COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA Official Committee Hansard

SENATE

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS REFERENCES COMMITTEE

(Subcommittee)

Reference: Women in sport and recreation in Australia

THURSDAY, 3 AUGUST 2006

MELBOURNE

BY AUTHORITY OF THE SENATE

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SENATE ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS REFERENCES COMMITTEE Thursday, 3 August 2006

Members: Senator Bartlett (Chair), Senator Adams (Deputy Chair), Senators Lundy, Ronaldson, Webber and Wortley Participating members: Senators Abetz, Allison, Bernardi, Boswell, Bob Brown, George Campbell, Carr, Chapman, Colbeck, Conroy, Coonan, Crossin, Eggleston, Chris Evans, Faulkner, Ferguson, Ferris, Fielding, Forshaw, Humphries, Joyce, Ludwig, Ian Macdonald, McGauran, McLucas, Mason, Milne, Moore, Nash, Nettle, O’Brien, Payne, Robert Ray, Scullion, Siewert, Stephens and Watson Senators in attendance: Senators Lundy, Ronaldson and Wortley Terms of reference for the inquiry: To inquire into and report on: a. the health benefits of women participating in sport and recreation activities; b. the accessibility for women of all ages to participate in organised sport, fitness and recreation activities, with additional reference to state and federal programs, including; I. the number of women actively participating in organised sport, fitness and recreation activities; II. characteristics of women not participating in organised sport, fitness and recreation activities (including , for example, socio-economic strata, age, women with a disability, Indigenous or Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) women); III. constraints, including strategies to overcome the constraints that may prevent these women from participating; IV. the effectiveness of current state and federal grant programs that encourage women to participate; V. the retention and attrition trends of grass roots participation, including comparisons with male athletes at a similar level; VI. the remuneration, recruitment, retention and attrition of elite female athletes, including comparisons with elite male athletes; VII. retention of athletes competing in senior and open age state and national sporting competitions, with possible strategies to retain female competitors in elite and sub-elite competition; VIII. opportunities and barriers for national team members and competitors in international competition; and IX. the financial status, success and viability of women’s national league competitions, including strategies to improve these factors; c. the portrayal of women’s sport in the media, including: I. the role of the government to regulate and review the coverage of women’s sport in the media (print, radio and electronic); II. the influence of pay television on the coverage of women in sport; III. the promotion and publicity of women’s National League competitions, IV. the financial status and success of women’s national leagues. V. strategies to improve the amount and quality of media coverage for women’s sport; d. women in leadership roles in sport, including; I. the number and proportion of women in coaching, administrative and officiating roles; II. the issues associated with women in leadership roles in both elite and grass-roots activities; III. trends and issues for women in organisational leadership roles; and IV. strategies to improve the numbers of women in coaching, administration and technical roles.

WITNESSES ADAMSON, Mr Linden John, Chief Executive, Hockey Australia Inc...... 79 BIRD, Mr Wayne Kenneth, Chief Executive Officer, Basketball Victoria-Big V Victoria...... 34 BLANDTHORN, Mr John-Paul, Director, Australian Netball Players Association; and Organiser, Australian Workers Union...... 49 BOWN, Mr Damien Craig, General Manager Game Development, Cricket Australia ...... 79 COWLING, Mr Matthew Jonathan, Chief Executive Officer, Big V Basketball-Victoria...... 34 CROSSWHITE, Mrs Janice Jean, President, Australian Womensport and Recreation Association Inc...... 70 CROW, Ms Susan, Chief Executive, Softball Australia ...... 95 DICK, Ms Ingrid, Director, Australian Netball Players Association ...... 49 DIX, Ms Noeleen, President, Netball Australia ...... 95 JOLLY, Ms Kellie-Ann, Director, Physical Activity Unit, VicHealth...... 1 JUSTIN, Ms Fiona Elizabeth, Chief Executive Officer, Womensport and Recreation Victoria ...... 17 KERR, Ms Megan Louise, Senior Project Officer, Physical Activity Unit, Victorian Health Promotion Foundation...... 1 KITCHIN, Ms Melanie, Member, Australian Netball Players Association...... 49 PALMER, Ms Katherine Michele, Chief Executive Officer, Netball Victoria ...... 34 QUIGLEY, Miss Kate, Athlete, Softball Australia ...... 95 RENDELL, Mr Mark, Chief Executive Officer, Bowls Australia Inc...... 95 ROFFEY, Ms Kate, Chief Executive Officer, VicSport...... 8 SHEEHAN, Ms Lynne Christine, Policy and Planning Manager, Netball Victoria ...... 34 SHORTEN, Mr Bill, Interim Chief Executive Officer, Australian Netball Players Association; and National Secretary, Australian Workers Union...... 49 TROTTER, Mrs Dianne, Executive Officer, Wimmera Regional Sports Assembly...... 26 TULLBERG, Mrs Julie, Journalist, News Ltd-Leader Newspapers...... 64 WEST, Miss Sally, Operations Manager, Bowls Australia Inc...... 95 WOODMAN, Mr Lawrie, National Coaching Development Manager, Australian Football League ...... 79

Thursday, 3 August 2006 Senate—References ECITA 1

Subcommittee met at 9.01 am

JOLLY, Ms Kellie-Ann, Director, Physical Activity Unit, VicHealth

KERR, Ms Megan Louise, Senior Project Officer, Physical Activity Unit, Victorian Health Promotion Foundation

ACTING CHAIR (Senator Lundy)—I declare open this meeting of the subcommittee of the Senate Environment, Communications, Information Technology and the Arts References Committee in relation to its inquiry into women in sport and recreation in Australia. All proceedings today will be public proceedings, except where the committee agrees to a request to have evidence heard in camera or determines that certain evidence should be heard in camera. Witnesses are advised that evidence to the committee is protected by parliamentary privilege. Any act by any person that operates to the disadvantage of a witness on account of evidence given before the committee is unlawful and may be treated by the Senate as a contempt. The giving of false or misleading evidence to the committee may also be treated by the Senate as a contempt. If a witness objects to answering a question, the witness should state the ground upon which the objection is taken and the committee will determine whether it will insist on an answer having regard to the ground which is claimed. If the committee determines to insist on an answer, a witness may request that the answer be given in camera. Such a request may also be made at any other time. A witness called to answer a question for the first time should state their full name and capacity in which they appear and witnesses should speak clearly into the microphones to assist Hansard to record proceedings. All mobiles phones should be switched off.

Welcome. The committee has received your submission numbered 54. The Senate has resolved that an officer of a department of the Commonwealth or of a state shall not be asked to give opinions on matters of policy and shall be given reasonable opportunity to refer questions asked of the officer to superior officers or to a minister. This resolution prohibits only questions asking for opinions on matters of policies and does not preclude questions asking for explanations of policies or factual questions about when and how policies were adopted. Do you wish to make any amendments or alterations to your submission?

Ms Jolly—No.

ACTING CHAIR—I invite you to make an opening statement before we go to questions.

Ms Jolly—I want to, on behalf of VicHealth, congratulate the Senate on this inquiry and for the opportunity to submit and to be here today. Our submission is around terms of reference A and B. Before I start, I want to make sure that people are familiar with VicHealth and who they are. It appears that you are, so I do not need to go into that sort of detail. VicHealth is a funding body and does fund a variety of sport and recreation activity. Probably about $8 million per year goes to the sport and recreation sector through peak bodies, such as VicSport, Womensport and Recreation Victoria—a number of people you are hearing from today—state sporting associations and also regional sports assemblies.

We recognise the value that sport and active recreation plays in physical and mental health; it is on both sides of the equation. Some 56 per cent of females do not participate in enough

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS ECITA 2 Senate—References Thursday, 3 August 2006 physical activity to get a health benefit—that is, half of all women do not get enough. We also know that, as age increases, the amount of physical activity undertaken decreases. We also know that women are more likely to participate in non-organised physical activity that is far more recreational in nature, such as walking, aerobics, fitness, yoga and whatever. We need to ask the question as to why that is. Also, women of low socioeconomic status have repeatedly shown through a range of studies that they participate less in active leisure pursuits and are more likely to participate in transport related activity. Again, that seems to be by necessity rather than by choice—walking and cycling to shops and so forth.

VicHealth has a strong focus on health inequalities. The issue is how we can focus more on working with those who experience the most health inequalities—that is, looking at the differences in the level of education, occupation, income and so forth. The factors that contribute to physical activity participation are complex and varied. One of the key points that we make in our submission is that it is important that this is not seen as something that is just related to the sport and recreation sector; it is something that needs to be seen more broadly.

While walking here today I was reflecting—and I do not know whether this is an accurate reflection, because I have not looked at all the submissions—that the people here today are only from the sport and recreation sector. Perhaps there is not a recognition by other sectors of their role in this issue. Interestingly, we did not see anyone else from health, education, urban planning or so forth in terms of the role they play in this area.

There are many factors that help or hinder participation, and that has been impacted greatly by a whole range of government policy and practices at all levels. Things such as access to appropriate and affordable sport, fitness and recreational opportunities is an issue, and that goes sometimes beyond the sector. In terms of facilities that are appropriate for use by girls and women, often there are not even changing rooms in facilities for women or girls. There is also the issue of appropriate lighting. Factors that impact on women wanting to participate in more leisure pursuits include their perception of how safe they feel in the environment and whether the environment is aesthetically pleasing; it is something they enjoy and like doing. We recognise that strategies to address some of these factors that contribute to participation need to be seen, as I said, outside the sports sector through a range of departments, whether it is transport, health and ageing, immigration and multicultural affairs, employment, workplace relations, education and human services. It is a multisectoral issue.

Research has shown that another important factor that contributes to participation in sport is the fact that young women who have had a negative childhood experience with sport or physical activity are less likely to participate as they get older. That has an impact. Working at the younger level can have an impact through to adulthood.

VicHealth, as a result of all of that, has been working across many sectors and recognises the importance of partnerships not just at the government level but also at the grassroots level. We fund a range of different activities. I will just give you one quick example, which is a basketball program called Bridging Gaps with Basketball in the northern suburbs of Melbourne. It is a partnership between the Northern Migrant Resource Centre, Banyule City Council, the Banksia Secondary College and the basketball association in that area. It is trying to engage Sudanese young people in that area who have come to Australia having fled difficult circumstances. They are facing a lot of challenges in their life but really wanted to play basketball. They did not know

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS Thursday, 3 August 2006 Senate—References ECITA 3 how to get involved, where to go or where to get information. Also, their parents perhaps were not engaged or committed to it, because they had a lot of other things to deal with. We funded a project in that area to get these kids engaged in basketball, and it has had an amazing impact on their lives. The Variety Club has since taken it up and continues to fund it. The local police have also been engaged in that project. That is an example of a partnership arrangement. We have a range of other examples, but I will not go into them unless you are wanting to hear more of them later.

Our key recommendations are around looking at how we can increase our focus on girls and women who have the least opportunity to participate. As I said, we are also trying to take a broader approach and make it more multisectoral. We are also looking at ways in which we can support sport and recreation bodies to develop an opportunity to collect relevant databases so that we can get a better understanding of what is going on, of the demographics of women and some of the issues that are important to them, which may help with planning. I will leave it there, because I do not want to go on for too long.

ACTING CHAIR—That gives us more time for questions. Senator Ronaldson?

Senator RONALDSON—I note your comments about the importance of work arrangements and work-life balance. There was a very interesting study reported in the Financial Review yesterday that you might want to get hold of. I think it involved the Australian Catholic University and Macquarie University. I read it late last night as I was reading the papers for today, after we had all got ourselves down from Sydney. It put a completely different spin on this work-life balance question and said that it was unhealthy in the workplace environment. I have not seen the report, but the authors were very surprised by the findings in relation to it. I thought it might be of interest to you to have a look at. I will get hold of it and have a look. It seemed to be from some reasonable institutions, and they were very surprised with the outcome. I will need a bit of convincing that what they are saying is right, but it was interesting reading.

I have a question about regional sports assemblies. In my former life in Ballarat I had a lot to do with the regional assembly. Has that role changed and how do you use them as a conduit for the sort of work that you are doing?

Ms Jolly—I will ask Megan to comment because she manages the whole regional sports assembly programs.

Ms Kerr—The regional sports assemblies have a focus on linking sport and health. Obviously, you are aware that they previously had a focus on servicing the local clubs in their area and local sporting associations around information provision. The role that VicHealth has played in moving them towards more of a partnership model within their local area is around linking sport and health. One of the population groups they are required to work with within the context of the work that they do for VicHealth is women. They also work with youth and culturally and linguistically diverse young people, Koori and older adults. Within all of those other population groups, women are involved.

They look at what sorts of opportunities there are for those population groups and work with the organisations that may not necessarily sit within sport and recreation to provide opportunities. They work within five key strategies. They do direct participation initiatives. They

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS ECITA 4 Senate—References Thursday, 3 August 2006 do strategies around advocacy. It might be lobbying to the local council for the provision of facilities that are more inclusive. They do capacity building and workforce development—I will call it workforce development—internally within their own staff and also externally with the community. For example, in the context of women in sport, they run sessions with Womensport and Recreation Victoria around meaningful physical activity for young women, and that might be linked with certain education institutions or community health. I hope that answers your question. From where they have been previously to where they are now, the time is right for them to take a lot from a health promotion framework and run with it in their region. From some evaluation that we have been doing of that program, they really are making some inroads into their communities.

Senator RONALDSON—I will put this question in context. You would be acutely aware that, as there has been a population drift out of country areas, the sporting infrastructure that most rural women grew up with is dissipating through lack of numbers. How are the assemblies meeting that challenge of the participation in sport for rural women, given the change of dynamics and that tennis courts are growing grass rather than young rural tennis players?

Ms Kerr—Some of the opportunities are changing. There are not the same opportunities as there were many years ago. In most cases, departments like the Department for Victorian Communities are still very supportive of country football and netball. Those programs are still thriving and the majority of the regional sports assemblies that we work with have local football and netball competitions within their areas. Some of the more traditional sports are being maintained, but there is a shift away to those different types of opportunities that Kellie-Ann mentioned around recreation. Walking is interesting in the rural context. Walking is something that a number of them are getting into, as are Tai Chi and activities for older adults around life ball, which is a modified netball and football game.

Senator RONALDSON—I have to see that.

Ms Kerr—There is also Keenagers, which is another form of table tennis for older adults. There are different opportunities that were not there previously. In a regional context, they are trying to keep the participation numbers up by offering different opportunities.

Senator RONALDSON—Putting your statement that 56 per cent of women are not participating in sport into a historical context, we heard from a number of witnesses yesterday about their concerns with respect to young women who reach the 13- or 14-year age group, where participation drops off quite dramatically. There were a number of reasons given for that, including body changes, perceptions, et cetera. There was also a very strong view and some discussions about descriptions. I have now reverted back to compulsory structured in-school hours physical education. There was a great deal of confusion in New South Wales, from the people who appeared before us yesterday, as to what there is. In the Victorian schools, are there compulsory structured in-school physical education programs?

Ms Jolly—There is a mandate in Victoria for physical education in schools. That has not been well monitored over time, but it has changed. There is a mandate—I am not an expert in that area—to be involved in physical education.

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS Thursday, 3 August 2006 Senate—References ECITA 5

Senator RONALDSON—People talked about mandating, but it got a bit fuzzy at the edges. The secretary and I were talking about it in the car going from the airport last night.

Ms Jolly—There is a requirement for a certain amount for different grade levels. So prep to year 2 and different parts of the school have different—

Senator RONALDSON—What about those in later years—years 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12?

Ms Kerr—I think it is only to year 10.

Ms Jolly—Are you talking age wise or year wise within schools?

Senator RONALDSON—In that context, age 14—years 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12.

Ms Kerr—From my understanding, the mandate relates to primary school. I am not sure about secondary education, because I think physical education is a compulsory subject up until year 10 in Victoria—that might need to be checked. For years 11 and 12 in Victoria, it is an elective.

Senator RONALDSON—When you say it is compulsory, is it compulsory in an academic sense or in a participation sense? They are two entirely different things as you will appreciate.

Ms Kerr—It is slightly different. In the primary school context it is mandatory; a school must provide certain amounts of health and physical education between, say, prep and grade 6. The education system in Victoria operates around self-governing schools. Schools can decide how they are going to split up that time and, as a result, we do not have PE teachers in all primary schools adhering to that mandate. It is up to a school how that is delivered. In the context of a secondary school, it is academic; it is a compulsory subject, like English and maths would be, within the context of secondary school.

Senator RONALDSON—That answers the question.

Ms Kerr—It is not a subject as such for primary school; it is more a thing they should be doing.

Senator RONALDSON—Womensport and Recreation in New South Wales and others, if I am correct in my take on what they were saying, were saying that we need to have compulsory physical education in schools. One of the reasons that girls are not continuing to participate is that there is no requirement for them to do physical education. That leads to an unhealthy lifestyle, which magnifies the body image and other matters. Does VicHealth have a view on the requirement for compulsory in-school physical education?

Ms Jolly—We are looking at health across the whole day. It is not just about school. We talk about the dawn to dusk kind of notion—that is, what are you doing all the way through? We take that approach. I know this is not the issue here, but we look at active transport instead of just being driven—walking and cycling. What are you doing at school not only in an organised fashion but also in playtimes, lunchtimes and recesses? What are you doing after school and

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS ECITA 6 Senate—References Thursday, 3 August 2006 what are you doing before you go to bed? It covers the whole day, not just the school environment.

For girls, the organised sport participation rate is highest in the secondary school area out of all age groups for women. Also, it is about what is provided and the choice that is provided. Megan mentioned how regional sports assemblies in the country are having to look at alternatives and various options according to what are the needs in schools at the moment. As a quick example, I know when you say it this sounds funny, but cheerleading is a program that has been embraced by year-9 girls. These girls may not have participated in other organised sport activities at school but they have taken on the whole notion of cheerleading, which is actually quite aerobic—I believe, not that I have done it. It is about looking at flexible options and the reason why perhaps some girls are not participating.

ACTING CHAIR—Dance was advocated strongly by ACPHER and others as an equal partner in this effort to try to get girls active with sport. Cheerleading comes a long way to dance, so how does dance fit within your charter in helping women to become more active?

Ms Jolly—It is funny you should mention it because our board has been having this debate recently, namely, that we talk about active recreation but a lot of our work has been focussed a little more on organised sport or other forms of recreation. Where does dance fit? Everything seems to go into boxes, so is it within arts or sport? We are having those discussions and debates and recognising that, yes, we do need to be looking at it. Although it has never been something that has not been included, it perhaps has not been promoted.

Ms Kerr—Within the Out of School Hours Sports Program, which was a pilot we did with the Australian Sports Commission, we funded Dancesport Victoria to deliver programs. It was only two terms but it was extremely successful. They got a lot out of it. Dancesport Victoria did also; being linked to an organisation such as VicHealth gave them a bit of credibility within their industry as well.

ACTING CHAIR—You mentioned in your opening statement the link with mental health outcomes and very positive social outcomes. To what degree do those issues inform the way you fund projects? Are they a significant factor in how you assess the merit of projects, or is it more focussed on physical health?

Ms Jolly—No, I would say it is both. It depends on what it is that we are funding. I mentioned basketball as an example. We have funded a range of other things such as the Mildura soccer program. In some cases, it is even more about the mental health side of things. For instance, even in organised sport, we do not fund state sporting associations to engage people, or women particularly, in organised sport in terms of only the physical side of things; it is about what is their role in trying to engage volunteers, coaches and a whole range of other people that are a very important part of a sport community, and it is about feeling connected, feeling valued and having a sense of purpose. For them it is not about the physical side; it is about mental health. We know that if you are physically active you are going to get a mental health gain as well. For some people, it is about the volunteering aspect. I would say it is probably both.

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS Thursday, 3 August 2006 Senate—References ECITA 7

Ms Kerr—There is a focus on health inequality. A lot of the issues among people who experience health inequality are mental health issues. We are trying to address that with some of the funding.

ACTING CHAIR—Again, you mentioned facilities—change rooms, lighting and things like that. What sort of projects are you able to fund to actually make a real difference out there and what are some of the partnerships that you get involved in to improve the experience for women engaged in a sport or recreational activity?

Ms Kerr—It is not within direct facility funding. Obviously, that is not something that VicHealth is involved in.

Ms Jolly—We do not fund capital works.

ACTING CHAIR—I appreciate that.

Ms Kerr—The Department of Victorian Communities has quite significant major and minor facilities funding available.

ACTING CHAIR—You talked about lobbying local governments and so on.

