, with the rampant way it makes decisions, can on the one hand, in the run-up to an election, throw money at something as good politics, but, when there is a need for good policy, cannot see its way through to ensure that it is catering for that diverse fabric of Australian society, which we need to encourage to ensure that things like the events the member for Cook mentioned do not occur. I ask the sports minister to reconsider his decision so that sports like bocce, and other sports that are going to be denied funding, in which we do well on the international stage and commit to internationally—sports that are used in community organisations—are funded.