Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Minister for Regional Services) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Hume, for your question and your strong support of sport in our home state. Around the world, we are known for our sporting success but also for our commitment to fair play and integrity. Sport has shaped our culture and identity as Australians, and it reflects our broader values of sportsmanship and respect for the umpire. Under our nation's first ever sport plan, Sport 2030, we now have a clear path on what we need to ensure that we build a more active Australia. We need more Australians to be more active more often. We can achieve sporting excellence and back grassroots community sports at the same time. We also need to safeguard the integrity of sport, and we need to strengthen and build a thriving Australian sport and recreation industry.

In the last budget, we committed over $230 million to sport, including a number of grants not only for grassroots sporting organisations around participation and infrastructure—and we'll be making announcements about those shortly—but also for high-performance sport. Significantly, we've invested in grassroots sports because they're developing the pathway for the next generation of elite athletes. It's incredibly important to invest in our elite athletes, as they inspire and motivate us all. That's why we have assisted our elite para-athletes and elite able-bodied athletes with an additional $50 million to assist them with their push to Tokyo over the next two years, where I know they'll all do us proud. This builds on our previous investment in high-performance sport to the tune of $100 million. That means a lot of tradies, teachers and coppers—who we've been able to increase the number of due to our strong economic management—are paying hard-earned taxes to ensure that the next generation of elite athletes will go on and do us proud. The strong economic position that our government has been able to deliver through more jobs and growth, has meant more investment in elite sport.