Ms Kerr—One of the projects that we have at the moment within metropolitan Melbourne is called MetroActive. It is a whole-of-council planning approach to issues surrounding physical activity. There are six councils involved in the demonstration projects, and each of those identified their own issues. For example, one that I think is probably quite relevant is within the City of Greater Dandenong, where as part of the Melbourne 2030 plan they have a significant investment from VicUrban around the development of their central business district and the outer areas. As a result of the MetroActive project, they are speaking to VicUrban and council around planning issues to ensure that people have access. It might not be directly around facilities, but facilities would be one part of that. We also have that within the City of Casey. It is a growth corridor, which has a ridiculous number of households moving in on a weekly basis and they are building facilities. As a result, the person that we have within that council is doing a lot of lobbying across council to ensure that within their plans they are considering physical activity outcomes.

ACTING CHAIR—Finally, you emphasise the importance of work-life supports. In what ways are you able to engage with employers to provide the support necessary to allow women to live a more active lifestyle?

Ms Jolly—The obvious one that we discussed in our submission was child care and looking at some of the issues around women having a carer role. What kind of support they can get for child care is one aspect. Also, we are even looking at flexibility of hours to enable that to happen, perhaps on either side of the day.

ACTING CHAIR—Thank you very much for your submission. It is very comprehensive and will be very useful to the inquiry. Thank you for answering our questions.

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS ECITA 8 Senate—References Thursday, 3 August 2006

[9.30 am]

ROFFEY, Ms Kate, Chief Executive Officer, VicSport

ACTING CHAIR—Welcome. The committee has received your submission numbered 31. Do you have any amendments or alterations that you would like to make to that submission?

Ms Roffey—No.

ACTING CHAIR—I now invite you to make an opening statement.

Ms Roffey—Thank you and welcome, everyone, to beautiful Melbourne on this lovely day. I will make a brief statement about what VicSport does rather than on anything that is included in the submission, which will give you more time to ask me questions. To clarify, VicSport is an independent member based organisation. We are called VicSport but we represent sport and recreation. We are referred to as the peak body for sport in Victoria and we represent a variety of organisations—Victorian state sports associations, some national sport organisations and members, all of the regional sports assemblies, university sport organisations, local government agency members as well as the SSAs. This is where the recreation aspect is important. Our members include Dancesport Victoria, VicWalk, in-line skating and Camp Australia.

We cover the broad aspect of sport and recreation groups in Victoria and we represent them. This submission is representative of their collective views, not necessarily—even though I wrote it—my personal views and not VicSport’s views as such but views of the general industry. That is why there are a number of aspects in there that are a bit unusual and a bit out of left field, which is good. They are the issues that our members raised as issues that are important to them. It is important to note that our membership, when we held a forum, did think it was very important to note that, while we are talking about women in sport, these issues do pertain to all minority groups. The same things that affect women’s issues affect CALD groups. They affect Indigenous people, the disability sector and minority sports. Media coverage is a big one that we had a very extensive discussion about. The general issue is that it is not women’s sport getting a lack of media coverage; it is sport in general outside of the major football codes and cricket. When discussing this in a forum, members asked that we be cognisant that these issues affect all minority groups and minority sports and that we keep that in mind.

Senator RONALDSON—I will take up the last point first. We had a lot of evidence in Sydney yesterday that this is a real issue. It was pleasing to hear you put it in context. The objection that some of the witnesses had was that women’s sport was put in the category of minor sport, and that raised, quite rightly, some hackles yesterday. Are you providing any assistance to sporting organisations in relation to media training?

Ms Roffey—We do not specifically provide media training. We are their representative body. We are not funded to give out money; we do not receive any funding to do that. As something that is a personal interest of mine, I have developed a women’s leadership program, where I have taken a group of women who have been identified by my CEO colleagues of state sports associations and various other places as women who have potential leadership qualities. We have

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS Thursday, 3 August 2006 Senate—References ECITA 9 brought those people together in a group and we work with them and teach them better leadership skills. One of those is public speaking and how to deliver better public speaking. It is not necessarily media but in general. Doing this sort of thing would be a very daunting task for a lot of those young women.

Senator RONALDSON—Womensport and Recreation New South Wales is running leadership programs for young women still in school, but it also has a program that is going to start later in the year that will bring together media representatives and senior sports administrators to teach them how to engage. I cannot speak for the other members of the committee, but I think we are heading in a direction where we believe there should be greater ownership taken of this. Yesterday, Senator Laming was talking about this coming through the Australian Sports Commission, which seems to me to be wise. Is that the sort of initiative that you would like to see coming out of this inquiry?

Ms Roffey—Yes. As part of that leadership program, each of those women is also matched with a mentor who meets their specific needs. A couple of them want to go into media, so we have matched them up with Angela Pippos and other people already working in media. Others want to be administrators, so they want to be matched up with the CEO of a major organisation. Some others want to be coaches, so we match them up with someone who suits their specific needs.

One of the things we find particularly with elite athletes is that we expect them to be able to stand up and speak in front of 200 people and feel confident because they are good at sport. We do not teach them those skills. I work with a young elite athlete and we do a lot of work around confidence building. We have very limited funding and resources, so I have called on my network of women down here to mentor these other young women. Everybody is giving, in a sense. Incredibly, I have 13 girls in this program and I could have 300. Women are saying, ‘Yes, of course I’ll help. I’ll be a mentor.’ It is very heartening to see that Lynne Bates, Jane Allen, Margot Foster and other people who have been in the sports industry are willing to give their time to be mentors for these young women coming through.

Senator RONALDSON—That is one aspect. The other aspect is the actual ability to engage the media officers’ capacity to deal with the local media.

Ms Roffey—Yes.

Senator RONALDSON—One of our witnesses this morning or this afternoon is going to talk about the fact that country media is not bad for women’s sport. I think they said that Geelong was terrific. I cannot think of who it was; it was late last night when I read it.

Ms Roffey—Yes.

Senator RONALDSON—It is a bit of horses for courses, is it?

Ms Roffey—Yes. We have a very good writer here who follows netball. Katie Peart does a lot of the netball stuff. We have a very good guy here, Grantley Bernard, who does the women’s basketball. They have a particular interest in it and have developed those specific links. I am not from Melbourne and I am continually frustrated by the lack of media coverage outside of

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS ECITA 10 Senate—References Thursday, 3 August 2006 football, the AFL, that we get in Melbourne. That is not just women’s sport, that is sport across- the-board. I do not know who won the British Open Golf, because I have six pages about who tore their hamstring at training last night. I notice this a lot more in Melbourne than I did in other states. Every sport gets squeezed off the sports section at the expense of the AFL here.

Senator RONALDSON—Horses for courses was wrong; I should have described it as ad hoc.

Ms Roffey—Yes.

Senator RONALDSON—We had the example, not articulated to the committee but in discussions during a break, that one of the senior women’s sports journos in Sydney was constantly frustrated by the inability of people not just to send press releases but to pick up the phone and create those relationships.

Ms Roffey—We have good media links, but I use them only when I really have something to say, because otherwise, again, you get squeezed off as just an agitator. It is about working the system a bit as well, and we could use some education in terms of helping people work the system and develop better links with media groups.

Senator RONALDSON—Finally, can you comment on the effectiveness or otherwise of the state government’s programs in encouraging women’s participation in sport?

Ms Roffey—I do not know that we particularly focus on women’s participation. I have a big picture view, which says that we should be looking at things much more holistically than we do. A number of small grants are given out for CALD, Indigenous, disability and women, but we fail to look at the big picture. We do not have a statewide audit of facility, so we do not know what we have out there. While we continue to promote participation, on the other hand we have our clubs saying, ‘We’ve got nowhere to put these people, because we cannot access to fields.’ We need to take a step back, look at the much bigger picture and say, ‘What do we want to do into the future and how are we going to do it in the best way possible?’

Yes, they are achieving results at the grassroots level, but it is in quite an ad hoc way, as you mentioned before, and we still need to be looking at a much bigger picture and a bigger strategy overall. Five or 10 years down the track, what do we want to do? How can we pool our resources and work together to get better outcomes across-the-board?

Senator RONALDSON—That is a very interesting response. A lot of the commentary to the committee is that women’s participation needs to be isolated out; indeed, that has underpinned parts of the inquiry. Your view is that that is not the appropriate course of action and it should be taken as a whole, of which women’s participation is a part?

Ms Roffey—We have bigger issues. Facilities is the single biggest issue that is going to impact the growth of participation over the next 10 years. It is across Australia, but in Victoria we do not have facilities growing as rapidly as we have people wanting to participate. We have legislation that allows people to put a big lake in the middle of a new residential subdivision instead of having to build two or three ovals and maybe an indoor basketball court or something like that. This is starting to limit our ability to create more participation opportunities out there.

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS Thursday, 3 August 2006 Senate—References ECITA 11

Looking at it in a bigger context, it is a much bigger issue. It is an issue for everyone out there. Of course, if there is one oval and 10 groups want to get on it, the A-grade men’s gets on it first, then the B-grade men’s and then the C grade men’s. Then the A-grade women’s gets on it and then, of course, your CALD group might get a look in a bit later on. It does filter down and it impacts on women’s issues as they get squeezed down from the top. For everyone’s sake, it needs to be looked at in a much broader context.

ACTING CHAIR—VicHealth mentioned that the issue of facilities takes in other portfolio areas as well—not just sport and rec but also health, education and urban planning in particular. The issue of interaction and partnership and best use of facilities is something that is raised well in your submission. Can you expand further on that, particularly on maximising existing facility usage? This has been the subject of a previous parliamentary inquiry and recommendations. Also, could you give us some tangible examples of where and when the squeeze on the use of those ovals, as you just said, and causes women to end up in the line up?

Ms Roffey—One of the things I have been asking for for a long time is to have a state-wide facility audit done. That is not to poke holes in what is out there, but just so we know what is there and we can plan for the future. We have not got to that stage where we audit a state-wide facility, but we are working with VicHealth and it is supporting us with some funding to look at a few individual local government authorities and what facilities they have and, more importantly, to look at who has access to them. There is no point in saying that we have 10 ovals if we do not know whether each of those 10 ovals has been booked by the men’s A grade Aussie Rules team from seven till nine every week night, which is prime time. Yes, there is time available, but it is from 10 till two. Who of us can go out and play hockey in the middle of the day? We are trying to collect some evidence based data that will give us an indication of who has access to them in the prime time. These groups probably do not sit down and look at that sort of data in a way that says that 90 per cent of men’s sports have prime time access. We encourage them to look at this and say, ‘Can we even it out so that one or two nights a week we can give it to the women’s league?’ or that sort of thing.

We were down in Geelong yesterday discussing some issues in relation to netball. There are a couple of netball leagues, and the country football-netball leagues, which are starting to grow and are taking over the smaller netball leagues. They have better facilities and more money. They play in the dress based uniforms rather than the old shorts and shirts or skirts and tops, and that is appealing to young women. The support of the football leagues is assisting these groups to grow. But we have to be mindful of what happens to the specific netball groups as they get squeezed out of there. There are all of these sorts of issues going on and playing a role. Some councils have put provisions in their charters, we will call them, that say that any new facilities built have to have specific female change rooms. They are taking steps to make sure that women are looked after. One council here has built a women’s-only facility, which is the envy of all the men in the area because it is a much better facility. All of the men are trying to get on it, but they are standing strong and saying, ‘No, it is a women’s facility.’ There are some steps being taken to try to address that imbalance.

ACTING CHAIR—That is quite a dramatic step to address an imbalance.

Ms Roffey—It is a good, positive step. Traditionally, when most of our facilities, which are 50 or 60 years old, were built there were not a lot of women playing sport, so they were built with a

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS ECITA 12 Senate—References Thursday, 3 August 2006 two-team change room. This is an issue that a number of our sports are starting to bring up now. They could potentially be housing four or five games at the same time. The Football Federation of Victoria is saying that the women are getting changed in the car park, because there are two change rooms and they are being used by the men’s teams. We have more and more people and the same number of facilities that we had 20 or 30 years ago, and anyone can work out that that does not match up.

ACTING CHAIR—Are you able to make a quick comment about the elite-end facilities? We have heard a lot in Sydney about netball and some of their difficulties in finding a suitable venue that is accessible to spectators. Obviously, Melbourne is a showcase for some of the best sporting venues in the world, not the least of which being the MCG. Can you comment on that and some of the equity issues with respect to the relative public investment into those top-line facilities for men’s and women’s sport?

Ms Roffey—Again, that goes back to elite and everyone else, not necessarily just women. We have fantastic international-level facilities in Melbourne and certainly the best in Australia and, possibly in a concentrated area like this, the best in the world. We have the MCG, the Telstra Dome, the Rod Laver Arena, Vodafone and the MSAC pool. We have fantastic facilities. But the question is: who can access those facilities? I have not seen any male or female community-level playing at the MCG. There is a bigger issue in that we are a major events focused state and we need those big facilities, but no-one can access them, male or female. From speaking to one of our elite sporting groups, I know they have difficulty in getting onto the MCG to play what was an elite national-level game, which is the level that it is pitched at, because they were considered to be not up to that level because they were female. When they pointed out that the guideline is that it is a national-level competition and this is a national-level game, they actually—

ACTING CHAIR—They won that argument?

Ms Roffey—Yes. They put their case forward.

ACTING CHAIR—They have applied for it?

Ms Roffey—Yes. It was under consideration. I will not mention which sport that was. They did actually say that this was for national level. There is still a perception that women’s sport is not quite the same elite-level sport as the men’s sport, but it is getting better, if we have women in there fighting for it.

ACTING CHAIR—You mentioned the mentoring program. You are obviously in a position, heading up VicSport, to be an example of a woman at least putting cracks in the glass ceiling. What are your general observations about women in leadership positions or on boards in sport generally? We have seen some numbers in the submissions about those proportions. What are your observations about the proportions there?

Ms Roffey—Certainly, women are underrepresented. There is no doubt about that. The question comes back to this: do women choose not to be involved and go onto that higher level situation or are they being squeezed out? There are some women who are getting to that level and putting cracks in the glass ceiling. One of the things that I talk about with these young women is that leadership is not something that sits well with everybody. It is a difficult job to do

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS Thursday, 3 August 2006 Senate—References ECITA 13 and, as the CEO of an organisation, you will have to cop the flack, take the brunt and worry when your staff are off doing their stuff. It is not something that sits well with everyone.

We are doing some post-graduate research now looking at why it is that women either choose not to do it or do not feel comfortable. While we say they are not there, I do not know that we have looked at the reasons why. Could we instil in them this confidence when they are younger to do this? That is the aim of the mentoring program. Or is it something that they just do not want to do? Of course, family does take a significant chunk out of that life. A number of women in my mentoring group have children. Five or six of them have said that they would like someone to teach them how to juggle their work and family lives. This is difficult. One of my colleagues, whom I have used as a sounding board in many cases, was working her way up and then she had children and decided that that was it. She preferred to spend more time with her children. She is a very good example of a woman who had great potential to bust through the glass ceiling but who chose not to focus on her career so much and to give more time to her family. That is a big question that we probably need to ask those people. It is a bit like disability access. We forget to ask people with a disability: what do you want? We sit there and say, ‘We think you want this and that,’ but we forget to ask them do they want to play their own sport or do they want to be integrated into mainstream. They are definitely underrepresented. There is no doubt about that.

ACTING CHAIR—Do you think there is a place for affirmative action or quotas to try to improve the proportion of women, for example, on governance boards?

Ms Roffey—I will clearly state that this is a personal opinion. No, I am not a big fan of quotas, and that is personally based on the fact that I would never like to think that I had been given a role or a job because I was a female. I would want to be given a job because I personally felt I was the best person for the job, and that is very clearly a personal opinion. I know you and I have had this discussion before. That does not necessarily sit for every female out there who feels confident. It depends on the situation. It depends on the broader context that you are talking about, and I think it has to be very well managed if you are going to do it, so that we do not end up in a situation where we have the naysayers saying, ‘She was only ever given a job because she is female.’

Senator RONALDSON—Helen Brownlee from the AOC told us yesterday that, if it is not a partnership between men and women, it will never work.

Ms Roffey—It is difficult. Every day I go to meetings where I am the only female—for example, sitting in the AFL boardroom. It is quite an austere setting to be sitting in. You really have to hold your own in there. Every time you say something it has to be sensible and relevant, sometimes to a much greater degree than what some of my male colleagues around the table might say.

ACTING CHAIR—So women are still marked tougher?

Ms Roffey—Yes, definitely, without a doubt. I would prefer to think I am possibly one of those people who is making those men sit there and say, ‘There is a place for women here’, rather than, ‘We had to have them here.’ I was speaking to one of the women involved with the AFL commission. On her first day, she said, she turned up and there were two men’s name tags

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS ECITA 14 Senate—References Thursday, 3 August 2006 to either side of hers. The men picked up their name tags and put them on the other side of the table, to make the point that they really did not want her there.

ACTING CHAIR—That was not very nice.

Ms Roffey—No, but she has now paved the way for the people who are coming after her and, luckily for the next female AFL commissioners, they will not have to go through that, because she has broken through that glass ceiling for us. It is an interesting question and one that, if we had a few more hours, we could certainly debate a lot more. There is a place for it, yes, but it has to be very well managed.

Senator RONALDSON—Patrick Smith described it yesterday as the ‘grass ceiling’ in relation to Karrie Webb.

Ms Roffey—Good old Patrick.

ACTING CHAIR—You mentioned in your submission the savings made in public health through the reduction of disease in Australia, by virtue of increased physical activity. What would be the impact on sport and recreation if some of those savings were to be directed into those areas? Can you give us a sense of the magnitude of the difference that that would make?

Ms Roffey—Even if we had a tenth of those savings, even if we had $6 million for my organisation, we could go out and drive these much bigger networked things. We have these links—we work very closely with the regional sports assemblies and state sports associations. We could get them together and do what needs to be done at the grassroots level. We could educate our coaches on better practices for looking after children. We could have our facilities upgraded and fixed up. You could give that money to an independent group, whichever that was, which could drive something from the grassroots, without any consideration for what might be coming at election time or whatever. You could make incredible changes if you could just do what is best with no consideration of where the money has come from.

ACTING CHAIR—So you think you have the programs but not the resources to make the magnitude of difference needed to turn some of these around?

Ms Roffey—Yes. The network is not working cohesively at the moment. There are all these programs running in different ways and doing a great job, but we could bring them together and work with education, for example, to say: ‘Let’s open up our school based facilities outside of school hours. Let’s share maintenance and insurance costs,’ because this is where the problems are coming in. Physical activities in schools are a major issue. We have all these clubs out there that specialise in providing physical activities. Let us get them linked with schools so that not only do kids have skills they can learn in the school but also they have somewhere to go on the weekend. So that not only from nine till three o’clock, or however long they go to school these days, but after school they have somewhere they can go. All of these clubs are sitting there. We do not have to build that structure, because it is already there. We just have to link it all up together. With $6 million or $8 million you could certainly do a lot to get it all working together as a well-oiled machine.

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Senator WORTLEY—Going back perhaps to the area of women in leadership and participation in sport, you suggest in your submission that private sports organisations should be encouraged to provide childcare facilities, and then you go on to say ‘with specific government assisted subsidies’. Can you explain that a bit further?

Ms Roffey—Probably not, because that was something that was raised by one of the members in a forum. If you flick back to the previous page, the Victorian Ladies Bowling Association brought up the very interesting point that their grandmothers are dropping out of participation as they now look after their grandchildren. Child care is not an issue just for sport and recreation; it is an issue for everyone. Interestingly, we are relying more on our relatives to help out. So this is affecting more than just the parents; it is starting to affect the other generations as well.

The fitness industries—say, gyms and swimming pools—have done really well because they have provided creches. Parents can pop in, do aerobics or spin or have a swim and leave their kids at the creche. They really saw this coming and made a focal point of it and they have women coming and using the centre when it is usually empty. That is great, but we do not have the same structure and we certainly do not have the same money in sport and recreation. It would be very difficult for the local hockey club to get licensed and do everything that would need to be done to have a recognised childcare centre there. Then, of course, there is the working with children legislation and all sorts of other things. It would just be impossible to get it passed. When that particular member brought that up, they were looking for some assistance from the government to possibly help with licensing of some of these areas. Perhaps down at MSAC, the Melbourne Sport and Aquatic Centre, where there are a number of different sports, something could be put on on a Saturday morning that would be reasonably easily run and licensed; people could drop off their kids and then go and play touch and so on down there. One way to do that would be with some assistance from government in helping with the set-up costs.

