John Alexander (Bennelong, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On this week's Q&A program the final audience question was directed to the Minister for Sport: 'What significance is it to Australia to win gold medals at the London Olympics?' The minister's response was to talk of the tried and true trickle-down effect: that greater results achieved at the elite level lead directly to inspiring a new generation of sporting participants to become future champions.

At the 2008 Beijing Olympics taxpayers forked out $16.7 million in direct federal funding for each of the 13 gold medals that were won by the Australian Olympic team. Include elite infrastructure development and state government grants and the cost increases four or five times. Australia is a sport-loving nation, and much of our national culture and identity has developed through the achievements of our sporting heroes. Yet, with community participation numbers in rapid decline, childhood obesity levels becoming epidemic and the size of our televisions ever bigger, we must question if we have struck the right balance when 75 per cent of national sporting and infrastructure funding goes to elite development.

It has been well documented that a much more powerful policy response is the trickle-up effect, where the provision of access opportunity for individuals to participate in sport has the immediate result of creating a greater pool of sportsmen to find talent from and progress to the elite level as a by-product. The greatest thing that a government can do to promote good physical, mental and social health in the Australian community is to encourage physical activity.

It has emerged overnight that Australia has suffered its worst Wimbledon men's result since 1933, when our Davis Cup team chose not to play in the UK. This result is commensurate with the loss of tennis courts and participation, despite the huge injection of funding into elite player development. This year we celebrate 60 years since Frank Sedgman won Wimbledon and 50 years since Rod Laver won for the second time on his way to winning the grand slam. Then we invested no money in player development but we had the largest number of courts and the highest levels of participation in the world, and we dominated that sport as no other country has before or since. The true value of a gold medal comes when elite achievement is a result of the broad-based community participation in sport. This is the history of our greatest champions that we have played with, and then they rose to the top. We could celebrate their great achievements as fellow participants and competitors, understanding the complexities of the game.

When we next return to this place the Olympics will have come and gone. I know that all of us will join with our constituents in celebrating the international successes we see on our TV screens and then hopefully also join them for a jog, a swim or play with a ball so that our future generations can also have something to celebrate.