Kate Lundy (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Sport and Recreation) Share this | Hansard source

I will have to take a guess as to what that second recommendation was and refer to it myself! I am very pleased to be able to speak to a unanimous report. It is a rare thing these days and has come about through a great deal of goodwill and compromise by members of the Senate Environment, Communications, Information Technology and the Arts References Committee. The title, as you have heard, is About time! Women in sport and recreation in Australia. That encapsulates the ongoing frustration of many activists, including many distinguished sportswomen and feminists, who have long fought for improvements to the status of women in sport and recreation. Hence, it is ‘about time’ something was done. The challenge now lies with the current government to adopt the report’s recommendations. For the federal Labor opposition, this report and its recommendations will inform our women’s sports policy for the next federal election.

I want to acknowledge that this inquiry would not have progressed without the support of government senators. This is a direct result of the government holding a majority in the Senate, and I interpret this support as an indication of a constructive approach and as implying a willingness to address this issue.

It is also the last report to be tabled by the Environment, Communications, Information Technology and the Arts References Committee. As from next Monday, the references committees will be amalgamated with the legislative committees. I would like to acknowledge Senator Bartlett’s chairmanship and thank him for it. He has done an excellent job.

This inquiry had wide-ranging terms of reference. This proved to be a real challenge for the committee in the time frame that the government permitted for this inquiry. Having put forward the original suggestion, I had envisaged at least six months and many more hearings than we had time for. So it is a real credit to the hard-working committee secretariat that such a comprehensive and excellent report has been produced on time, and I know I speak on behalf of all senators involved in thanking them for their efforts. Notwithstanding the short time frame, over 80 submissions and a number of supplementary submissions were received. Private briefings from the Australian Sports Commission, the department and three very full days of public hearings in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra were held.

Many submissions made it clear that the same problems identified over the last two decades have persisted. For example, women are still poorly represented on boards and in leadership positions in sport and recreation, and there is still precious little regular women’s sport coverage on TV.

The report addresses the terms of reference through chapters on health outcomes of physical exercise, participation, elite sport, governance and media coverage. In an environment where current trends show that about one-quarter of our children are either overweight or obese, there was a strong emphasis in submissions on the need for improving levels of physical activity for all children. For that reason, there was a great deal of discussion around the important role schools can play in providing those opportunities. Whilst there was some confusion about voluntary or mandatory targets for physical activity in schools, the report attempts to clarify this. The committee found that girls have consistently lower participation rates than boys by about five per cent. Girls also experience a significant dropout rate in their teens which lowers their participation in sport even further.

The committee found that elite female athletes are far less able to earn a living from playing their sport. Liz Ellis, the Australian netball team captain, made the point that about 3,000 elite male athletes earn over $40,000 per annum through their sport. No woman in team sports can earn a living like this from their sport. Therefore these women must also work; if they have a family as well, it ensures that they must carry out a phenomenal juggling act just to stay involved in the sport.

With respect to governance, the committee found that women continue to be underrepresented on boards. Labor senators expressed the view that the lack of improvement warrants some intervention. We encourage the board of the Australian Sports Commission and national sporting organisations to move to a 35 per cent representation for each gender on their boards, in the way that Hockey Australia did upon amalgamation of their men’s and women’s associations.

While quotas are certainly not universally supported by women, I believe the situation demands action. It will be interesting to see if any changes occur without the need for quotas, given the range of efforts that are currently undertaken. The committee found that setting targets for greater gender equality was in the interests of boards. I know we will all be watching changes closely. We all agree that having greater numbers of women on boards is in the best interests of sports organisations because it ensures that a full range of skills, experience and expertise is available to these boards.

Finally, the committee observed the continuing lack of regular women’s sport coverage on Australian TV and in other media. This is disappointing and unfair because many children and adults of both genders miss out on seeing their female sporting heroes on a regular basis. This perennial problem has women’s sport caught in a vicious cycle that sees a lack of media coverage mean less sponsorship, which means less income, which means fewer resources to invest in the product to promote better media coverage. It is very frustrating.

Women’s sports find it almost impossible to get regular coverage, for a couple of reasons. First, the commercial risk for TV broadcasters, free and pay alike, is considered too high. This is because it is perceived that women’s sport does not rate highly enough to attract advertising, and therefore revenue, to offset production costs and the costs of the rights. When existing sports programming is jammed full of very high quality footy, cricket and other proven rating content, there is very little commercial incentive for networks to try something new like a range of women’s national leagues.

Because the coverage is not there, sponsorships are less lucrative. Because sponsorship revenue to the sport is limited, the sport is less able to purchase coverage. This means there is no opportunity to demonstrate rating credibility and therefore little chance to attract the interest of media buyers and hence break that vicious cycle. It is very frustrating, as I said.

Second, there is the appalling ongoing sexism that is perpetuated by many media jugheads who seem to derive some pleasure from denigrating female athletes and their sports. This immature and unintelligent approach is reinforced by commercial decisions in networks that see less than two per cent of women’s sport on our TV. I say immature and unintelligent because there is ample evidence that women’s sport rates—and rates strongly—when a quality product is produced and promoted well. As we have heard from Senator Bartlett, Netball New Zealand has a product which attracts 20 to 30 per cent audience share for weekly national league games and up to two-thirds of audience share for finals and international matches. This is extraordinary. At the Olympic and Commonwealth Games—to use an event example—we see female athletes rate as well as the men, if not better.

I would like to mention that the ABC has and does make an effort as a result of its charter, although moving weekly netball games in the Commonwealth Bank Trophy competition to its digital channel has pros and cons. It is good because they are aired live, but it is not so good because not everyone has access to digital TV.

What can we do to solve the problem? The committee heard arguments for government intervention in the form of content regulation. However, the committee believes that this would not have the desired effect of creating sustainable quality product and would instead create a ‘content on the cheap’ mentality when it comes to women’s sport. It would relegate women’s sport content to being second rate in perpetuity.

The committee has instead recommended intervention that recognises the commercial realities and economics of television content production. That is why the committee is recommending to the government that up to $9 million over three years—$3 million per annum—should be made available to sports and media organisations in order to subsidise production costs. That would be coordinated through the Australian Sports Commission. The aim is to break the vicious cycle by lessening the initial commercial risk to media organisations in exploring the potential of new, regular women’s sport content.

The report expresses many findings and contains 18 recommendations. If these are fully implemented, the committee is confident the recommendations would make a discernable positive difference to the experience of girls and women in sport and recreation in Australia. The recommendations fall roughly into two categories. Some recommendations are directed to organisations other than the Commonwealth government and its agencies. We hope these are considered in the spirit in which they are intended: the widespread understanding that many stakeholders have the ability to make a difference and have a role to play in improving the experience of women and girls in sport and recreation. I am also very conscious that some of these recommendations may appear familiar. If they do, it is because in some areas the committee found there has been little change over the last decade or two but is of the view that it is worth having another go.

The other category is those recommendations more directly aimed at the Australian Sports Commission and the federal government. The ASC is in the best position to be an effective change agent, to lead by example and to coordinate strategies. Its capacity to do so will depend on the quality of the administration, the will of the commission members and the political leadership and resources provided by the minister.

The report contains, in an appendix, a list of some previous reports. I want to express my gratitude to the authors and contributors to this important area of public policy over many years. (Time expired)