Senator WORTLEY—It was very interesting to hear about the grandparents. I can understand that one. Going back to the issue of the media, we heard yesterday that in New Zealand there is great coverage of women’s sport, and you are obviously aware of that. Can you see any way that Australia can perhaps learn from that and, also, do you think government has a role in changing it?

Ms Roffey—When you take the example of New Zealand, you also have to keep in mind that they have a much smaller number of sports in general. They do not have as many as us. We have almost 100 sports that are funded by the ASC. New Zealand does not have that. They do not have Aussie Rules, plus the Rugby League, plus the Rugby Union, plus the soccer. There is a bit more space there. But, yes, they have done that incredibly well. Netball New Zealand has set up a marketing strategy and promoted its players. It has done a magnificent job of getting its media people onboard and getting the crowds along to netball. Where government can really assist us with the media is in getting the big-name players to the table. Netball does not necessarily have the capacity to get the Eddie Maguires and the heads of big organisations there to state a case. If you can get to them and state a case and showcase what you have got, you can sell it, because it is a saleable commodity.

Senator WORTLEY—Would a big part of that case be the whole issue of health?

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Ms Roffey—Yes, the greater health benefits and how that filters down. That probably does not resonate a lot with higher media, because that is driven by numbers of people watching. It is driven by ratings. For example, people watch the tennis, but we do not consider that a male and female sport. We just consider that as an event. The Australian Open is an event. Swimming is the same. Males and females get equal coverage. But they are events. They are not necessarily individual sports. With netball, for example, you have to get in and show that it sells. It is great that the ABC shows netball and basketball, but it is at four o’clock on a Saturday afternoon when everyone is playing, so it is difficult. Mind you, I am very aware of the fact that, here in Melbourne, all the men will take Saturday afternoon off to sit down and watch the football on television. There are much bigger issues, but I think the government really—

Senator RONALDSON—Only if your team is playing.

Ms Roffey—Yes, that is right. I am not actually anti-AFL; it is just that it gets so much coverage here. I think bringing in those big people to help and listen is something that the government can do. There is the aspect of legislating content. That is always an interesting discussion and possibly something for, again, not just women’s sport but minority sport. Hockey, lacrosse and those other sports that we do not ever see on the television, except for on pay television, might get some coverage.

Senator RONALDSON—To take up your point, it is about mandating in relation to the event or the whole.

Ms Roffey—Yes.

Senator RONALDSON—It is very difficult.

Ms Roffey—They are businesses, ultimately. You are going to put on what people watch, and part of that is that people who support these sports have to get in there and watch it. Of course, then we have the question: would you rather have those people out and playing at four o’clock or watching it on television? I would rather have them out there participating. Again, there is never an easy fix, such as, ‘Let’s just put it on from three till five instead,’ because it is not such a simple answer, as you are well aware.

ACTING CHAIR—Thank you for the submission and the effort you went to in gathering the views of your members.

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[10.02 am]

JUSTIN, Ms Fiona Elizabeth, Chief Executive Officer, Womensport and Recreation Victoria

ACTING CHAIR—Welcome. The committee has received your submission as submission 55. Do you wish to make any amendments or alterations to your submission?

Ms Justin—I would just like to add a hard copy of the strategy that was sent through electronically and also a facts and figures sheet.

ACTING CHAIR—Thank you very much. We will consider those documents tabled before the committee. I now invite you to make an opening statement before questions.

Ms Justin—Welcome to what I am told is the sporting centre of the universe. It is certainly a wonderful opportunity to have you here. We sincerely appreciate the courage it has taken for the Senate to look into the issue of women’s sport and recreation.

Womensport and Recreation is a non-government, not-for-profit advocacy body. We are dedicated to enhancing the sport and recreation environment for women in Victoria. We employ a staff of three on a budget of $190,000 a year. We have a membership that extends from state sporting associations and local authorities to regional sports assemblies and of course individuals. We believe we are the strongest and best resourced of the state women’s sport organisations and we often give guidance and assistance to other states.

This is an excellent opportunity for us to share with you some of the insights we gained in working with the population of Victoria with regard to the women’s sport sector, and much of the information contained in our submission is as a result of that. We conducted a number of workshops throughout late 2005 and early 2006 in the development of the strategy that is presented there, so we feel that we have a very good understanding of the issues of the people who responded—that is, in excess of 100 stakeholders, from individuals to organisations. We believe, in that case, that we are a true reflection of the sporting environment in Victoria.

Some time ago, in 1999, the Australian Sports Commission came up with a national policy on women in sport and recreation. It expired in 2002 but, during that time, in its development it was said that Australia must foster a culture that encourages and supports the full involvement of all women and girls in every aspect of sport, recreation and physical activity. That is no less true today than it was in 1999.

In moving forward, we need to understand why that is. It is because women who participate are generally healthier, more confident and better than those that do not; there are few female role models; we as women are more likely to nominate a sportsman than a sportswoman as a sporting model; and fewer than 20 per cent of sporting decisions are made by women. Certainly there is a good, solid background for developing that.

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Of course, we need to consider the reasons that women do not participate. They include balancing needs, lack of affordability, lack of accessible child care, poor body image, lack of self-efficacy, few role models and, of course, the stigma of elite participation. Further, injury, age related drop-off and lack of media attention all result in the rising cost and inaccessibility of sport.

As policy makers, business professionals, volunteers and athletes we have an excellent opportunity here to create a framework that facilitates participation for all women. At Womensport, we believe that working in partnership we have the opportunity to create an environment that is fair for all Australians. In doing so, in coming up with our strategy, we focussed on five key areas, which we call the five Ps, and which we believe are instrumental in creating that fairer environment. Those five Ps are partnerships, people, programs, policy and profile, all of which have been addressed in the Senate inquiry. I pass over to you to perhaps explore some of those issues.

Senator RONALDSON—The handout that you have just given us is headed ‘Womensport and Recreation Victoria: facts and figures’. Was this was a survey conducted by Ausport?

Ms Justin—No. The facts and figures that you have there are a collection of facts and figures that have been gained through our research in the development of the new strategy. They are from all different areas. They are from research, the SESAW study, ACHPER, Ausport—a range of sources.

Senator RONALDSON—We were talking about this last night. The committee would be interested in getting a real handle on the actual coverage figures reporting wise for men and women. If you could lead us particularly to where those are and where those surveys were done, it would be very useful for us.

Ms Justin—Womensport and Recreation is embarking on a campaign for coverage this year as part of our business plan. I understand Senator Lundy had an opportunity to speak with the UK Women’s Sports Foundation in relation to its project. Our project is of a smaller scale and based on that. At the moment, as part of that, we are undertaking an informal scoping exercise during the month of July to identify women in the print media. It is print only. Research that we have at the moment suggests that newspaper coverage is at about 10 per cent for women. With respect to television, it is at about two per cent. With respect to radio, coverage is at slightly less than two per cent—1.6 per cent. We also found that women are more likely to be covered on the off days of sport, which are Wednesday and Thursday, and research that we have looked at—not our own research but other research—also suggests that women are more likely to turn up in current affairs programs in relation to their sport than they are in sporting programs. It is not uncommon to see women on the front pages in the newspapers.

ACTING CHAIR—Regarding issues that affect their sport and not their sport and performance per se?

Ms Justin—That is right. The campaign for coverage that we are looking at is not just about coverage and getting women in the newspaper. We do not want to know the size of their backside or who they are having their latest spat with. What we want to know is how fast they

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS Thursday, 3 August 2006 Senate—References ECITA 19 run, how many medals they win and how they do it, which is also obviously human interest. We want to know more about them as athletes rather than just as women.

Senator RONALDSON—Are these figures that you have in relation to coverage as a result of your scoping in July?

Ms Justin—No, these figures are in relation to ASC research and are available on the Ausport website. Our own research will not be available until the end of next month.

Senator RONALDSON—Is that the research from the mid-nineties by the ASC?

Ms Justin—That is correct.

Senator RONALDSON—We would probably be looking for some more updated figures. Clearly, people have said that there have been changes, and I would be interested to see what the changes are.

Ms Justin—The research that you see is actually from 2001, not the mid-nineties. We are doing a scoping exercise at the moment. We would certainly more than embrace the opportunity to do the research if the money was available.

Senator RONALDSON—Your colleagues in New South Wales identified the lack of compulsory organised sport within school hours as a real issue, particularly for teenage girls, who have a very high drop-out rates in the 14- to 15-year age group or whatever it might be. Has Womensport got any commentary in relation to that?

Ms Justin—That is obviously a huge concern. Our scoping research suggests that there is about a 50 per cent drop-out rate at the ages of 10 to 14, so it is actually much younger. Five or 10 years ago it was that 16-year-old age group, where there is the discovery of boys and all the other things that go along with being a teenager. But now, as children mature earlier, the drop- out age has come down. It is obviously of massive concern. To be honest, I do not know how much is being done about it. There are certainly the mandates that VicHealth spoke about with regard to in-school hours. But I have not seen a significant investment in the out of school hours area from the government when you consider that Scotland invests about £42 million, or approximately $100 million, in after-school activity for a population of about four million people. There are countries that are really leading the way, and perhaps it is an opportunity for us to look to them and their successes and, indeed, the challenges that they have had so that we can get on the right track.

Senator RONALDSON—The expression ‘mandating’ was used. What does that mean? Does it mean putting on some sports clothes and doing some organised activity or is it the theoretical side? I think we need to ascertain what that means.

Ms Justin—The best person to learn that from would be ACHPER, the Australian Council for Health, Physical Education and Recreation, which is essentially a PE teachers association. They will be able to give you more information about that. My understanding is that there is a mandate in primary schools, where it is compulsory to provide a certain level of physical activity each week.

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Senator RONALDSON—That is not the age when there is an issue for girls particularly, is it? That is more in years 8, 9 and 10.

Ms Justin—You will have to forgive me. I am not too clear on what level you are in at school at age 10. It is a bit too long ago for me.

Senator RONALDSON—It is a long distant memory for me, but I think it would probably be year 5.

Ms Justin—They are still in primary school then, so the mandate is certainly catching those. I would imagine there needs to be a closer focus on the earlier years of high school.

Senator RONALDSON—Finally, your colleagues in New South Wales took a different view—I am not putting this in the context that there is an issue between the two of you. They were not supportive of reporting and a regulated percentage of hours of women’s sport versus men’s sport. From reading your submission last night, apparently you think there should be.

Ms Justin—In the media?

Senator RONALDSON—Yes.

Ms Justin—Yes, we do. Obviously, separate organisations have slightly different views. We do support legislative change that compels media outlets to provide a certain level of female coverage, though, indeed, we recognise that that might not be possible. Our next alternative is the development of a charter of women in the media. We believe that would be a first step—it is an original concept—in bringing all the media outlets to the table and having a meeting chaired by a figure of authority. It would be throwing it back on the media outlets and saying, ‘These are the current figures. What can you do for us?’ The approach we have taken in the past was to pound them and say, ‘You are not providing coverage.’ Let us sit down at the table and ask, ‘What can you do? It is at three per cent now; can you make it six per cent?’ They will be asked to sign up to a series of resolutions—somewhat like the UN, I guess—that then becomes a charter.

Senator RONALDSON—I hope it is more effective than that!

Ms Justin—That depends on your view! It then becomes a charter, which is self-regulating. There is a commitment there from the agencies to provide even a small amount, so it is not such a massive jump for them. That charter also needs to be circulated to state sporting associations and organisations to make sure that the information is provided in a way that gets through and is readable. I think that is something that women’s sport does not do particularly well at the moment.

Senator WORTLEY—I realise that you said the issue of sport in schools should be addressed to another organisation, but we were told yesterday that there was compulsory organised sport in schools in New South Wales. Are you aware of that here? We are not talking about physical education lessons; we are talking about participating in team games and so on.

Ms Justin—I am not aware. I would refer you to ACHPER on that.

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS Thursday, 3 August 2006 Senate—References ECITA 21

Senator RONALDSON—There is a great deal of confusion about that.

Senator WORTLEY—Yes, I have found that.

Ms Justin—ACHPER would certainly be able to give you that information.

Senator WORTLEY—Going back to your point that approximately 50 per cent of girls drop out of sport and physical activity between the ages of 10 and 14, the other issue that has been raised is the issue of dress code in some sports—namely, that dress code can be a deterrent to participating in sports. It is not necessarily that girls have a negative body image but rather that they are conscious of their bodies and the changes in their bodies and do not want to wear particular types of sports uniforms. Having been a schoolteacher I can vouch for that. Often girls would suddenly miss one lesson or not turn up for a game, and then it would happen again the next week. Then you would find out that it was because they did not want to wear the short netball skirt. In one school, we allowed them to wear their tracksuit bottoms under their netball skirts. Do you think that dress code plays any role with that age group?

Ms Justin—It certainly does, and not just in that age group or at the amateur level but certainly all the way through to the elite level. In fact, I know of somebody in their late 20s or early 30s who was refusing to play basketball because they were not allowed to wear a particular short. They did not want to wear the baggy shorts; they wanted to wear bike shorts because they were more comfortable. With respect to professionals, a number of female WNBL players find the bodysuits abhorrent. In fact, one team has recently gone back to shorts and singlets. It can be a deterrent not just at the younger level but throughout.

Senator WORTLEY—I understand also that, at the other end of the age spectrum, some older women who are playing sport do not want to wear particular types of T-shirts that are part of the dress code. How do you think that can be addressed?

Ms Justin—We need to be as flexible as possible. There are issues now around the wearing of the hijab during sport. There are cultural issues. Certainly, we support a woman’s right to choose what they wear and how they wear it. We understand that there need to be regulations, but we would encourage flexibility amongst those making the regulations.

Senator WORTLEY—At what level would it need to be changed? Some sport organisations will not allow you in if you have any sort of a marking or if what you wear differs in any way from the stated uniform.

Ms Justin—That is an issue that the WSRV could take up on behalf of individuals or groups. We would work with the state sporting association or the governing agency in trying to find a flexible and appropriate solution.

ACTING CHAIR—My first question relates to the issue of coverage and the psychological impact it has on girls and women when sports involving women do not get the same profile; it is treated as second rate and not seen as valuable property by the media organisations and hence the public. This morning on Sunrise, one of the commentators—I think it was John Mangos— said that netball was boring. We all know it is not, but there is this perpetuation of the notion that the sport is not valued, particularly by male media commentators. What is your assessment of

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS ECITA 22 Senate—References Thursday, 3 August 2006 the psychological impact on women and girls when that is the way their sport is treated in the media?

Ms Justin—Not being a psychologist, I cannot give—

ACTING CHAIR—I am not a psychologist either, but surely it has to have some effect when what women do for their sport is treated so appallingly.

Ms Justin—The fact that women are more likely to go and watch an AFL match than a netball match is an example of the impact that that has. The fact that women are more likely to choose a sportsman than a sportswoman as a sporting idol or hero is a direct result of the impact that the lack of coverage has on the views that women have about sportswomen. I can imagine that it would be quite a desperate situation if you were a professional athlete struggling to make your way and your sport, let alone women’s sport in general, was not getting any coverage.

That would be a massive challenge, because at the end of the day, whilst people do participate at that level for the sake of participation, there needs to be recognition of the achievements that women make to the sporting environment, and not just as sportspeople but as decision makers, board members and even journalists. I disappointedly read this week that there is a rumour that they do not intend to have any AFL female commentators when the coverage moves to a different channel. Those were the comments in the newspaper.

ACTING CHAIR—Really? I will have to ask the AFL about that one.

Ms Justin—To hear about those things is quite disappointing, when women have made such a wonderful breakthrough—people like Christie Malthouse—into that area.

ACTING CHAIR—That takes me exactly where I wanted to go, and that is the role of women in sports that are non-traditional for women. I am referring to women playing rugby, women playing AFL and women playing cricket, which you cannot say is non-traditional, because women have played cricket for a very long time. Can you just comment on the particular challenges for women trying to participate in a sport that is at least perceived in the mainstream media as being a man’s sport and the particular challenges that they face?

Ms Justin—You mentioned women’s cricket, which is one of the most successful Australian teams in history. There would be very few people who would know that. With respect to perceptions that they suffer, an Australian Rugby Union study suggested that rugby suffers from the myth that all women who play rugby are lesbians. They find that particularly difficult as a sport to overcome that. There is an assumed heterosexuality influence in women’s sport and physical activity participation, which limits the choices of women; if they select something outside of the remit, their feminine sexuality is questioned and they develop a butch image. These are issues that people do not want to talk about, but they are there. We need to address the issues of the perception of women who participate in those sports. It must be incredibly disheartening for some of our most renowned female sportswomen in those smaller sports. At the Cricket Australia awards last year there was a joking reference made to the fact that at least the women were not at the back of the room and that this year they had made it to the middle of the room. Gee, isn’t that wonderful? Thanks for that! The Australian Female Cricketer of the Year was given her award and told, ‘Here you go, here’s your award. See you later,’ whereas

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS Thursday, 3 August 2006 Senate—References ECITA 23 with the male award there was a big spiel about his involvement in the sport and his response to winning the award. This is even within the sports. If we cannot get it together within sport, how are we going to do that with the rest of the public? There is a level of work that we need to do. We are working with cricket, which has been particularly receptive. We are working particularly with cricket, football and basketball at the moment. When I say ‘football’, I refer to soccer. We are working with those three sports particularly in trying to change the internal thinking and trying to influence that change.

ACTING CHAIR—That is a critical point. One of the submissions is sceptical about the positive impact of bringing men’s and women’s sporting associations together at a national level, which has been a policy of successive governments. Are you able to make a comment about the particular challenge that then exists when men’s and women’s sports do come together, particularly if one or the other—usually men’s sport—has been dominant, and whether or not the women’s arm of the sport has been able to extract the alleged associated benefits of the exercise? I do know that it is different for a lot of sports. It is just a general comment.

Ms Justin—Perhaps if I use a sport as an example—cricket has just recently gone through the process in Victoria. It has had a number of challenges. We are encouraging them by working with them to put out there what they face, what the issues were and what the challenges were so that other sports can address those early in making sure that there is true integration. There has not been particularly successful true integration from my perspective nor from our organisation’s perspective regarding cricket. We do encourage it. Some of the issues are related to funding. Once the two come together, there is often reduced funding for the women’s sector and also a reduced voice, particularly at the board level. If you take women’s cricket, in the past they would have had a fairly extensive women’s board, but they have now gone to an all-male board under the integration. That is certainly an issue. Without those female decision makers there, it is very difficult to get that.

ACTING CHAIR—Do you think there should be some sort of gender equity principle at the board level when men’s and women’s associations come together?

Ms Justin—Yes, absolutely.

ACTING CHAIR—That is what hockey did, from memory?

Ms Justin—I believe they did. There are certainly excellent examples of best practice out there.

ACTING CHAIR—Who would you nominate as best practice? I am happy for you to take that on notice.

Ms Justin—Hockey has a best practice policy. We actually have developed an equity policy that we distribute to sports. We certainly make those available to sports. You questioned before my previous colleague, who spoke about mandates with regards to women on boards.

ACTING CHAIR—Yes, quotas.

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Ms Justin—Whilst we would rather not have them, in the future we recognise that this may be a time where they are required in order to move forward.

ACTING CHAIR—Is that because of the amount of sheer frustration that you have that nothing is changing and that you are looking at more radical interventions like quota systems?

Ms Justin—That would definitely ease the frustration, and it is the frustration that there are plenty of qualified, competent women out there who could sit on boards but for the inflexibility of boards with, say, perhaps child care if they have got a 7.00 am meeting. There are concessions that need to be made, but they are not concessions with regard to the person’s ability to perform the role, they are with regard to the social issues around those. At this stage, if getting on to a board is a tokenism, then my suggestion at a personal level would be to embrace it, go in there and show them what you can do. Show them that there would be benefits in having a woman onboard. Part of one of the projects that we are initiating this year is Springboard to Leadership, which identifies all state sporting associations that have less than 10 per cent female representation. We will speak with them about the skills they require on their board and find them somebody to fill that role.

ACTING CHAIR—It is still skills based?

Ms Justin—It is competency and skills based. If we were going down the road of quotas— and that is still where we need to be—it needs to be based on competency and skills.

Senator RONALDSON—I have just been thinking about some of those comments that you made and putting into context some of the comments that we have heard over the past day and a half. In the context of sex selling sport, which when you narrow all of this stuff down is really what we are talking about, in the context of the way women are portrayed, are you opposed as a matter of principle to the whole notion of sex selling sport?

Ms Justin—Do you mean sexing up women’s sport?

