View submission details
Submission by Liz Bourne, Orienteering Queensland on 27 March 2009.
2. Better place sport and physical activity as a key component of the Government's preventative health approach
- Examine Government frameworks to ensure an on-going focus on grassroots and community sport and physical activity.
The Federal Government needs to place much more emphasis on promoting sports that encourage greater and on-going community participation. In recent years, the concentration by the Australian Sports Commission on the elite/high perfomance aspects of sport and on Olympic sports has been to the detriment of those NSO's, like Orienteering Australia, who seek to promote involvement in a sport for life for all ages and levels of abilities. In addition, a failure to develop a broad base of participants will ultimately be reflected in a lack of depth at the elite level. The abolition of funding for Sports Development by the Australian Sports Commission in 2005 for smaller NSO's such as Orienteering Australia was a damaging decision that greatly affected the ability of our national body to assist the states to promote and develop the sport throughout Australia. This needs to be rectified.
- Examine Government programs to increase participation rates in sport and physical activity, including analysis of existing programs.
The Federal Government could greatly assist by promoting greater awareness of the range of sports available, especially those sports that are more community based and not commercial ventures. The extensive media coverage, sponsorship and higher profile of sports such as the various codes of football, cricket, tennis etc. makes it extremely difficult for lesser known and less well funded sports to gain public attention. The ASC should have a dedicated, separate program to support community sports. A government funded marketing strategy, with an emphasis on those sports that encourage participation by all, would greatly assist sports such as ours. “Role model” sports such as ours that encourage participation, not merely spectating, are open to all, are family friendly and promote gender equity should be particularly promoted.
- Identify and recommend opportunities to break down barriers to participation at junior, adult and senior ages with a view to making it simpler and easier for Australians to participate in the sport or physical activity of their choice, including for women, the disabled and Indigenous people.
The barriers preventing people from a greater involvement in sport and recreation are multiple. Not everyone wants to commit to regular involvement in team sports and some are not attracted to those sports that require high levels of skill or are perceived to be too competitive. The lack of access to suitable facilities, particularly outside the major population centres, limits the opportunities for participation. A major constraint to the development of the sport of orienteering in Queensland has been our need to make detailed maps (our “facilities”) of suitable areas. Because we receive no state funding for this, we have tended to concentrate this “facility development” in the more populated South East corner of the state where we can recoup the map production costs via event fees. So, much as we would like to develop the sport in more regional centres and rural areas, we simply do not have the resources to do this. Consideration should be given as to whether the Australian Sports Commission should have a role to play in supporting the development of community sport into the more remote and regional parts of Australia.
- Recommend strategies to increase the effectiveness of the promotion of sport by the Federal Government to better communicate positive health and activity messages to the broader community.
We have seen in our state the benefits of community partnerships between local government, health promotion bodies, government sport and recreation departments and sporting organisations in developing strategies to promote community health and fitness and this should be further encouraged through Federal Government funding programs.
3. Strengthen pathways from junior sport to grassroots community sport right through to elite and professional sport.
- Examine the capacity of the system to ensure optimal and efficient delivery of the athlete and coach pathway for any given sport.
The role of sport in schools is a particularly significant issue in determining long term health benefits for the community. At times, there seems to be contradictory influences by government departments. We have recently experienced moves within our Education Department to downgrade its previous support of school sporting activities by not providing funds for teacher relief to offset the loss of teacher time to travel with school sporting teams and to restrict the number of sports available to students. Certain teachers receive generous provision of teacher relief while others are denied this facility, depending on which school they attend or which state or region they are in. This resourcing issue is an area whereby the Federal Government could provide specific funds to encourage an expansion of school sport programs, not their contraction. Support for travel costs to competitions and training is a major issue with juniors moving through to elite ranks in sport, particularly in a large state such as Queensland. Again, some juniors are able to access some funding under programs such as the current Local Sporting Champions program, but others just as deserving miss out, often because of local criteria or limited funding availability and the numbers of students competing from a particular area. These very worthwhile programs should be expanded so that more students are able to access them. A major issue for many sports is getting access and funding to conduct coaching or development programs in schools. Teachers need basic training in the various sports, albeit in simplified format, in order to successfully get children active and involved in sport. There is now a very heavy emphasis on all forms of risk management and safety, to the point where teachers and coaches are often afraid to run programs for juniors, to the detriment of the enjoyment of sport and healthy outcomes. The availability of safe and usable venues is a major issue for orienteering. Governing bodies and land management agencies need to be supported at all times in making available public land and facilities for reasonable use by sport and recreation bodies, rather than making many areas unavailable or their use overly restricted.
- Recommend the most effective support and recognition for the coaches, officials, umpires, administrators and volunteers who keep our community clubs alive.
As a sport heavily reliant on volunteers for coaching, officiating, event planning and management and whose administration is undertaken almost exclusively by people who are also active competitors, the best recognition we are able to give them is through a range of local award programs eg. Course Setter of the Year that Orienteering Queensland presents at its annual dinner. As we do not have the resources to completely cover the travel expenses of our event planners and organisers (except for major competitions), we have been grateful that the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs Volunteer Grants Program has recently expanded its program to allow for the reimbursement of the travel costs of volunteers. This is particularly important for our sport where we have to often travel large distances to competition venues out in the bush. It would be more appropriate for the ASC to develop its own program along these lines so that at least our volunteers are not donating their money as well as their time to help organise and conduct orienteering events.
- Examine how relationships between the Commonwealth Government and National Sporting Organisations, State Sporting Organisations and Australia’s peak representative bodies at key multi-sports competitions may be strengthened to deliver better performance outcomes.
No response
5. Identify opportunities to increase and diversify the funding base for sport through corporate sponsorship, media and any recommended reforms, such as enhancing the effectiveness of the Australian Sports Foundation
As a “sport for life”, orienteering is vitally involved in preventative health by trying to keep our participants mentally and physically active throughout their whole lives. The ASC could perform a useful role in acting as a broker to match potential sponsors with sporting bodies whose attributes meet their corporate goals. However, instead of sports accepting sponsorship from food and alcohol companies whose products do not meet community health goals, the aim should instead be to link physical activity with positive health messages. Organisations such as ours without defined facilities ie. structures, are at a significant disadvantage in that they cannot attract paying spectators nor major sponsors who wish to be associated with a “visible” sport. In the main, the major media outlets only seem interested in providing coverage for those sports with already high profiles. It is extraordinarily difficult for a minor sport to break through this barrier and this lack of public awareness limits potential participation and as a consequence, sponsorship. This self defeating cycle results in a reliance on government funding and what can be generated from memberships and participation fees. There could be a role for the Federal Government to at least require its public broadcasters to guarantee a minimum amount of coverage per week for minor sports and perhaps to provide funding to commercial television via sponsored segments to ensure a more equitable treatment of such sports.
Page last updated: 27 March, 2009