Judith Adams (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

As a member of the Environment, Communications, Information Technology and the Arts Committee, I would firstly like to congratulate Senator Lundy on the report About time! Women in sport and recreation in Australia. She was the one who brought the idea forward. I also congratulate Senator Bartlett on his chairing and Senator Ronaldson on his activity. I was involved with another inquiry by the same committee at the same time, but it gives me pleasure to be able to comment on the report.

This morning I was at a presentation by Senator the Hon. Rod Kemp, Minister for the Arts and Sport. He was discussing the merits of the Active After-school Communities program. This is a great program for our most valuable asset, our children. I was pleased to note there was a high proportion of girls involved in this program. With the Active After-school Communities program, instead of heading home after school to sit on the couch and watch TV or play computer games, children stay at school for another half an hour, sometimes longer, with a team of fitness and nutrition specialists. They can play sport and snack on healthy foods.

I agreed with the ambassadors for the program, Olympians Kieren Perkins and Cathy Freeman—a great role model for women in sport—when they said they would love to see the Active After-schools Community program become a permanent fixture in Australian schools. And I feel this would really benefit those issues that have been discussed in the report.

Instead of talking about the problems of obesity in our country, this government is taking steps to improve the lives of our children by engaging them in physical activity that is fun and involves them with their peers and the community as a whole—which brings me to the committee’s report. As Senator Ronaldson is the chair of the Parliamentary Friends of the Paralympics, I would like to speak about recommendation 16, which reads that—