Senator RONALDSON—No, in its wider sense, whether it is a men’s AFL calendar or whatever it is. It seems to me that for both men and women there has been a steady progression towards using sex to sell sport.

Ms Justin—I do not think that is just within sport. That is a societal issue in general and just the way that the community has evolved. We are certainly not opposed to it on principle. We believe that it would be a woman’s choice to do that, although we would like to see women’s coverage on the basis of, as I mentioned before, skill and athletic prowess rather than the size of their body parts. We support a woman’s right to choose. If the Australian netball team decided that they wanted to do a new calendar, we would support their right to choose that. We think it is unfortunate that they have to go down that road, but we understand that they have the right to choose and perhaps that is what they need to do to get the funding, the sponsorship and the coverage. We would certainly support their right to choose.

Senator RONALDSON—It is not just women who are doing those sorts of things. I wonder whether the outcome of some of the things that we are seeing is now a general acceptance by a

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS Thursday, 3 August 2006 Senate—References ECITA 25 lot of sportspeople, whether it is an AFL players calendar or whatever it might be, to do that to sell their sport and presumably to sell themselves from a public perception point of view.

Ms Justin—We have to look at why that is and how did it get to that. Is it because of a lack of investment from the corporate sector? Is it because of low participation rates? Is it because of lack of investment and funding? We have to identify why that is.

Senator RONALDSON—Or is it because they want to.

Ms Justin—Or is it because they want to. If it is because they want to, then go your hardest. If it is a true choice, in that that is what they want to do, we would certainly support that. If not, then we support addressing the issues that make that come about.

Senator RONALDSON—In some respects, we probably have to expect some of the outcomes that may flow from that choice as well.

Ms Justin—That is correct.

Senator RONALDSON—It is not strictly relevant, but I think it is an interesting question of whether it is the chicken or the egg. That is the problem.

Ms Justin—Yes.

CHAIR—Thank you very much. We are going to have a short break for morning tea.

Proceedings suspended from 10.32 am to 10.49 am

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS ECITA 26 Senate—References Thursday, 3 August 2006

TROTTER, Mrs Dianne, Executive Officer, Wimmera Regional Sports Assembly

ACTING CHAIR (Senator Lundy)—Welcome. The committee has received your submission as submission No. 34. Do you wish to make any amendments or alterations to your submission?

Mrs Trotter—Yes, I certainly have expanded on some of the points, so I will just offer additional information.

ACTING CHAIR—We will take that as tabled and accepted by the committee. I now invite you to make an opening statement.

Mrs Trotter—Thank you very much for the opportunity to give a rural perspective on the women in sport issue. Again, we make no apologies; our submission is very much a grassroots submission. We are lucky enough to have a really good media network in our region. Our on-air radio coverage has enabled a lot of women in the rural area to give us a call and to make some of the comments that you see before you.

I want to make a couple of other points. I do not really want to go into too much detail about regional sports assemblies, although they are unique to Victoria. Certainly, Sport and Recreation Victoria has funded an on-ground agency to support the rollout of sport and recreation and volunteers in the regions. In the last three years, VicHealth has also seen fit to support regional sports assemblies to work with inactive populations—women, of course, being one of those. That is why we chose to make a submission.

One of the key points that I wanted to make to the inquiry was just what the real role of girls in sport is like in rural areas. Girls are certainly interested in sport, but a lot of the time our teams are quite small. For example, if you look at netball, there is only an opportunity for seven to nine players to participate, and there might be a pool of 100 girls who wish to play. It is the more skilled girls who get an opportunity to increase their skills, and those girls who perhaps are not as good may not even get the opportunity to play.

One of the other issues that was fed back to us from the secondary school sports survey that we did was that girls who are good at sport seem to cop more flack than boys. They have their bodies, their uniforms and their level of skill often denigrated by other females; they are not seen to be cool. We had specific examples where some of our state representatives in particular sports who play in local competition actually dumb down their skills to fit in with the peer group. It is not a good picture. Due to small populations in regional and rural areas, there are often not enough girls with ability and interest to actually field teams at all. There are plenty of sports on offer and competition to be participated in, particularly via the Secondary School Sports Association. It seems that there is a plethora of sports that schools can put teams into. Unfortunately, schools have to weigh up whether or not to send teams, which may feature perhaps only two or three talented players, when they realise that the outcome may be a one- sided drubbing, which in the longer term may impact on a further drop-out rate amongst girls.

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS Thursday, 3 August 2006 Senate—References ECITA 27

The other issue that I wanted to raise for schools is the time and distance that students obviously have to travel to participate, especially in higher level competition. The demands are such that they might be training in Melbourne at 8.30 on a Sunday morning, for example, and then they roll along to the exercise and one of the coaches makes a comment, ‘Gee, they don’t look very interested,’ or, ‘They look a bit tired.’ They had to get up at 4 o’clock that morning to actually be there. Sometimes it is those sorts of demands that do not encourage further participation to other levels. In the Wimmera region our smaller towns are getting just that— smaller—and for a whole variety of reasons. Often the school system also reflects that. They are getting very small and just do not have the critical mass of numbers.

Smaller communities are also very traditional in their outlook on sport. They tend to offer the big four—tennis, cricket, football and netball. If women and girls do not access these sports, there are probably few options for them in their own towns. Again, the towns lack critical mass to start a new sport. There is also a real need for sport itself—and I am talking about state and national sporting organisations—to support the transition from participant to coach or mentor. This could be done by subsidising the cost of courses, bringing more courses to rural areas or training local presenters to do this upskilling at a local level. Often, for example, our level 1 coaching courses are held in the metropolitan area. They are expensive to attend. Of course, it is not just the cost of the course, it is the time, travel and accommodation costs that all contribute to women perhaps not taking up those options. Presenters generally come from outside the region, which also contributes to the cost of the course.

I would like to raise the point that it may well be a good reason for state sporting associations to link in with their regional sports assemblies, which currently have appropriately qualified staff trained by Sport Education Victoria, to deliver what we call, for example, level 1, general principles of coaching. I raise this point because many women and girls play, coach and officiate in a variety of sports within their communities. For example, the local netball coach also coaches the basketball team and the club tennis team. If we were able to have the level 1, general principles of coaching course delivered at a local level and recognised by all of those sports, we would cut down the time that those women would have to invest. The vision of investment would encourage more women to gain accreditation. If we look at the statistics in our area, we have very few women accredited as coaches. The males would outnumber them four and five to one.

Some of our senior administration positions within sport in our region also see women and girls underrepresented. Again, it is anecdotal evidence, but it suggests that some committees and boards of management are not welcoming to women. Indeed, some have been very discouraging, having male members who are both intimidating and parochial. One major sporting association has a token women’s representation on the board of management, who does not have voting rights. Many incorporated football and netball clubs are a combined entity but in name only. They still seem to operate as separate entities within their own structure. I will just give you a quick example. When the local major league decides where the finals are going to be hosted, it is always about what is best for football and not necessarily what might be best for netball. We have four or five grades of both football and netball being played. The country football and netball program is starting to support the rollout of better facilities in rural areas. For example, the Horsham Rural City Council may put up three applications per year under that particular scheme but has eight football and netball clubs in its vicinity, so there is just not the opportunity

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS ECITA 28 Senate—References Thursday, 3 August 2006 to rationalise some of those facilities. I will just offer those comments and am happy to answer any questions.

ACTING CHAIR—Thank you very much for your submission. You said in your opening statement that in some areas, depending on the size, there might be a netball team but many more girls wanting to play.

Mrs Trotter—That is correct.

ACTING CHAIR—What do you think needs to change to provide for that participation opportunity for girls who just want to play for fun, regardless of their skill level and therefore eligibility in perhaps the local representative side?

Mrs Trotter—There are two parts to that question. The first part is about what happens to those girls. Some of the clubs, because there are other clubs within reasonable proximity, obviously will be saying to them, ‘Perhaps you might get a game over here,’ or whatever. But for a lot of girls sometimes that is the one big thing that they have put forward. They have really put themselves out there to go along and try out for this club and then to be told, ‘Sorry, maybe you would be better off somewhere else,’ is really not encouraging them to continue. I think our school sport has a lot to answer for there as well, because there needs to be a general encouragement of the participation model rather than the competitive model. If you think about it, it is okay to have the participation model at the bottom of the pyramid; as girls get older, their skill levels have to increase because it becomes more competitive to be selected for those upper teams, but what happens to those who just do not fit that mould?

ACTING CHAIR—Is it a fair comment to say that, as girls get older and into those teenage years, fewer teams are playing in those comps or the sports associations are providing fewer opportunities for more teams of different skill to participate?

Mrs Trotter—That is exactly right. I will use the Wimmera Football League as an example. At the very junior level, under 10s and under 12s, a lot of the clubs run a Saturday morning social competition for all the girls who want to play. As they move up, it becomes a competitive environment. Again, it is a pyramid system. Those girls then do not then have that opportunity. There are just not the numbers.

ACTING CHAIR—The point also about distance to participate has certainly been raised as an issue already in the inquiry. You mentioned getting up at 4 am to get to Melbourne to do some training. What about the interregional or intertown competitions on any given Saturday or Sunday? What sorts of hours could people be faced with travelling just to get to their sport?

Mrs Trotter—Again I will use Wimmera Football League as an example. The team closest to Melbourne is Ararat and the team farthest away, which is only half an hour from the South Australian border, is Nhill, and they all play in one league. Teams could be travelling two and three hours. I know the dilemma in terms of where finals are played. We have to look at, firstly, the teams that are in the finals so that we do not give them a home-ground advantage, which is what we are trying to eliminate from the equation. But it is also about the supporters and spectators. For example, Nhill might have that game that Ararat is participating in. There is a real dilemma with those sorts of things. Families might youngsters involved in, say, the under 13s,

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS Thursday, 3 August 2006 Senate—References ECITA 29 who might start at 9 o’clock in the morning. Dad might be playing in the seniors in the afternoon. It is a whole day. A lot of times there is no-one else to look after the kids so it is mum who does that. Her sports participation gets put to the side because there is another focus. They are looking after the family and looking after their partners rather than looking after their own participation.

ACTING CHAIR—With respect to child-care provision, many women will take their kids when they are of an age when they will not run off or run onto the court and ask their kids just to be patient while they play. Is that still the norm or is there child care?

Mrs Trotter—Yes, it is. I did a strategic plan with a club in one of the northern leagues. One of the key components of the netball plan was to investigate the possibility of some sort of quite formal creche situation because that was the only way they were going to be able to recruit enough people to continue to play within the league. Even within the major league, we have one town that does not field an A-grade netball team, because they do not have the numbers. If we could encourage more of those young mums to come back in, we may not have that situation.

Senator WORTLEY—We heard from another witness about the issue of child care impacting even on grandparents, with grandmothers not being able to participate in their sports and activities because they are looking after the children. That is obviously an issue right around the country. You mentioned in your submission that the first experience with sport shapes future development. One thing that we have been looking at and asking about as we have been going around different states is sport in schools. Can you tell us a bit about sport in the schools in the region?

Mrs Trotter—Certainly. Again, there are two or three points there. One is about facilities. A lot of our schools have ageing facilities. It is sometimes very difficult for sporting clubs to make a direct link with a local school as well, because they are not encouraged to use facilities after hours. One of the things breaking that down has been the Active After-school Communities Program, where we are seeing local sporting clubs providing a coach and going into the school after hours, with kids learning the particular skills of the sport. It is a great buzz for the sport, because these kids make a link with a local club and obviously then think: ‘Okay, if I am going to get into that sport then that is where I am going to go. I have made that connection with those people.’ That has been very successful.

There have been some cases, though, where in smaller schools they just feel that they do not fit that mould. They think: ‘We have only got 18 or 19 kids. What would we do?’ Senator Lundy was making a comment before about some of the schools and the links with sporting clubs. We have schools in towns where there are no sporting clubs. They have a school and a local shop, but they do not have any sporting clubs. Their sport has to be imported. The after-school program has supported little places such as Glenorchy in having access to good skills from clubs a little further away. It enables those kids to have a good, positive experience in sport.

Senator WORTLEY—Do you have the community sports—netball and football?

Mrs Trotter—Glenorchy has no sporting clubs there.

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Senator WORTLEY—Not in that one, but in the region. Do the schools have interschool sports?

Mrs Trotter—Yes, they do. I made that point that, through the state Secondary School Sports Association, there is certainly a huge variety of sport for the kids to get involved in, from cycling right through to volleyball, as well as the more traditional sports.

Senator WORTLEY—Do you know if that is a compulsory part of their organised curriculum, or can they do it if they want to?

Mrs Trotter—It is optional; it is not compulsory. On the point that you made about the links with schools and the issue of sport in schools, these days the department of education, given the way the school boards are set up, has the yea or nay about what the focus for the school is. If the school community itself feels that sport and recreation is an important part of their curriculum then we will see sports specialists employed at that school. But if arts, music or something else is seen to be a priority, again, it is left to the generalist teacher to undertake the physical activity components.

Senator WORTLEY—I have another question in relation to body image. Interestingly, that has been raised by a number of witnesses and in submissions, in particular the issue of the uniform or the required dress code. You have mentioned:

In the main, the reason for non participation from girls was the competitive nature and issue of the ‘body image’ needed to be involved in the sport (eg, lycra suits for netball)

Was that a positive or negative and can you explain that?

Mrs Trotter—All of the sports themselves obviously want to be seen to be up with the rest of the community, and we have seen the introduction in the last three years of lycra suits for the netballers. Unfortunately, that has had a detrimental effect on some of the girls.

Senator WORTLEY—That is what I wanted to know, whether that was detrimental or whether it was something that they aimed for.

Mrs Trotter—It could be either.

Senator WORTLEY—In relation to the image of women in sport, in your survey you said:

The image of women in sport and recreation portrayed in media generated a number of responses from the general public:

• The decision of the ABC to remove Anne Sergeant from netball commentary was perceived as a reflection of her ‘age’ Can you tell us what sort of an impact that has in relation to participation in women’s sport and careers?

Mrs Trotter—Again, that is certainly a key thing. This response came from four people in a radio interview that I carried out. Interestingly, I went back and read through the articles that had been promoted in the media and those sorts of things. I have nothing against Eloise Southby; she

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS Thursday, 3 August 2006 Senate—References ECITA 31 is a lovely person. But it was certainly perceived by the general public that Anne Sargeant had been removed from that position and someone else put into the position who was seen to be younger and more up to date.

ACTING CHAIR—‘Contemporary’ was the term the ABC used. We will arrange for the secretary to send you the Hansard from yesterday in relation to our discussions with the ABC and you can pass that on to your contacts. They will be well pleased with the committee’s views about it—far more pleased than the ABC, I suspect.

Senator WORTLEY—Finally, in your view, what is it in regional areas that encourages women to participate in sport and what can be done further to encourage women to participate in sport? You mentioned the issue of child care. The issue of facilities has been raised in a number of cases, as has the issue of women’s portrayal in the media. Do you think there are other things that could be done to increase the participation of women in regional areas?

Mrs Trotter—Again, I am just speaking personally and not as a reflection of the comments that we have made in the submission. Personally, I think not enough media coverage is given of the good, positive role model type activities. Sport and Recreation Victoria runs an active girls breakfast that we facilitate and deliver annually. That is a one-off thing. What we have been doing is working with some of our local schools to have that happen in their school. We have had some girls-only assemblies. We have had some of the good young role models from the school standing on stage and talking about their issues and being very up-front. It was absolutely fabulous to have some girls from Stawell Secondary College share their own personal stories about issues that they have had about body image and how they have overcome them. We are trying to raise that level.

A lot of the girls do not have a role model to identify with. When some of our better sportswomen, for example, choose to have families in the middle of their sporting career, a lot of girls miss out on seeing them, because they have issues, as we talked about, to do with child care and, obviously, there are other priorities. At the moment in rural areas, particularly for the women of Wimmera, the dollars are very tight because of the drought, and we are seeing fewer of our more senior women continuing to participate. The first thing that goes in terms of household budgetary items is their own recreation and sport.

Senator WORTLEY—Finally, is there a role for government to play in encouraging more women to participate in regional areas in sport at all levels, from participation, including umpiring and coaching, to playing?

Mrs Trotter—There are a number of projects and programs that obviously talk about women’s leadership. A couple of them are open at the moment. One of the key points is really about changing—and I am not sure how we do this—the focus on leadership programs, which have always been perceived by a lot of women as being for someone else and not for them. They do not identify their skills in that area. In terms of government, facilities are something that needs to be addressed. I mentioned before about having a better model. For example, one local government might have eight football and netball teams to look after—and there may be a better system for football and netball—and another local government might have one recreation ground to look after, and yet they can both make up to three submissions and that sort of thing.

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Senator WORTLEY—You spoke about the cost involved in attending coaching, training and skills based activities that were a distance from their home. Is there a role that can be played at that level?

Mrs Trotter—Certainly. In my submission I spoke about perhaps using some local presenters, who in fact already exist. It is really about the sport deciding that we will recognise that, for example, they have done a core coaching course, and then encouraging the state sporting associations to get out a bit further to rural areas to do the sport specific components. It is a bit like RPL, recognising prior learning.

Senator RONALDSON—I do not know whether you were here when I was talking before about the issue of the shrinking rural population and the example of the football club that I used to play for, which ceased to exist 20 years ago. As you know, all of the football leagues are huge, and the netball leagues have followed suit with the reduction in population. In some respects, talking about leadership is almost second tier to the ongoing inability of people to participate through the lack of capacity in many small towns now to organise any sport at all. The women’s netball clubs that existed many years ago have ceased to exist because of the lack of numbers. From the committee’s point of view, we have two issues. We have that metropolitan type participation issue, which has lots of overlays. It seems to me that the single biggest issue for participation in country areas is this shrinkage in the population.

Mrs Trotter—I am not sure what we do about that.

Senator RONALDSON—For the ones that go to Ballarat, Bendigo and Geelong it is not as bad, because they continue to participate back in their home towns. It is the ones who come to Melbourne; it is often a one-way street. Do you have any views about perhaps expanding the availability of sport in schools for not just kids but for adults as well, both men and women? You talked about the Glenorchy example. Do we need to look at some way of possibly expanding that and making the schools the focal point for sports participation, more so than we are doing at the moment?

Mrs Trotter—I think you are right, particularly when we talk about rationalisation of facilities and things like that. Local government is making decisions every day about which areas are going to be their major focus in terms of development. Schools all have reasonable, if ageing, facilities. Schools and the communities need to work together. In the past there have been some really good models, for example, a combined campus—primary and secondary being on the one campus. That has happened in rural areas because the very fact that the critical mass of numbers is obviously not there to have two separate campuses. The community can also build on that.

One of the difficulties in rural Victoria at the moment is that a lot of potential development on Department of Education land and also on Catholic Education land is not seen to be a priority, because it is not community land. Therefore, they are unable to attract grants to develop some of their facilities from the sport and recreation sector, which would then encourage more clubs to utilise those facilities. One of our local schools has the swimming pool on their land. Because it is on the school property, when it has come to maintenance and support it is not Sport and Recreation Victoria’s issue. Again, we are not creating those links at that level to enable perhaps that facility development, which would really be of benefit to some of our smaller towns.

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS Thursday, 3 August 2006 Senate—References ECITA 33

Senator RONALDSON—I have to confess that it was actually 30 years ago and not 20 years ago. You talked before about the lack of usage by the state sporting organisations of, for example, the assemblies. Is it a bit the case that there are lots of dots out there but we need to join them up to get everyone working together to address these issues?

Mrs Trotter—I might say that the contract we have signed with Sport and Recreation Victoria for this upcoming 12 months has a specific component that has forged some really close links with state sporting associations. That is happening, which is great.

Senator RONALDSON—The education system as well perhaps needs to be one of the dots in that matrix?

Mrs Trotter—Yes, exactly. It is more at the upper-tier level where that has to happen. At a local level schools would welcome the opportunity to expand and develop some of those facilities, but insurance issues and those sorts of things are precluding some of that from happening.

ACTING CHAIR—Just to wrap up—insurance costs are not necessarily just a women’s sport issue but are certainly an issue for facilities, maintenance, upkeep and use right around the country. To what degree is having the appropriate level of public liability insurance impacting on the ability to run sporting events or to participate generally in regional areas?

Mrs Trotter—I have been dealing with a very small squash association, which has probably fewer than 20 members and that plays out of a department of education facility. They have enormous trouble covering the cost of their public liability. That has meant halving the numbers in their club because people cannot afford to take out that type of insurance. Insurance is harder to get, not easier to get. There is a very limited capacity for them to take that next step. Because they are playing out of somebody else’s facility, very much like local government facilities, local government and schools are demanding proof of a $10 million public liability cover before they can even hire the venue. They are covering their backs, obviously, and that is precluding those clubs from participating at all.

I will just give you a quick snapshot. In the Wimmera region, when I first started work with the sports assembly in 1989, we had over 770 clubs; now we have fewer than 400. That is through amalgamation and whatever. A lot of that has been because the critical mass is not there anymore, and the other issues around insurance and public liability have been the death knell for a whole lot of those clubs.

Senator RONALDSON—Indeed, that has impacted on, as it was said before, the child-care arrangements that were in existence as well.

Mrs Trotter—Yes.

ACTING CHAIR—That is all we have time for. Thank you very much for being here today.

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[11.21 a.m.]

BIRD, Mr Wayne Kenneth, Chief Executive Officer, Basketball Victoria-Big V Victoria

COWLING, Mr Matthew Jonathan, Chief Executive Officer, Big V Basketball-Victoria

PALMER, Ms Katherine Michele, Chief Executive Officer, Netball Victoria

SHEEHAN, Ms Lynne Christine, Policy and Planning Manager, Netball Victoria

ACTING CHAIR—The committee has received your submissions and numbered them 18 and 21. Do either of you want to make any amendments or alterations to your submissions?

Mr Cowling—No.

Mr Bird—No.

Ms Palmer—No.

ACTING CHAIR—I invite both organisations to make an opening statement.

Ms Palmer—Netball Victoria would like to thank the committee for the opportunity to present to the Inquiry into Women in Sport and Recreation in Australia. We look forward to positive outcomes, so that we do not look back in five to 10 years’ time and find ourselves presenting the same information to you, particularly given the history that has shown that similar past forums have not led to significant change.

Sport and recreation provides great opportunities for women. It enables engagement in physical activity in communities, it enhances physical and mental health, and it provides opportunities for role modelling by women for other women and for their children—a critical element for girls, who are traditionally less active than boys. As one of the largest participation activities for women, netball has a major role in providing opportunities. I will highlight and summarise the key elements of the submission prepared by Netball Victoria.

The following must be addressed. Australia needs appropriate standards for infrastructure that facilitates women’s participation. This means safe, standardised playing areas, shelters, change rooms and toilet facilities, and safe lighting, safe parking and child care. Planning for this infrastructure should be conducted in a coordinated way by local, state and federal governments. How can we approach this in a strategic way if we do not even know how big the problem really is?

The perception is that if you happen to be good at writing funding submissions, and the local football club president has mates in the council, your chances of receiving funding increases exponentially. Systemic change in this area can be achieved by linking funding to criteria, which results in constitutional change that addresses equity. A good example of this is the football- netball leagues across country Victoria. Netball Victoria is currently implementing a strategy that

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS Thursday, 3 August 2006 Senate—References ECITA 35 will strongly encourage football leagues that are constitutionally linked to netball to include ‘netball’ in their incorporated name and to provide equity at the decision-making level. There should be a greater recognition of issues surrounding the support for and delivery of programs for rural and regional areas, particularly with regard to developing talented athletes, coaches, umpires and administrators.

Research is critical to areas, including equal opportunity laws and their effectiveness in supporting women in sport, including the suitability of the criteria for exemptions to the act. I note with interest that nothing has changed since Quentin Bryce, at the Joint Seminar for Equity for Women in Sport in 1991, said that the basis of the act must be changed if the law is to be effective in reducing the competitive comparisons that are continually made about the differences in strength between men and women and their consequent capacity to win. Solutions include: interventions that create realistic systemic change in sport, not short-term fixes; and monitoring the effectiveness of any measures introduced as a result of this inquiry; multidisciplinary funding—programs that have clear health outcomes could be funded by the health sector and not just sport and recreation departments; and mandated media coverage for women’s sport.

Are there any other solutions? What are sport organisations doing and what is their capacity to increase the amount of coverage? We cannot rely on the media saying, ‘We publish what people want to read.’ Anyone who follows women’s sport has long given up asking for more coverage; it just does not happen. Netball Victoria believes that strategic alliances with powerful capable partners, relationships with believers in powerful positions, recognition of the value of women to the community and a government that is committed to investing in the future of women by creating sustainable outcomes is essential. We wish the committee luck in sifting through the mountain of information that it must have received and commit to providing any necessary support to further this inquiry.

ACTING CHAIR—Thank you very much.

Mr Cowling—We are nowhere near as formal, but we would also like to echo the thanks for being given the opportunity to present to this inquiry. I should clarify, because it can be confusing: Big V Basketball is the elite senior competition for basketball across Victoria. We are a part of Basketball Victoria and that is why Wayne is here today. Wayne is the CEO of Basketball Victoria. Big V’s submission is not on behalf of the governing body; it is on behalf of the senior league in this state. We have very much restricted our comments to what the senior league would like to say and the parts of the inquiry that impact on us.

There are three things that we really want to draw your attention to. The first is participation. The major point in our submission is that in 2002 we had 465 women in our competition of elite athletes, as we would call them. Of those 465 competing in 2002, only 80 of them are still competing today. We have a huge lump at the age of 22. Some 60 per cent of our participants in our league even today—and this was the same in 2002—were under 21 years of age, which means that we are having a massive drop-off at elite level below that age. As to ages in our competitions, that is anything between 13 and 43. The 43-year-old is an ex-Opal and it is fantastic that she is still playing at this level, but 13 is too young. That is systemic and reflective of the impact on country sport and country basketball in particular.

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There was a second major thing that we wanted to draw to your attention. I think I have probably heard enough today already to say that there are significant differences in how local government treats sporting facilities, which has a huge impact on us. In Geelong, where I live, there is a netball association—with respect to netball; they are here today—that rents their facility at basically 22c per court per hour from the local council, but basketball pays $22 per court per hour. That is 100 times what netball are paying in Geelong, and that must have an impact and a flow-on effect, because it means that you are not keeping your own money, you are giving it up to the council in rent.

Senator RONALDSON—You must have a female councillor.

ACTING CHAIR—I am sure netball has put significant funding into that facility in the past.

Mr Cowling—Yes, and basketball has done similarly. I can give you numerous examples across the state where basketball has funded facilities and then been charged amazing rents for those facilities. We think it is very important that this is addressed, because it is having a massive impact on our sport and our ability to use our own funds to then support the elite teams that we need to support.

Finally—and I am being a bit cheeky here—I have brought with me a copy of Monday’s Geelong Advertiser, because we want to comment on media. I do not normally buy the Geelong Advertiser, but I did buy it this Monday simply for this exercise. There are 24 pages of sport in a 48-page edition of the Geelong Advertiser, 22½ pages of which are devoted to male sport. There is one page of netball results, which is great. We love netball and we are supportive of netball. There is half a page of other women’s sport. That is a fairly salient point in itself. If you really want to read it, I will leave it with you.

ACTING CHAIR—This committee recognises the different roles that the organisations play. By having you at the table at the same time, it gave us the opportunity to talk to state based sporting organisations. Bear with us and feel free to clarify where you are coming from at any time. We will probably just ask questions interchangeably. Senator Ronaldson, would you like to begin?

Senator RONALDSON—Ms Palmer, could you give the committee the rationale for your belief about the requirement for equal opportunity act changes?

Ms Palmer—I will hand that over to Lynne Sheehan, who has been working in this area for probably 10 years.

Ms Sheehan—We have gone through two equal opportunity cases in Victoria as Netball Victoria. The first one was as a result of two boys wanting to play in a 13 and under competition. At the time, they were aged 10. We did the research that was available and argued successfully at that time that strength was a relevant factor and, therefore, gained exemption from the act in relation to those boys being able to play in the 13 and under competition. The issue, however, has not gone away. Two years ago, there was a football case in Victoria where three girls applied to play in the 14 and under football competition. The decision by VCAT at that time had ramifications for all sport, because it decided that there were no significant differences in strength, stamina or physique between boys and girls up to the age of 14, whereas the current act

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS Thursday, 3 August 2006 Senate—References ECITA 37 is up to the age of 12 and, therefore, boys and girls could theoretically play together unrestricted in competitions catering for up to those age groups.

That had a significant potential impact on netball. At the time, that was recognised by VCAT and submissions were asked for exemption. We requested one and were given one at this point. In terms of the research that is now available into strength, physiques and stamina, it became very clear that it is not just those three factors that influence girls’ participation in sport in particular. Boys and girls have very different views of why they participate and what outcomes they are looking for in terms of participation, and those psychological and social factors impact more greatly than the physical factors, yet the law takes into account only physical factors. That is why we have recognised the fact that perhaps the law needs to be looked at. We are not the first say that; the 1991 inquiry looked at the same—

Senator RONALDSON—The rationale for the decision is that you have great fears about the participation of girls in netball if there are mixed teams?

Ms Sheehan—Yes. This has become quite clear. We did some research among our associations at the time for both cases. We asked: ‘What would be the impact if we said to you that boys can play unrestricted in these competitions? What is going to happen?’ The feedback was that the majority of girls do not want to play with and against boys. It is tolerated at 11 and under, because that is as per the federal act, but we still get complaints made to us from parents of girls asking why do they have to play against the boys or why can we not restrict the boys? With a lot of 13-year-olds the body image issue is a factor. They do not want to compete against and with boys. There are some who do, and we are actively encouraging our associations to provide what we call modified mixed competitions to allow for that interaction to occur. We do not want to turn away boys from our sport, but there are issues around why girls play and the fact that we do not want to lose girls from the sport because they must play with boys.

The essential difference between the football issue and the issue for netball is around (a) the size of the field and (b) the number of competitive players on the field at any one time. Netball is a very limited space sport. You can only have seven players on the court. As to the impact of one or two boys, who tend to be better physically skilled at the ages that we are talking about—their fundamental motor skills are much stronger in all of the different elements—their effectiveness and ability to compete and win the ball against girls is much greater, so they can dominate the play, and that then disadvantages girls.

Senator RONALDSON—On the media coverage issue, the Big V submission talked about there being very good coverage for Big V in certain areas—Mildura, Traralgon and Geelong— but stated there is a huge differential between the male and the female aspect, which we have again alluded to today. Has Netball Victoria itself done anything to address this specific issue?

Ms Palmer—Yes, we have, some two years ago. It has always been our position to be proactive and very positive about this. We have tried the other strategies and they do not seem to work. So we employed an ABC journalist some 18 months or two years ago—Tracy Parish, who is a very experienced media commentator. Having someone of Tracy’s calibre in our organisation to guide us, because of her networks, was extraordinary. In fact, our media coverage last year in a six-month period was valued at $1.5 million. The issue for us is how can we as a state sporting association afford to employ someone like Tracy Parish. I must say that the

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS ECITA 38 Senate—References Thursday, 3 August 2006 investment was certainly worth the outcome, but we need someone full time. We have a media and communications manager who works full time on trying to secure media coverage.

You provided an example, and I used a similar example to the Leadership Victoria group. In the Age and the Herald Sun sports sections 34 square centimetres out of 290,000 square centimetres of media coverage were given to women. It is a critical issue in terms of profiling women and the perception of women in our community. More proactive positive action needs to be taken. I have not in the past been a supporter of mandating media coverage for women, because for me it should be a given. However, I can see no other way. Yes, employing Tracy was wonderful. Netball is well resourced, but what about every other women’s sport? Basketball must struggle as well, because very rarely, except for Lauren Jackson, do we see women basketballers in the media. Something has to be done. The problem is bigger than us. We cannot fix it by employing Tracy Parish. There are not that many Tracy Parishs around.

Mr Cowling—We have been proactive as well in the last 18 months, with specific women’s media promotion activities. It is a hard nut to crack. I have a very similar view of it. I run most of the media from my league. We are a very small organisation. I write anything up to 30 press releases a week, depending on what is going on. As to the sheer space that is not given, for example, I can give two press releases: one for a male player of the month and one for a female player of the month. They read exactly the same. They are significant achievements in exactly the same way, but one will get four columns and one will get a paragraph at the end of the fourth column. That is just the nature of the beast. It probably does have to be mandated. I think Kate is correct; it is a very difficult situation.

ACTING CHAIR—When you are speaking to the media, if that is part of your role, what is the nature of the pushback when you are trying to sell a story about women in your sport?

Mr Cowling—The editors.

ACTING CHAIR—What do they say? Not verbatim, but just characterise the comments.

Mr Cowling—I speak largely with journalists. The Geelong Advertiser is a great example.

ACTING CHAIR—So they say it is the editors?

Mr Cowling—Yes, they will push that back to the editor. The editor will say that it is space. The editor will say: ‘Sorry, I’m getting this from footie. I’m not getting this from netball. I’m not getting this from basketball. I’m not getting this from women’s hockey.’ I would argue that, as an organisation—and we have men’s and women’s leagues in our organisation—we service men and women absolutely equally. In fact, we probably give more media output to women, and we have been very conscious of doing that in the last three years. However, the return on that is just not there in terms of space. In the country in particular—and I have to say this—footie owns the local newspapers. I am not being disrespectful to them. They have done a great job. They have the resources to have local media managers and those types of roles. The assistance for us in providing media input into local regional areas has been phenomenal. Mildura is an exception. It is a fantastic exception. WIN News comes down and shoots the game. That is awesome. But in many other areas, particularly in metro Victoria, it is a real struggle.

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS Thursday, 3 August 2006 Senate—References ECITA 39

Mr Bird—I will just say, from a state point of view, I hear what Kate is saying and agree. We have gone down a similar path. We have employed a specific manager to look after our media. We had some success, but it is more the regional newspapers that will pick up a story if it is properly prepared and properly presented for them. To get into the dailies, for example, you will see the state underage football squads will be splashed around in the newspaper somewhere. If our state underage teams are going off to play at the national championships, the story is not interesting. Football will probably pinch half of those kids to go and play for them because they are such great athletes. However, there is a perception that the value of the story is not the same.

Kate made mention before about Lauren Jackson. If there is news about Lauren, it will hit the paper. From a sport point of view, we say that is fine. But to us it is more about promoting the next Lauren Jacksons and the next Andrew Boguts who are coming along, because they are out there. We want to try to get that sort of publicity for them as well. We are competing against the dollar. There is the old golden rule of who has the gold makes the rules, and that is how it applies in the media.

Senator RONALDSON—How many people do you employ in Netball Victoria?

Ms Palmer—We have 27 employees.

Senator RONALDSON—Yes, and the media person is one of them?

Ms Palmer—Yes, media and communications. We have four people in our marketing team.

Senator RONALDSON—I assume you consider yourselves well managed and professional?

Ms Palmer—Yes, absolutely.

Senator RONALDSON—The same for Netball Australia?

Ms Palmer—Absolutely, yes.

Senator RONALDSON—If anyone would put something to the contrary, you would disagree, I would assume?

Ms Palmer—Yes, I would.

Senator RONALDSON—You were here for some of the discussion with Di Trotter in relation to the regional sports assemblies?

Ms Palmer—Yes.

Senator RONALDSON—Are you also suffering from the shrinkage of the rural population and the ability for girls and women to play netball or is it not as dramatic for netball?

Ms Palmer—No, I do not think it is as dramatic for netball. We are very fortunate that we are very well structured and we have some extraordinary volunteers in rural and regional Victoria. The communities are changing, obviously, but netball and football seem to have coped because

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS ECITA 40 Senate—References Thursday, 3 August 2006 they have merged and have changed with the environment. That should be seen as a positive thing. Our numbers have not declined. In fact, they have increased in rural and regional Victoria, and that is because of the grassroots volunteers at that level and the changes in the structures, which are adapting to what is happening in local communities. That is very positive.

I agree in terms of Di’s comments about the regional sports assemblies and how valuable they can be to us. We are running a pilot project in the Barwon region this year and we have a project officer working in the area. There is amazing support from the sports assembly and the local government in that area. It is a joint project. The councils in that area ran a project titled G21, which looked at the future of sport in that area. It is very progressive and entrepreneurial. We are hanging on the coat-tails of that and tapping into it to put in a project officer to look at where netball is going, what facilities we will need, what people we will need and what investment we can make in that area. Certainly, we need to use regional sports assemblies more effectively.

The difficulty with that is that we have 20 regions in Victoria. Our pilot is in this year; we will be lucky to get through this project in 20 years. The difficulty for sport is the resources we have. What will we do next year, how will we go across Victoria and how will we partner with sports like basketball to say, ‘We could work together on this project and do it well together’? That is probably the future. It is about sports coming together in lots of local communities to share the resources, and we do. I am sure there are people on basketball committees who are on our netball committees. They will be the same people.

Senator RONALDSON—What is your level of investment at the elite level?

Ms Palmer—We have a $5.5 million turnover. Our investment at the elite level is just over $1 million. This is our state organisation. That provides a pathway from our zone academies at the regional level to our Commonwealth Bank Trophy teams. Our country CBT teams have a budget of about $385,000 each, and that does not include the cost that Netball Australia expends on travel, uniforms and those sorts of things. Our investment in other areas as a proportion of our turnover is not as significant, and that concerns me enormously. For example, our turnover for coach development is only about $150,000 a year. Despite that, we produce significant numbers of elite coaches, and they are very successful in that area.

Senator RONALDSON—From the Netball Victoria-Netball Australia point of view, I would assume you would say that it is anything but dysfunctional at the elite level?

Ms Palmer—There is enormous potential and opportunity. A lot of work needs to be done. We have an opportunity to create something significantly better for our elite players. We are absolutely committed to that, and we have been for a long time. We would not be making the investment that we are if we were not. But we need more support. I indicated in my preliminary address that we need powerful people and people of influence who can influence other people to support us. We have been doing it alone, and we need other people’s help. Yes, we make a great investment and we do a wonderful job with the resources that we have. We care for the five- year-olds to the 80-year-olds. Basketball’s demographics would be very similar. Noelene Dix is presenting this afternoon. She has 350,000 members in Australia. Our elite players consist of about 150 women. How do we balance the need to cater for all of those people? It is a real problem for us.

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS Thursday, 3 August 2006 Senate—References ECITA 41

ACTING CHAIR—I am conscious of the fact that Netball Victoria has managed both the participatory arm and the two elite teams that participate in the Commonwealth Bank Trophy. Basketball, on the other hand, has separated the two organisations so that you have your elite arm and your participation arm. I want to come to a point about that. I will ask Netball Victoria first. You have just alluded to the competing tensions within your organisation. Is one of the potential solutions for you then to look at some sort of structural separation so that you can manage the elite teams separately from your participation aspirations?

Ms Palmer—Absolutely, and we have been working on that now for the past 18 months. We have formed an alliance with the Melbourne Football Club and we are now negotiating an alliance with either Collingwood Football Club or Essendon Football Club.

ACTING CHAIR—So those elite teams will find a home?

Ms Palmer—We are looking for partners who can help us. They run professional sporting teams and that means their focus is just on their team and on their performance. It would allow us to focus on our core business, which is the game across the state. We cannot do it alone and I think the only way that the sport can be professionalised is by partners. The partners will not be taking over. We will still make sure that netball and women are given the opportunity. But they can provide the resources that we do not have and the professionalism, experience and skills. Collingwood Football Club has 26 people in its marketing unit; we have four. You can imagine the difference. They run a footie team and we run a state.

Senator RONALDSON—You can identify the issue.

Ms Palmer—Absolutely. Structurally it has to change. At this point it is necessary—and it is probably about three years overdue—to have a review of how the competition is run. It is pleasing to see that there are significant changes happening now, which is wonderful.

ACTING CHAIR—I have a question about the marketing challenge. Obviously, it is linked to revenues. Your submission identifies the fact that revenue is very difficult to come by. What sort of loss are you incurring with respect to the elite teams that Netball Victoria manages? Can you give us that in percentage terms?

Ms Palmer—We do not record it as a loss. We record it as an investment that we make in our elite players. We do not want it to be seen as losing money. We are not; we are investing in the future of these players. In terms of the costs of the teams, to keep our two CBT teams going it is an investment of $500,000. We fund that through sponsorship. We are very fortunate to have two wonderful sponsors in Allied Pickfords and First National at the CBT level. We also fund that by membership and spectators, although they are hard to come by, and through fundraising activities.

ACTING CHAIR—I am interested in the pathways for elite athletes from regional areas. How do they make it to those two elite teams? Is there a clear path for them or is your recruitment really based around the VIS and talent ID?

Ms Palmer—No. I can vouch for our pathway. It is outstanding. In Victoria you are talent identified by talent scouts who identify players. They go into what are called zone academies

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS ECITA 42 Senate—References Thursday, 3 August 2006 and then they are selected through interstate teams. They start moving into Netball Australia’s High Performance Pathway, which is an exceptional program. That pulls them into a high performance environment with a daily training environment. An investment is made in the Victorian Institute of Sport, which is an exceptional program. Our two CBT teams are full scholarship holders of the VIS. Then we have underpinning programs, and they are given experience in a daily training environment. The pathway is one of the things that netball does very well.

ACTING CHAIR—Turning to basketball: why did you separate your elite from your participation based and create two organisations?

Mr Bird—The state body has five separate governing bodies that sit in the structure under our board. We chose to do that a long while ago purely and simply to give them independence through our office. We can then concentrate on participation at the grassroots end and our elite athlete development—our intensive training centre programs and our state teams. They are all junior and underage focused—up to under 20s. We moved to this structure because it provided a broader base of administration for us and took that onus, if you like, off the office. They are able to develop their branding and marketing in the context that we agree with, and so they become a self-contained unit. At the next level, at the elite end and national league levels, they are privately owned. Basically, the men’s teams are both privately owned, so that is a separate level again.

Mr Cowling—It is fair to say that state bodies that get involved with elite programs—and I am not sure if you have experienced this—are often criticised for that and get asked, ‘Why are you using our members’ money to fund the Kestrels or the Phoenix or the Dandenong Rangers?’ The structure of our environment means that that criticism never happens, because the funding to run the Big V League is provided only by the clubs that play in the Big V League. The general populace of the sport cannot criticise Basketball Victoria for favouring one part of the sport above others.

ACTING CHAIR—Is one of the criticisms that you get from your constituency in netball that there is a bit of tension amongst the grassroots of netball and about the proportion of money that goes to the elite teams?

Ms Palmer—No, it is not something that is clear. Our members are concerned about what they get for their membership, though. For us, it is about how we can resource what we need to do and how we can serve our members well. To be honest with you, the tension is more at the board table in that our board serves our members.

ACTING CHAIR—I see basketball nodding their head and understanding.

Ms Palmer—They are very concerned because they represent our members and need to act in their best interests. There is tension in the staff as well. CBT starts and I have to say that the focus of all of our staff members is steered into CBT and it is an absolute drain on our organisation.

ACTING CHAIR—Can I ask basketball, because you are a combined men’s and women’s sport: what sort of proportions do you have on a gender basis of your participants in both the

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS Thursday, 3 August 2006 Senate—References ECITA 43 elite and the state level organisation and how do you make sure that there is equal representation?

Mr Cowling—There are 98 teams in our league across Victoria. Some 42 of those are women’s teams. The encouraging thing for us is that the growth in the last couple of years has been more in the women’s part of the sport. Our league started as a women’s competition back in 1987. The men did not enter it until 1989. It was primarily a country women’s league when it started. We have always had a strong representation of women.

It has been suggested to us in the past that we should mandate that, if a club has a men’s team, it should have a women’s. That is very difficult to do from a competitive standards point of view. A club may not be ready to field a senior elite women’s team yet. We do not mandate, but we do encourage. We use different strategies to encourage that. It might be fixture and it might be creating double-header opportunities so that volunteering resources are not stretched, and things like that. Certainly, we try to heavily promote women and men playing together on the one night in a game—if it is a show game with spectators there—to give both the opportunity to be promoted equally.

Mr Bird—From a state point of view, we focus very much on equality. It is mandated as part of our policy. There are areas where, if the female participation side in an association or at a particular level of competition is failing, we will invest money in that, not to the detriment of the men’s side or the boy’s side but simply because we want to maintain that level of involvement and that level of interest. We have developed specific programs, with the assistance of some government funding, focusing particularly on women’s participation. We have addressed that across the board. It is not just players but coaches, administrators, referees—the whole thing. That program has another year or so to run. We have been able to develop a women’s network and hold a specific luncheon for women and invite them along. We had 90-odd ladies involved in our sport attend that. We have now extended that into a networking environment. Close to 200 women now subscribe to that. We have identified those people who work in our sport who we can now try to educate further and get more involved as well.

ACTING CHAIR—We have seen a lot of statistics showing lower levels of participation by women on boards and at the governance tier. What is the female representation like on either of your boards?

Mr Bird—We do not have a female representative on our board. The reason for that is that back in the mid-90s there were, I can recall, three ladies invited to join the board. It was done for the wrong reason. It was done as a token representation. Our board has certainly determined not to go down that path. Currently—and it may be just coincidental—we have an ability to coopt and we are currently looking for some ladies who are involved in our sport or around our sport who can come on as representatives. But we maintain that, if we do that, we must regard males the same opportunity, and ladies who come must bring something to our board that can contribute overall. But it is a deficiency at the moment.

ACTING CHAIR—Just out of interest, how do people get selected for the board and have you been able to identify any systemic issues that might have presented barriers to women?

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Mr Bird—Generally, for each annual meeting it is published throughout our basketball community through our associations that certain board members will put themselves up for re- election or will retire and there will be a vacancy. We seek nominations for those positions. We have some inquiries from time to time and explain how the board operates and what the expectations are. We have had some nominations, but those people have either withdrawn or—

ACTING CHAIR—From women?

Mr Bird—from women—have not been successful when the vote is taken. At the moment, we are more trying to identify people who would be suitable and that we believe would bring something to the board and we are approaching them individually.

ACTING CHAIR—As opposed to self identifying and putting themselves up for election?

Mr Bird—Yes. A lot of people simply will not volunteer to put their hand up. We find that if you tap them on the shoulder, talk to them and encourage them, you are more likely to be successful.

ACTING CHAIR—With Big V, what is the women’s representation like?

Mr Cowling—We have one woman on our board at the moment, which is terrific. It is a very similar environment. The opportunity to be involved in the league’s executive is a club-voted and nominated opportunity. I would say that it is a really good thought. We have almost always had at least one or two women on our board over the years, but very few women put themselves forward for that position. Kate made a very good point earlier about powerful people. As to the powerful women in business or the community, we either do not see them in our sport or they do not get involved. Our next level, the administration level, is almost dominated by women. I would suggest to you that is because they are good at it.

ACTING CHAIR—It is a common thing. It is the women doing the work.

Mr Bird—In my office more than 50 per cent of my employees are female.

Senator WORTLEY—How many members are on your boards?

Mr Bird—We have 10.

Mr Cowling—We have nine.

ACTING CHAIR—That is a reasonable number.

Ms Palmer—I would like to make a further comment about tokenism. This is one area that could be mandated. You can do that constitutionally, such that you have equity on a board. It is about, as you said, identifying the skills and women who have the skills, because there are plenty out there. I often face this. There is a seminar coming up at Telstra Dome in about two weeks time and I do not know that there is a woman presenting there on sport business, which is interesting. I have several colleagues who have the ability to present quite significant information. That is a problem. There is not recognition of women who have skills. In some

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS Thursday, 3 August 2006 Senate—References ECITA 45 instances if it takes tokenism then do it. If you put a women on a board or a trust—and I have experienced this myself—and if you have an opportunity you do not sit there and be a token woman; you have an opportunity to create change and to contribute. That is what needs to happen. If it takes that, then I support it wholeheartedly.

ACTING CHAIR—I will be interested in talking to Hockey Australia later, because when they amalgamated their men’s and women’s they did make that one of the features of the new constitution just to make sure both groups were fully represented at board level. Part of that constitution required a specific number of men as well.

Ms Palmer—That is our problem.

ACTING CHAIR—Yes.

Mr Bird—Maybe we can swap.

Ms Palmer—We could.

ACTING CHAIR—It is an interesting point. The issue of quotas on representative bodies, as well as coverage in the media, has become quite a theme throughout this inquiry. We are certainly interested in your views.

Mr Bird—Basketball Australia has currently three ladies on its board. Ladies were elected to the last two positions. The trend has started.

Mr Cowling—I have been running this league for only three years. Strategically we have changed a lot of things in those three years. But of greater concern to me is the lack of women who have moved from the sport into coaching in particular—

ACTING CHAIR—That is a really interesting point.

Mr Cowling—and also into refereeing.

ACTING CHAIR—We have seen some submissions identifying specifically the barriers for women to follow, from playing this sport through to moving to officiating, governance and coaching positions. We are particularly interested in that. Based on the submissions, a lot of the advocacy is that the sport itself has a very strong role to play in creating those opportunities quite specifically for former elite players and former participants in the sport. I do not know whether you want to comment briefly on that.

Senator WORTLEY—To netball, in your submission you stated that, if the government is seriously concerned with sustaining and increasing participation levels, it needs to back that up with greater investment in those sports with greater membership numbers. You have made a number of recommendations regarding the allocation of funding at various levels, including government research, and then following that through with provision of funding to act on the research. You also state that to achieve sustainable access funding should take place over a realistic timeline of two to three or even more years. Could you just speak about that for a moment?

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Ms Palmer—Yes. I indicated previously that we receive funding from the state government. The problem for such a large organisation—and we have 250 affiliated bodies and 130,000 individual members—is: how can we fund a project? We have another pilot project through our VicHealth funding that could take us 15 years to implement. They are wonderful projects and they can create change, but we just do not have the funding to do that. At the moment, our VicHealth funding and our Sport and Recreation Victoria funding, which we are very grateful for, accounts for about $2.40 to each of our individual members. I support what is given to elite sport. I do not think that it should be reduced—it could be increased—however, there seems to be no equity. If we really want people to participate in sport, then we need to fund it in the right way. We need to find out what is actually effective. VicHealth can be congratulated in terms of its focus on evaluating where their dollar goes and what comes out the other end. This is not in terms of increasing numbers. It is not about the government ticking, ‘We increased it by 1,000 people,’ it is about the government saying, ‘People are healthier. They are participating in coaching programs, officiating programs and getting involved in sport and being active and healthy.’ It is not just about numbers. The funding needs to be sustained over time. We should not have to worry in three years time whether that funding is going to disappear. We identify obviously our core business, so what do we have to do? If every bit of funding disappeared tomorrow, what would we do? What are the things that we can really create change with? That comes from government funding. That is the reality.

Senator WORTLEY—In your submission you talk about access to creche or child-care facilities as having an impact on participation. I am taking it that that is at all levels, from playing, coaching, umpiring and so on. Then you go on to talk about the changes to child-care legislation.

Ms Sheehan—Changes started about two years ago such that the requirements in respect of offering child care in a facility were upgraded, obviously in the interests of children. Sport was not consulted at that time, which meant that the sorts of requirements being put in place were not manageable by sport and by community centres. They made it too onerous for those groups to continue to run the sort of child care that they had run and there was not consideration of the impact of that legislative change on people’s participation. In a sense, the decisions were made about certain child-care facilities without taking into account child-care facilities attached to or part of recreational facilities.

Senator WORTLEY—Were they for existing or proposed child-care facilities?

Ms Sheehan—Most of them already existed.

Mr Bird—Yes, they were. Most of the stadiums had made provision. But as Lynne said, potentially the new legislation was going to make it very onerous and expensive. Those people affected would be the mums who would come and play in a morning competition. That was a very social environment for them as well. The requirements it looked as though they were going to introduce were such that affordability would potentially ruin that sort of environment.

Senator WORTLEY—Do you see a role for government in increasing participation and child care as being one way of doing that?

Mr Bird—Yes.

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS Thursday, 3 August 2006 Senate—References ECITA 47

Ms Sheehan—Absolutely.

Senator WORTLEY—How do you think that could be put into effect?

Ms Sheehan—There are a couple of issues around that. One is not just general child care but child care at the facility.

Mr Bird—Yes.

Ms Sheehan—One of the issues for young mothers is access to facilities that are close to home and that do not require multiple drop-offs. In some places it was suggested that schools could act as hubs; for example, with child care in the school grounds where the community centre is so that there could be one drop-off for everybody. You would not have to take the child to child care, spend an extra 15 minutes going to the venue to play your game and then have to repeat your journey to come back, increasing petrol use and increasing the time taken. If there were a facility such as that, you could walk in the door, put the child into the creche, go and play your 40 minutes of netball, pick the child up and go home. There would be easy access at low cost and they would be more likely to participate.

Mr Cowling—’Compliance’ is a nasty word. It would not matter which sport you were in and what the issue is, compliance has become more onerous. What both of these people were just talking about was the issue of compliance in Victoria with standards regarding child care. As you relax that compliance or as you create the conditions in which sports compliance is perhaps different, then you probably make those things easier to deliver. Local governments build facilities. I would like to make the point that, invariably, they do not build social function areas into indoor facilities. They build three courts, two change rooms, two toilets and a canteen, because that is all they can afford. A lot of outdoor sports get an advantage because they get a clubroom or they get a bar. The bar is not always desirable. I go to a local footie club. They do not have a child-care facility and they never will have.

ACTING CHAIR—The kids end up getting looked after in the bar.

Mr Cowling—That is a danger.

ACTING CHAIR—It is true.

Mr Cowling—Often there is a local playground nearby, or there is something. When you build an indoor facility you often do not even factor that into your thinking.

Mr Bird—A big factor—and we are talking with the state government about this at the moment—is consultation. When this legislation was being proposed the sports found out about it. We work very closely with a group of stadium managers and we discussed it with them and they took this issue up on behalf of all of the stadium managers. There are some 50 or 60 involved in this group. They are not only in basketball, they are YMCA and other private providers. We were able to get the opportunity at least to present some information that allowed a more reasonable end result, but that could all have been avoided if there had been some consultation with the state bodies much earlier in the process.

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Senator RONALDSON—If you had two press releases, one in relation to a female basketballer and one in relation to a male, what would happen if for a month you deliberately put the press release about the male player into the wastepaper basket—a quite deliberate strategy— and fed through only the press release in relation to the woman?

Mr Cowling—The journalist would ring the coach of the male team and get the story in a different way. I have no doubt about that. Am I right?

Ms Palmer—Yes.

Mr Cowling—The journalist would ring the coach of the male team and get a different story.

Senator RONALDSON—The reason for that question was: are there things that you can do proactively to assist? But by the sound of it, it is not going to work anyway.

ACTING CHAIR—Thank you very much for that.

Proceedings suspended from 12.11 pm to 12.47 pm

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS Thursday, 3 August 2006 Senate—References ECITA 49

BLANDTHORN, Mr John-Paul, Director, Australian Netball Players Association; and Organiser, Australian Workers Union

DICK, Ms Ingrid, Director, Australian Netball Players Association

KITCHIN, Ms Melanie, Member, Australian Netball Players Association

SHORTEN, Mr Bill, Interim Chief Executive Officer, Australian Netball Players Association; and National Secretary, Australian Workers Union

ACTING CHAIR—Welcome. The committee has received your submission as submission No. 62. Do you wish to make any amendments or alterations to your submission?

Mr Shorten—Not at this stage.

ACTING CHAIR—I now invite you to make an opening statement.

Mr Shorten—I am fortunate to have with me John-Paul Blandthorn, who has prepared the text of the most of this research, and also Ingrid Dick, who apart from playing for the Melbourne Phoenix is a director of the Australian Netball Players Association, and Mel Kitchin from the Kestrels, who has filled in at short notice because our president, Stacy Rosman, had family commitments in Perth that made it impossible for her to come across here.

I want to make an initial statement. The submission is very detailed. We do not want to make a critique of netball administration. We think that they are trying to do the best they can. Our comments are based on improving the sport, from the players’ point of view. The current prime minister is a big fan of Don Bradman. In 1924 Don Bradman had to give up cricket because Percy Westbrook, the real estate agent he worked for, understandably refused to give him Saturday off to play first grade for Bowral. For a year he did not play the game he was born for, concentrating instead upon ping-pong, choir singing, violin practice, pop song writing and of course showing customers around federation houses with white picket fences, which is what he thought he would be doing for the rest of his life. He nearly let his entire immortality and a nation’s pride slip because cricket in those days was not much thought of as a professional sport. It was a pastime, it was hobby and it was something you did ‘as well’. It was 60 years before it became a true, honourable and profitable profession and the glory and the obsession of much of the TV-viewing world.

It is possible that we have lost the female Bradman of netball already for want of a sympathetic employer prepared to take seriously the art she excelled at and the activity that stirred her to international swiftness, astuteness and zeal and to give her those patches of time off she needed to train, practise and prove herself a world champion. We may have lost her already, and that is a pity. Her equivalent in New Zealand, who, I am both sorry and pleased to say, is an Australian, is much better served with recognition, applause and a wage she can live on and needs no other work because that alert and perspicacious country, which gave women the vote before we did, is ahead of us again, realising women in sport—all sport—have rights, status and potential as great as those of men. This argument needs no haggling, no philosophical wrangling

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS ECITA 50 Senate—References Thursday, 3 August 2006 and no Jesuitical contortions to establish as fact any more than women’s participation in tennis at Wimbledon—women who earn sums of money that are not demeaning and who have their day in the sun before the eyes of the world.

If there is money there, as New Zealand shows there is, much follows: the crowds, the acclaim, the television coverage, the agents, the contracts, the stardom and even the celebrity divorce. What follows, too, is that engagement in a field of excellence of avid contest, head to head with a swift opposing intelligence that uplifts the combative instincts of the human being to perfect pitch, and that remembered moment of slow motion, exultant, match-winning achievement that climaxes a game. This is not the preserve of the male and never has been. In gymnastics, diving, swimming, softball, basketball and ballet female tenacity and grace has never been in doubt. The Australian Netball Players Association and Australian Workers Union only ask an equivalence for a Commonwealth Games craft, an honourable art, a growing Australasian delight of netball. What I would like to do is, perhaps through questions and the contributions of the other representatives here, explain how that can be so.

ACTING CHAIR—Would any of you like to also make an opening statement or are you happy now to go to questions?

Ms Dick—That should be fine.

Senator RONALDSON—Mr Shorten, you said in your opening statement that you were not providing a critique of Netball Australia in your submission. With the greatest of respect, I think you have provided a quite damning critique of Netball Australia. Do you know who was sponsoring the CBT during the mid-nineties?

Mr Shorten—The CBT only commenced in—

Senator RONALDSON—The elite level before then.

Mr Blandthorn—There was a previous National Netball League that preceded the—

Senator RONALDSON—You do not know?

Ms Dick—It was a short season, and we only played weekends—

Senator RONALDSON—You do not know?

Ms Dick—Yes.

Senator RONALDSON—I will get to that in a second. Are you aware that dancing and cheerleading is a part of the dancing and performing arts pathway? Are you aware that organisations such as VicHealth, for example, are very supportive of dancing and cheerleading at sporting events?

Mr Blandthorn—Yes.

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS Thursday, 3 August 2006 Senate—References ECITA 51

Senator RONALDSON—Can I tell you that the organisation that was sponsoring netball at the time referred to in your alleged non-critical critique of Netball Australia was Fisher and Paykel.

Mr Shorten—They certainly still do with the New Zealand game.

Senator RONALDSON—And, Mr Shorten, indeed, the ball into the washing machine was part of the Fisher and Paykel promotion and had nothing to do with demeaning women.

Mr Shorten—Ingrid has been playing for the last couple of seasons. We might ask her to comment.

Ms Dick—Sorry, I did not realise that Fisher and Paykel made an Australian series. That was not the CBT, though. That is a difference—

Senator RONALDSON—It might not have been the CBT. Have you read the submission?

Ms Dick—Yes, I have.

Senator RONALDSON—I presume that was the same incident you were referring to in the submission. Was it?

Mr Blandthorn—Yes. For instance, regarding we were saying about the idea of people throwing balls into washing machines, it is always good to support a sponsor, but it might be even better to support the grassroots in much same way the AFL does at half-time and demonstrates through the Auskick promotion. The netball administrators have developed a fantastic game plan there.

Senator RONALDSON—Mr Blandthorn, in my view your submission almost viciously attacked Netball Australia. You tried to demean their position. I have been provided with a lot of information over the last hour which, quite frankly, shows that that self-serving submission of yours was factually incorrect. You talk about promotion on the one hand, but on the other you talk about Netball Australia not providing and not going out and seeking promotion and promoting events, and you take a ball being put into a washing machine provided by a sponsor, to promote the sponsor, and you turn that in some negative attack on Netball Australia.

ACTING CHAIR—Can I just say something here? I think it is—

Mr Shorten—Was that a question or just an observation?

Senator RONALDSON—No, it was a question.

ACTING CHAIR—Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but the witnesses are here to express a point of view. I think their perspective needs to be respected.

Senator RONALDSON—Madam Chair, I respect your ruling on this, but we were given a self-serving document—

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ACTING CHAIR—That is your opinion.

Senator RONALDSON—by the AWU that was factually incorrect. The AWU should be working with Netball Australia. This was an open attack on them, and I think it was totally inappropriate. I will go to what I—

Mr Shorten—I would like the opportunity to perhaps answer a couple of the statements that I think are masquerading as questions.

ACTING CHAIR—By all means, Mr Shorten.

Mr Shorten—To begin with, if we want to go through the submission, one fact that remains beyond doubt is that the average remuneration for female players playing netball before the first collective agreement was negotiated was a tad under $3,000 per annum. There is no way to make that fact prettier than it is. When I made the observation that we are not here to engage in ‘us and them’ point scoring, clearly you did not feel bound by that. My observation about Netball—

Senator RONALDSON—No, I did not feel bound because of your submission, Mr Shorten, which made comments such as ‘dysfunctional’ and ‘complete inquiry and overhaul’.

ACTING CHAIR—Senator Ronaldson, could we have some decorum here. Mr Shorten does have the floor at the moment.

Mr Shorten—The observation I make is that I think everyone in netball is trying to do the best they possibly can, but the point that cannot be escaped and cannot be sugar-coated is that the 128 or 132 elite women players of netball are very poorly remunerated. The observation I make is that there has been massive upheaval within netball. It is not due to the players association or the union that four of the six state based CEOs have changed in the last 18 months. It is not due to the AWU or the ANPA that the CEO of Netball Australia has changed and they are currently looking to fill in a position. In terms of your—

Senator RONALDSON—Where did that person go to?

Mr Shorten—I am happy to take one question at a time.

Senator RONALDSON—You made the comment.

ACTING CHAIR—Please do not interrupt, Senator Ronaldson.

Mr Shorten—If you do not find my answer to you pleasing, by all means I cannot change that, but I would like to give my answer. We have gone to the effort of making a submission. Anything we say reflects what the elite players tell us. In terms of elite sport, is women popping balls into whitegoods at halftime the way the sport is going to promote itself in the future? It is not that that happened. It is not that that happened, for good or bad reasons, some years ago. The observation, the conclusion, that the players have directed us to draw is that for the sport to go ahead they need to receive professional treatment off the court matching their commitment on the court. I do not know if you think that the remuneration they receive is fair. I cannot judge. I do not blame the sport for the remuneration they receive. The sport is not well funded. But,

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS Thursday, 3 August 2006 Senate—References ECITA 53 having said that, to sit still and simply say the current situation is good enough is, I think, selling the women athletes short. We do not come here in the spirit of ‘us and them’, but what we do do is come here in the spirit of trying to improve the sport.

Senator RONALDSON—Others who have read the submission will make that—

ACTING CHAIR—Do you have any other questions?

Senator RONALDSON—Yes, I do, thank you. When I was looking through your submission last night, the only positive I could take out of it was your statement that there are a lack of skills within netball organisations to generate interest from media outlets and how to get free publicity. I presume—and this is a question across the board—that this is a real issue for women’s sport everywhere and not just for netball. Have you, not from necessarily a netball point of view but from a wider women-in-sport point of view, any views about how this can be better addressed? Has the players association any format it has put in place to try and address that, which could be used elsewhere by other women’s sporting organisations?

Mr Shorten—That was a long question. Can you perhaps restate it? What is the specific question you want to know?

Senator RONALDSON—Are there things that the players association is doing—to follow up your comment about a lack of skills and interest from media outlets and how to get free publicity; this is not just a netball issue, this is a wider women’s sport issue—that are successful and, if so, what are they? Also, can they be transferred across to other women’s sporting activities? I made my point about the others. It is a straight question about whether there are things that you are doing that other women’s sports organisations could be doing.

Mr Blandthorn—I know from personally having worked with Bill very closely through netball that the one thing Bill has tried to do to help the netball administrators, which I do not think anyone would doubt, is his introducing them to the editors-in-chief of the major newspapers. He is introducing them to people at television networks and those sorts of things. What they have told us in the past is that they have not always had the ability to open the doors at the big end of town. Bill has gone out of his way to do this. His role is as the national secretary, but he has taken time out to go around. He has made time for the previous CEO of Netball Australia, the CEO of Netball Victoria and anyone else who has made the phone call, including the former CEO in Queensland. He has introduced them to the media outlets, spoken to them and tried to encourage them.

In addition, we went over to New Zealand and we studied the sport in New Zealand. What we found in New Zealand was that the commentators and the reporters want to go to the netball. It is seen as a good sort of gig to go to. They will put on a luncheon for them and those sorts of things. In New Zealand they are trying to get in the best reporters, who may have status at either their network or their newspaper and have the ability to drive information through the newspapers. Those are the sorts of things we are encouraging and working with the netball administrators to do—that is, to get more of that free publicity.

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Senator RONALDSON—I am sure that Mr Shorten is very well placed to do that and is doing a terrific job in that regard. Not all women’s sports organisations have got a Bill Shorten to assist in that regard.

Mr Blandthorn—That is right.

Senator RONALDSON—Womensport and Recreation in New South Wales is running a series of seminars to get editors and senior women’s sports administrators together so they know each other. We had a comment from one of the women journos yesterday that the men tend to pick up the phone when they want a story in, but a lot of the women’s sporting organisations do not and just send through a media release.

Mr Shorten—For show.

Senator RONALDSON—Is that a step forward, do you think—not just with Bill Shorten and the players association—in a wider sense to get those groups together?

Ms Dick—I think it is. I think it is good. The players association joining the AWU has been an amazing experience for all of us. Bill of course has connected us with people in the broader networks.

Senator RONALDSON—He is very well connected.

Ms Dick—Yes, but that is a good thing and a bad thing.

Senator RONALDSON—I am not saying that in a negative sense. He is very well connected.

Ms Dick—As a player I have never been exposed to as much media exposure through Bill and through the players association. I have been playing for 10 years, which is a long time, and I have seen a lot. The media presence comes in ebbs and flows. I feel that, going forward, this connection with the AWU is really quite strong, and the players association needs to have that input as well. I find that in Netball Australia things have not changed that much, to be honest. The expectations on me as a player are a lot higher. It is not even about playing or training. They email you weekly saying, ‘Can you do this clinic?’ But I have to work. I work full time as well. I would like to see the sport grow and move forward, and I think media is a big part of that— people knowing that the games are on.

Senator RONALDSON—I meant more outside of the netball experience. Obviously, there is a lot of cross-flow of information between yourselves and other elite sportswomen. Are they having the same sort of trouble that you used to have in getting publicity? What are their views on it?

Ms Dick—I do not know their views.

Senator RONALDSON—That is okay.

Ms Dick—I think Melanie might have a bit more to say on our connections with cricket.

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Ms Kitchin—I think that being with the ANP has really helped us. Women’s cricket does not have an association that helps them, and they are in a much worse position than we are now. I think that joining the ANP has helped us a lot. Other women’s sports are not as lucky as we are. People see netball as very marketable, whereas other sports, such as cricket and women’s football, are not. We have that advantage over the other sports.

Mr Shorten—Senator, I do not know if someone was just feeding you some stuff because they are unhappy with our submission. We were informed by Netball Australia and Netball Victoria on Friday and Sunday that they felt there were inaccuracies in our submission. On both occasions I said: ‘Great. If that is the case, tell us and we are happy to amend our submissions to reflect any factual details.’ To the extent that someone has chosen to tell you privately rather than working with the players association when we have invited them to do that, I cannot help that. That is a fact.

Senator RONALDSON—I understand that to be totally unrelated.

Mr Shorten—I appreciate that we have moved above that. As you said, you are now asking straight questions. I just wanted to make that clear so we can get the right tone. I accept that some administrators in netball are not used to dealing with the players as an organised voice. That has not been an easy journey. Lindsay Cane came on board and was willing to work with us and Netball Australia. Certainly Kate Palmer in Victoria initially found it complex and was not sure of our motivation but in more recent times has accepted there is a role for having players organised in a voice. Mel and Ingrid have said they find that useful.

As to the specific answer to your question about lessons in terms of marketing, the first lesson I would observe is that, as both Mel Kitchin and Ingrid Dick said, having a union or a collective voice is useful in getting their message up. In terms of some other options, partly what I now say is based on the fact that we want to talk to Netball Australia before we give them the benefit of our public opinion, so to speak. They have indicated that they would like to find out things privately before they read about it. To that extent, what I will say will necessarily be limited out of courtesy to the administrators.

I think that the key to supporting netball in Australia is that netball has huge participation numbers. Everyone talks about the participation. However, there is a disconnect. The women who play netball do not necessarily identify with the Liz Ellises, the Ingrid Dicks or the Mel Kitchins. In other words, their suburban court activity is disconnected from their support for the elite level of the sport. That is a challenge, and we notice that in New Zealand there is not that disconnect. We think that it is completely possible in terms of the promotion of the women in the sport to increase their community involvement. They are already doing that, but we think they probably need to be paid to do some of that work in clinics and schools—and not, I should say, just single-sex schools. There is a big challenge to move the supporter base at the elite level from not just the kids and girls but to men and women—adults—and ideally with a much more even split. That is, if you like, a challenge for the audience that we need to look at.

ACTING CHAIR—It is a characteristic of the audience at the senior elite games, including the national games, that a high proportion of the audience is younger.

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Mr Shorten—Yes. And we want to keep that audience, but the trick would be to get perhaps an older audience to attend as well. Looking at the comments about the board structure and administrative hierarchy of the sport, in terms of how that assists marketing, I am going to take a leave pass to consult with the administrators and those people before we have any further public debate about that. In terms of the financing base, in order to have a successful marketing strategy for elite women’s sport you have to have the money, as in every aspect of life.

We have a view that Netball Australia needs to develop much closer links with business. We have the view that television is the holy grail. It will deliver a much healthier funding base. We believe that is the case for women’s sports generally. There is a lot of reliance on affiliation fees from state member organisations and the grassroots. That is good but that, if you like, feeds upon itself. There are important activities in the sport of netball in Australia that do not involve the elite athletes, and it is important that resources are available in the grassroots for those.

Senator RONALDSON—What is the response of the players to the move to ABC2 and the highlight package at two o’clock in the afternoon when, I presume, a lot of women are actually playing sport?

Ms Dick—I have not watched the highlights package very much.

Senator RONALDSON—No, I do not imagine you would have.

Ms Dick—We like the live ABC, but I do not know how many homes have ABC2.

Senator RONALDSON—So you see that as an issue?

Ms Dick—Yes. The live games are good, because it gives families at home a chance to watch if they cannot travel every week to watch us play. It is good in that respect.

Senator RONALDSON—Is it the players’ view that there has been diminished access to the general community with those changes or increased access?

Ms Dick—I think less.

Senator RONALDSON—That is certainly what we are hearing, but I just wanted to hear your point of view.

Ms Dick—There were two games on a Saturday, I think, or the Friday night game and two games on a Saturday. We used to be able to watch those. But other than that on television, no.

Mr Shorten—In terms of some of the marketing issues, we think that the financing is crucial. It is very hard to take out one element, one ingredient, of this whole proposition. Expenditure on administration is expensive in Australia, as contrasted with New Zealand. In New Zealand—and I am not suggesting that they are ready for this in Australia; you have to walk before you run— the franchise system is interesting in terms of how they create identity and incentives for the teams. I suspect that, ultimately—and I put my science fiction hat on here—a franchise system will have the benefit of raising revenue, and injecting some commercial management expertise into the sport. That is not to reflect adversely on the current situation, but you can always do

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS Thursday, 3 August 2006 Senate—References ECITA 57 better. I think that will allow greater cross-promotional activities and a much more professional event on game day. I do not know how you find it when you go on game day, Senator, but I think that it will also help drive local promotion and sponsorship opportunities, which currently do not exist.

We think that Netball Australia should have oversight of this. But in terms of some of the franchises and marketing we believe there is an opportunity to develop a proactive campaign to improve the profile of elite players. We notice that the Victorian state government is doing this. I was there on a Sunday and it was starting to preview some of the players, which was great.

Ultimately, it does come down to television, as does politics and a lot of other things. You asked about the coverage on ABC2. One of the challenges is games on the Friday night competing for TV coverage with the major football codes. That is complex. One of the things we have also done to help develop the marketing base of elite women—and maybe it should flow into other sports, but I will not give any advice beyond netball—is that now, in the new collective agreement we negotiated, for the first time ever these women control the use of their own image. We were hearing stories when we were organising the sport that one player found her image on thousands of packets of biscuits and did not receive anything for the image. The nearest she got was that her mum bought a number of packets of the biscuits as mementoes. Another story is that one of the elite players found her image used at OPSM. Perhaps you might tell the story.

Ms Dick—It was me. I have a friend who is an optometrist and at his workplace there was a poster of me. He rang me to let me know. I had not given permission; I did not even know that I was on this poster. There was no permission or fee; I did not even know about it.

Senator RONALDSON—This morning Kate Roffey said there is a difference between New Zealand and Australia because the range of sports is a lot narrower there and it has been easier to generate netball to that level. Is one of the biggest issues for netball that huge range of sporting opportunities that we have compared with New Zealand?

Mr Blandthorn—I went to New Zealand and did a bit a study with another person from our union. I spoke to a lot of the media people over there and I said, ‘How come netball is ranked so highly?’ It is the No. 2 sport after rugby union. Essentially we heard the same thing. They still do play cricket. They play soccer and they play rugby league. They probably do not have AFL. Some 10 or 11 years ago apparently there was a network executive who took a punt. Netball in New Zealand was no different from netball in Australia. He happened to be an Australian and he took the punt, put his job on the line and said, ‘If this sport does not rate or we do not get ratings, I am happy to lose my job.’ What happened from that day was that the sport rated, and then the television networks decided it was a good idea to invest in it.

The television networks have been able to create these relationships with sponsors such as the National Bank and Fisher and Paykel, and they market it. For instance, if I go to a National Bank match, it is all green—that is, the goalposts are green and around the sides of the court it is green—and everyone knows that National Bank is the sponsor. What I am trying to say is that the television networks were the ones who took the leap of faith. It was not necessarily anything the administrators had done. The administrators have been fantastic over there in capitalising on the success of it and then building the relationships. But they were not necessarily cleverer than

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS ECITA 58 Senate—References Thursday, 3 August 2006 the Australian administrators. It was just that a television network took that leap of faith. Out in the street with some of the Silver Ferns, you get these guys who are 24 years old coming up and asking for autographs. Ingrid and Melanie are quite popular. The guys are coming up and asking them out.

Ms Dick—Our games are televised in New Zealand as well, so my family sees me.

Senator RONALDSON—And not on the ABC.

Ms Dick—I do not know—no, it is.

ACTING CHAIR—I would like to ask some questions about the issues you as players face. I note the survey in your submission that documents some of the challenges and some of the barriers that you face. The way I interpret it is that you feel you are prevented from reaching your full potential because of the inability to earn a salary from your sport. I wanted to ask perhaps both of you to spend a few minutes describing in your own words how that manifests itself in trying to find your own work-life balance. You play your sport, you may work or study and you may have a family; I do not know. It is important for this inquiry to hear it from your perspective.

Ms Dick—I have been playing for a number of years, and my circumstances have changed. When I first started playing netball I was at university. It was a bit easier then, because I was flexible with my training schedule and could work around things a bit easier. I was working as well, which was hard, just to get an income. I am still playing at CBT level and enjoying it, too. Working full time, it is a struggle to train and be fresh for games at the end of the week. I love netball and it is a passion. There are Phoenix and other commitments outside of netball, too. I want to coach little kids, because that is really enjoyable, but it is just hard to get out of full-time work for that.

ACTING CHAIR—You mentioned before you would often be emailed to do some of the promotional stuff associated with the sponsorships that Netball Australia has for the CBT. Can you make yourself available or does there become a trade-off such that only some of the team members end up contributing to those sponsorship obligations?

Ms Dick—Some of them are paid commitments but, yes, I find that only half our team can do them. I duck out at lunchtime to do them. There are a number of such requests. Of course, you want to do that. I love my sport and I want to put back into netball what they give me as well. It is great going to a clinic where the little girls aspire to be like you, and they are the things that I want to do. Unfortunately, I have to decline those requests. That is just the way it is.

ACTING CHAIR—Melanie, do you have any thoughts?

Ms Kitchin—Yes. I first started playing when I was still at school. Given my training schedule, I did not have the same time as the other people at school to dedicate to my studies. At the same time, I could not work, either, so I had to rely a lot on my parents. I finished year 12 last year. I wanted to go straight to university, but I could not; my parents could not afford it, so I had to start full-time work as well. That is very hard. Other sports offer opportunities to go straight into professional sport, and that can be their living. We do not have that. We have to

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS Thursday, 3 August 2006 Senate—References ECITA 59 work full time just to support ourselves. That means that we have to get up at 5 o’clock twice a week to go to training in the morning, and on the days that we do not we have to go to training after work. It affects our health. It affects us psychologically. You get to a game at the end of the week and you are not in the mental state to play. It is very hard; you cannot reach your potential as an athlete and you cannot reach your potential in your career. You cannot reach your career goals all the time, because you have to sacrifice the time to put towards your sport.

Ms Dick—And we are just talking about CBT level in Australia. It is amazing the time that they have to—

ACTING CHAIR—Tell the committee about the crossover between your CBT commitments and what happens for people who play for the Australian team.

Ms Dick—Yes, for their country. The commitments are increasing all the time to get gold medals or reach the world championships. I was in the Aussie squad a couple of years ago. The commitment was quite extensive at that time. We have a couple of Aussie girls in our team. They spend a week off work every sort of second week leading up to the Commonwealth Games. That is going to increase. We have the world championships next year. The commitment is amazing. They have to juggle their full-time work or university. They have to have very understanding employers.

Also, with respect to the CBT, I found that a lot of the girls are dropping off. After university, I do not see many of them coming through. If I ask, ‘Where has that girl gone?’ I hear that they could not keep up the commitment. This is the same all around Australia, not just here in Victoria. I played for many years. I was lucky because I had support from my employer. A lot of the girls do not. After university, when they have to work full time, they drop out of the sport, which is really disappointing because there are a lot of potential Australian netballers in that group.

Mr Blandthorn—Melanie was talking about the struggles with university and those sorts of things. One of my discoveries in New Zealand—and I have not quite got to the bottom of it—is a thing called a Prime Minister’s scholarship. People who are members of the Silver Ferns, for instance, the equivalent of our Aussie squad, get the opportunity for their university study and the costs associated with it to be government, and there are other benefits after they leave the sport.

ACTING CHAIR—Not while they are actually playing but once they have retired?

Mr Blandthorn—They can access it while they play or after. Now that it is a top-two sport, the government wants to set them up for life after their sport.

Ms Kitchin—Some Australian sports have that as well. The cricketers have that, not just the Australian players but the state players as well. Even if they are not playing anymore, if they played in the last two years, just at state level, they have the opportunity to access funding for their university courses.

Ms Dick—We also have a couple of 16-year-olds and 17-year-olds who attend high school. They get scholarships sometimes at Carey, so they have that commitment as well. They have to

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS ECITA 60 Senate—References Thursday, 3 August 2006 play for their high school, they have to play for Phoenix and they have to play for Aussie underage teams and Victorian teams. Those kids are lucky to get those scholarships, which is great, at those private schools. However, their commitments are huge as well.

ACTING CHAIR—I want to pursue this issue about what opportunities netballers have to stay involved with their sport once they have finished playing at an elite level. This has come up in some other submissions as well. I guess I am testing a proposition with you. Because of the complexity and difficulty of keeping all those balls in the air—excuse the pun—playing, working, family, et cetera, at the end of their elite career female athletes tend to drop their sport altogether or cut themselves off completely just because it has all become too much. The sports invariably lose that talent, if you like, or that corporate knowledge or experience because of that burden. Does that happen in netball? How many women who play at your level stay on and support the sport once they have finished playing at the elite level?

Ms Dick—Not many at all, which is really disappointing. That is something that, as I am nearing the end of my career, I would like to get involved with a lot more. They just do not know the games are on a lot of the time. They do not have that connection or that central point. It is disappointing that they do not know the players and they are not in touch with them. They are not introduced at functions that much. I think it is something that we need to look at and address.

Ms Kitchin—A lot of them do want to give something back. Amanda Burton, who stopped playing last year, was a big advocate for the ANPA. Others, such as Jillian Lee and Nicole Richardson, have stayed involved and what they have done has been fantastic. Jill is probably the top-serving coach in Victoria and Nicole Richardson is at Netball Victoria at the moment. If you could stay involved and give something back to the game, it would be fantastic.

Ms Dick—I do not think they are as recognised in the sport. I do not want to say ‘not respected’. I have played over 100 CBT games and I am not even invited to the Netball Australia dinner. I am not whingeing about that. But there are things like that, that connection, and the communication between the sport as well and their players. In terms of the head of Netball Australia, I never met the CEO before Lindsay came. It was great that we met her, but it is about that kind of relationship and building that network.

Ms Kitchin—It is just the recognition that girls like Ingrid deserve for what they have given to the game.

Ms Dick—Recently, Netball Victoria has been really good in that it is putting a structure in place such that, if you reach 100 games, then you will get this—flowers or a plaque—which is great. They are moving forward in that respect, but in the past that has not happened. Playing 100 games is pretty good when you play 14 per season. There is more recognition for the Australian team than the CBT teams. That is where I am finding there is a disconnect as well. The Netball Australia dinner is a big function that only the Australian players got flown into. However, 150 girls played the CBT, and I think that connection with Netball Australia was lost at some stage. I am finding that now it is getting better and we are getting more exposure through the AWU and ANPA.

ACTING CHAIR—I noted comments about the franchise model. With respect to participation, Netball Victoria earlier today talked about some of the merits of looking at

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS Thursday, 3 August 2006 Senate—References ECITA 61 separating the two Victorian elite teams. That is obviously an area that people are thinking about in terms of what better model might apply.

Mr Shorten—Franchised systems are not the answer to everything, and that is well down the track. But for the member organisations the CBT competition would have fallen, because they subsidise it. It is not taking away from the state member organisations. But sooner or later you have to let the private sector have a say.

Senator RONALDSON—You have ABC2 and 2 o’clock Saturday afternoon Highlights; I think we are well off franchising, I suspect.

Ms Dick—This year, I found our player contract negotiations hard. I was involved with that. We would be communicating with Netball Australia, and they did not have the ultimate decision, anyway. I think there is a disconnect between—

Mr Shorten—Each state.

Ms Dick—Netball Victoria is really good for us. However, Netball Queensland was not supportive. All the players want to be collective as one, and we are trying to unite as one and have one voice.

ACTING CHAIR—You are dealing with seven different employers.

Ms Dick—However, there is a disconnect, and Netball Australia will say, ‘Yes, we will agree to that.’ However, then it is, ‘Hang on. We have to go back to the MOs,’ and then they would not agree to it. Ultimately, there needs to be someone accountable for how the sport is progressing. For CBT and moving forward, I think there needs to be a separate structure that can make that decision and can have that relationship with the players.

ACTING CHAIR—Before I hand you to Senator Wortley, in your submission you raised the spectre of having some sort of independent review into the sport. Do you think that would be helpful at this stage, given certainly the points of view about the possibility for changing the structure?

Senator RONALDSON—Madam Chair, I thought we had agreed to move on from that. If we want to start that again, I am happy to do so.

ACTING CHAIR—No, I do not want to start anything. It is the only time that point has been made in any of the submissions. It has been made in the submissions, so I am happy to move on.

Mr Shorten—There is a new president of Netball Australia, and I think she is working pretty hard. She has to balance a lot of interests. We should try and give the sport the opportunity to improve what it is doing. It is always very hard to turn up and say that things could be done better without reflecting on what has not been done. What is important for netball is not to be paranoid about people taking an interest in the sport. But by the same token, people taking an interest in the sport, be it the players newly organised, also probably have to recognise it is a balance and that the sport is not a wealthy sport and it suffers from all the problems that your questions have been discussing and other submissions have put. Whether or not there is an

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS ECITA 62 Senate—References Thursday, 3 August 2006 independent review straightaway I think is an issue that can be partly a case of, ‘Just see how they go.’ It is always there, because it is an important sport. Initially it is a matter of—

ACTING CHAIR—You would like to see the current administration give it a go?

Senator RONALDSON—Yes. The process of change is going on. If you look at the history of male sports, when the players have organised themselves to have a voice and when they have external advisers, it has forced a healthy level of scrutiny on remuneration and other issues. The survey is not meant to embarrass anyone, but we are the only people who have ever surveyed the players seriously. There are issues there that everyone agrees on; it is just whether or not you say the issues exist. I think the sport needs to be careful about shooting the messenger but, by the same token, the messenger needs to be careful. You have to recognise that things happen over time, not in one big bang.

ACTING CHAIR—Thank you.

Senator WORTLEY—I am mindful of the time. I just have a couple of questions to ask. In reading some of the submissions, one of them in particular, from a sports journalist, makes this statement:

The unionism of these sports and better lobbying has created better results. This is what it is all about: superior representation.

How much is better representation part of addressing issues confronting netballers and women in other sports?

Ms Dick—It has been an amazing experience joining the players association and it has provided us with a united voice. Even in our discussions with the contracts, to be honest my perception was that Netball Australia thought we were going to go away, and they wanted us to go away. It has been pushing them and saying, ‘These are our standards and conditions.’ We understand the sport is not wealthy and we were not asking for a lot. We were asking just for better conditions—to be paid for parking at the airport on the way to a game, and little things like that. Without the backing that we have had—the support, the lawyers and so on—if we did not have that support we would not be able to keep continuing and going the way we are.

Ms Kitchin—It is not all about just the money that we get paid. A lot of it was that we were one voice. Every team has the same issues—the travel conditions and getting paid to park at the airport. We flew to Adelaide on the day of our game. We flew over, could not land, were flown back to Melbourne and we ended up landing four hours before our game. That is not ideal conditions to play under. ANPA came and helped us. This has given us a chance to speak as one and be heard. If it was just the teams by themselves, we would not have been heard. There would have been discrepancies with everything, but now having the one voice has been fantastic.

Mr Blandthorn—What you will see from the survey is that they are all extremely busy. They all work or go to university and so on. It is not that before they were not thinking the same things; they just had no-one to organise them. Being able to go through Bill and I, who get paid to do this work, anyway, we were able to source their opinions outside their normal working

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS Thursday, 3 August 2006 Senate—References ECITA 63 hours and get them together as one, whereas in the past it was just too much. It was that little bit that was going to break the camel’s back.

ACTING CHAIR—We have to wrap things up. Senator Wortley has one more question, so we will deal with that.

Senator WORTLEY—Your submission discusses remuneration for players in some depth. How do you think the low levels of remuneration can be addressed?

Mr Shorten—Ultimately, this sport has to deal and compete with the legacy of male dominated sports coverage in Australia. Also, it is going to need to interest women. Newspapers are not charities. They need to sell their newspapers. It is a very crowded sports marketplace, referring back to Senator Ronaldson’s question earlier—certainly more crowded than New Zealand’s. It is about how to complete with the wealthier monoliths. You cannot pay the players more if there is not more money in sport. That is a given. But certainly what is the case is that there is a series of building blocks. The players have got themselves organised, they are developing a professional voice. There is some change and perhaps some other people and some further new thinking coming into the sport. I think remuneration for players has to go up, and it will. It will just happen; the tide will rise. But that process is only part of it. The rest of it has to fall into place—television, marketing and developing even better links with the private sector. It is an exciting trip to watch.

ACTING CHAIR—We will have to finish there. Mr Shorten, you mentioned that Netball Australia has not specifically let you know about the actual errors in your submission or their concerns, and that they are not currently working with you to rectify that. I want to place on the record that I understand, for reasons to do with committee procedures, Netball Australia were advised by the committee secretariat to address the issue through a supplementary submission to the committee rather than seeking to resolve it directly. Of course, you will be able to view that and respond accordingly.

Mr Shorten—Just for the record, if there are technical inaccuracies, that is fine. The process is iterative. In terms of our invitation, we do not see ourselves as the experts, but we do see that there is a 99 per cent membership rate in this sport. We think the sport would be better off by having regular professional dialogue with the players association. We do not come with all the answers, but we certainly reflect, I think, the aspirations of the players, which is one of the parts of the puzzle for the sport administrators.

ACTING CHAIR—Thank you very much.

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[1.38 pm]

TULLBERG, Mrs Julie, Journalist, News Ltd-Leader Newspapers

ACTING CHAIR—Welcome. The committee has received your submission as submission 61. Do you wish to make any amendments or alterations?

Mrs Tullberg—No, thank you.

ACTING CHAIR—I invite you to make an opening statement.

Mrs Tullberg—I have a brief statement summing up the observations I have made over the years in my role as a sports journalist. I am convinced women’s sport will always struggle for coverage in the mainstream media. I think that was made clear before by Bill Shorten. There are solutions that could overcome this problem or perceived problem. I believe all communities should work towards sharing news with the local press. This can happen at grassroots level in junior sport and senior sport. More metropolitan newspapers target reader groups. Community newspapers can fill that gap where that need cannot be met. Leader Community Newspapers, which is my company, has 33 mastheads across Melbourne. Its readership is more than 1.8 million. While the metropolitan press caters for an audience with specific fans for different sections, community newspapers have more scope to cater for women’s sport. We have chased sporting groups for news and we can often find it difficult to build relationships with women’s sporting groups. This comes out of habit, which leads to a culture in many women’s sports. This was highlighted when the Leader, our company, sent 150 letters to cricket groups to welcome coverage. Not a single reply was received.

By meeting sporting groups in Melbourne we can try to help make a difference and encourage achievement. Working to create a win-win situation is what it is all about. Creating change comes with a series of behaviours. These behaviours include being positive, proactive in supporting a process that leads to change. Changing habits and culture are often met with resistance. We want to support groups but we also need to help to make a difference. Passion, discipline, energy and commitment are needed to make things happen. By working towards a common goal it is easier to achieve these results. It is all about working together. The go-getters are the ones who get the results. Those who lobby the hardest and those who believe strongly in their goals are the ones who create change. In essence, people can help themselves; if it is to be, it is up to me. History shows the greatest successes come from positive working relationships and sheer willpower to overcome hurdles. It is never easy, but I believe this approach could help women’s sporting groups overcome the problems they face. The end purpose is to give women and girls the chance to enjoy sport in a positive environment that encourages physical, social and emotional wellbeing. The benefits of women’s sport have been proven. This process has to be encouraged with us and with the groups as well.

ACTING CHAIR—Thank you very much. Senator Wortley, would you like to begin questions?

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS Thursday, 3 August 2006 Senate—References ECITA 65

Senator WORTLEY—Thank you, Ms Tullberg. I was pleased to hear, having read your statement that women’s sport will never attract the same interest as AFL or other football codes and horseracing, that you have offered some solutions to that and you think that there are some solutions.

Mrs Tullberg—Yes, that is right.

Senator WORTLEY—That is a very positive thing to hear. Earlier today we had a sporting organisation that represented both men and women. One of the statements they made was that, if they put exactly the same press release out for a male and a female, both being in A-level sport, the male will get the column with eight paragraphs and, if she’s lucky, the female will get the last paragraph tacked on at the end. Could you make some comment in relation to that?

Mrs Tullberg—I believe that is a habit of the press. It is what has been ingrained in the culture of Australian sport and Australian media. I think it is not going to change overnight. I have seen that for years. I started my career writing women’s sport. I was a physical education student and I felt strongly about the fact that women were probably a little bit underdone in the media, so I did something about it. I actually went into journalism as a result of my convictions. I went into men’s sport coverage, and it was so much easier. The women’s sports field is hard work; it takes a lot of effort, a lot of energy and a lot of commitment to get the results in the paper.

Senator WORTLEY—You have given some ideas, but as a starting point what can sporting organisations do to get a higher profile within the media for women?

Mrs Tullberg—I believe it is all about relationships. I believe people build contacts to a point where they make things happen. For example, what Bill Shorten has done for netball in such a short space of time is a testament to that type of interaction. I look at what Don Talbot, the former Australian swimming coach, did for swimming. I remember him speaking at a conference in 1994 where he said, ‘We want to make Australia No. 1.’ He went to government groups, he went to Swimming Australia and he did everything within his power by collecting people behind him to try to create change for that sport. We have all seen what Australian swimming has achieved, particularly at the last two Olympics. The last Commonwealth Games was particularly successful. A lot of that foundation work has been through intense lobbying, from what I have read and from my dealings with these guys directly.

Senator WORTLEY—Do you think government has a role to play?

Mrs Tullberg—It is all about funding, and I think there are always limitations with funding; everyone is fighting for a piece of funding. The idea is to try to make it as fair as possible. But I find, too, that when people can see benefits of certain degrees of funding, government can tend to jump on that. For example, the biggest drawcard at the Sydney 2000 Olympics was probably swimming. As a result of that a lot of funding was put into swimming. We did see the results. There have been enormous efforts in swimming to help that, and the coverage has been exceptional. I have been involved with swimming coverage since 1991 and I have seen it build substantially over the years. There are some very busy people in the sport pushing it. The marketing is exceptional. The struggling sports should look at swimming as an example of how they have overcome those hurdles.

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Senator WORTLEY—We were told yesterday when we were in Sydney that, in relation to soccer, or football as they call it in some places, and FIFA the total prize money was $334 million, and now we also have the women’s cup. That was the men’s prize money; the women’s prize money was zero. How can women compete when those are the sorts of things we are faced with?

Mrs Tullberg—As I said, it is all about what people are interested in, but I do think a lot of that is media driven. In terms of the AFL and the crowds, they expect the coverage in the newspaper and on TV. There are enormous battles for TV rights. It is something that has been built over the years. Interest is high and the reality is that men’s sport can be more entertaining to watch, because they have the physiology to produce incredible moves on the field. Women are not built the same way. That is a fact of life. I am not saying that is true for all sports or situations. What women can do in the pool is incredible. They are absolutely fantastic. Our marathon swimmers are faster than men in many cases. They achieve better results because they have incredible endurance. They are better built for marathon swimming because they have a layer of subcutaneous fat, which helps them to survive better in cold conditions. There are situations where women are better, but generally speaking the fans are attracted to male performance.

Senator WORTLEY—Liz Ellis yesterday challenged that particular notion saying, I think, that in games against New Zealand her shins bear the scars of combat.

ACTING CHAIR—Her comment was in the context that, despite the difference in the nature of sports, the very physical nature of those team sports is there. It just has different characteristics because it is a different game. I have a few questions on this area. One of the issues I was exploring yesterday, and I would like to explore it specifically with you, is the chicken or egg question. My theory is that the media itself, because of their editorial decision making, can generate that interest by virtue of the investment and quality of the promotion and coverage they provide. What is your view on how much the media have a role to play in generating that interest? For example, the massive amount of promotion that goes into the Nine Network’s coverage of the NRL does not necessarily equate to a terrific gate, but it certainly makes it a very high-rating product on the Nine Network.

Mrs Tullberg—As a sports journalist I have a lot of scope with what I produce. I have a lot of personal choice with what I choose. I might write 30 stories a week. I write intensively for 10 publications. I do general news and hard news and features. It is a lot of work to do it very well. I find that if I write features on something out of the ordinary like women’s football or on a netballer or a hockey player, for example, I find that the groups get excited about what I can produce and there is more interest in the community. This year I have specifically targeted women’s football, which often does not get a lot of publicity, particularly in mainstream, simply because the AFL gets the bulk of the coverage for football as a code. What I do is look at ways to help sporting groups in my capacity as a community journalist. We have a sports star program. We can run a story at the front of the paper about an alternative sport from the popular sports, if you like, the ones that are in the public eye.

ACTING CHAIR—Not the major football codes or cricket?

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS Thursday, 3 August 2006 Senate—References ECITA 67

Mrs Tullberg—Exactly. That is an avenue that we deliberately look at to see how we can help other sports get the exposure that maybe they deserve. We find that the interest increases with that type of coverage. We can do it at junior and senior level, and then we do the volunteers. We have a competition called Services to Sport, where people donate their time to help the sport. They are the behind-the-scenes people that we do acknowledge. Through community press there is so much scope. It gets it to every letterbox around Melbourne. That is very proactive.

ACTING CHAIR—You would get feedback from that?

Mrs Tullberg—Definitely. We had a letter recently from a footballer called Michelle Dench. She plays for Melbourne University Muggers. She was very appreciative of the coverage. We had a page 3 picture and an extended caption about her leading to a major feature with an action shot, all in colour, at the back of the paper. We are looking at avenues to try to make our coverage diverse and to be there entirely for the community. I think we are doing a good job. I worked in Brisbane for four years and I wrote on state league netball and the Commonwealth Bank Trophy. In one season for just state league we wrote 500 netball stories. A team of three of us did that. We won the best overall coverage for netball. We beat the Courier-Mail, which is News Ltd’s main paper, and also ABC TV. That is a good achievement, because it shows how effective we are. The level of coverage was extremely intense. We developed a column where netballers would have their say. They had their own netball column, and we would rotate it amongst the players every week. That led to me winning a federal government award for contribution to sports journalism, because I was trying to be diverse and looking at a number of community groups, sporting groups, not just AFL, Rugby League and Rugby Union. I was deliberately looking outside the square at the wider community, and that takes enormous effort and time. That is the reality.

ACTING CHAIR—I offer our congratulations on that. Your submission made it very clear that, obviously, there are some media organisations and journalists who are going above and beyond the standard form. That has obviously been acknowledged in the highest of places.

Mrs Tullberg—It is a very tough job, because we have to spend hours outside our normal working hours to attend games, to build relationships and meet people at night. I have done this with two children. On weekends we go to football games or we might go to a netball match. I am working virtually seven days a week to make the coverage—

ACTING CHAIR—To make a difference.

Mrs Tullberg—exceptional and so that we get minimum criticism.

Senator RONALDSON—Mrs Tullberg, Leader has always been the shining light in this regard. I am very pleased to meet the person I suspect is responsible for that. Congratulations.

Mrs Tullberg—Thank you.

Senator RONALDSON—When I first read your submission last night when I got back from Sydney with the other committee members, I was thinking that there is really no point in having this inquiry; your reference to the ‘fact of life’ depressed me a bit. But having heard your evidence today, you have put that into context. I suspect what you are telling the committee—tell

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS ECITA 68 Senate—References Thursday, 3 August 2006 me if I am wrong—is that the fact of life is that women’s sport will never get the coverage of the AFLs and others, but there are other ways to skin the proverbial cat?

Mrs Tullberg—I was trying to highlight possible solutions to overcome the mainstream focus, because I think that just does not work. I am looking at ways to overcome those problems and I really believe that our Sports STAR program, where people qualify for state representation or higher national or international level, is a fantastic avenue. We have massive attendance at our Sports STAR nights.

I particularly specialise in swimming coverage. We have been encouraging athletes through this program and I think our work has been effective. When I first moved from Brisbane, where I wrote swimming for the Sunday Mail and Quest, which is News Limited’s suburbans, there were three swimmers on the Australian team from Victoria. This year there were 11. I have been working with these community groups. I have been working with the VIS, Swimming Australia, Swimming Victoria and the coaches to look at ways we can improve coverage of this particular sport. Luckily, I have good knowledge of it, which helps me. I am a former coach, which gives me an understanding of the issues of sport, which is pretty unusual in this profession. We have been able to achieve that with many front pages of girls who were gold medallists in Melbourne at the Commonwealth Games. That was a great top-off and very rewarding for me and the whole sport. It was great to see the girls get up and achieve gold at Melbourne’s games.

Senator RONALDSON—Just for the record—and you may have mentioned it when I was getting a cup of tea—are you here in a private capacity or representing—

Mrs Tullberg—My company warmly encouraged me to—

Senator RONALDSON—I did not want you to get into trouble by being referred to—

Mrs Tullberg—As soon as I was made aware of this inquiry, I was very keen to have a say, generally, to help the process. I spoke to one of the major editors in our company and they basically said to go for it and have a say.

Senator RONALDSON—If you are here both personally and for Leader I think that is very encouraging.

Mrs Tullberg—Yes.

Senator RONALDSON—Can I take you to the last comment on page 2 which says:

Building relationship and helping women’s sporting organisations have been challenging. We once distributed 150 letters to women’s cricket clubs, encouraging publicity. We did not receive a single expression of interest.

We heard the same thing in Sydney yesterday privately from a journalist who was expressing similar concerns, and we have heard that Womensport and Recreation New South Wales is running—what would we call them?

ACTING CHAIR—The women’s leadership program.

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS Thursday, 3 August 2006 Senate—References ECITA 69

Senator RONALDSON—Yes, that was the one for the girls. What was the other one?

ACTING CHAIR—The media forum.

Senator RONALDSON—Yes. They are going to run media forums.

ACTING CHAIR—Media seminars.

Senator RONALDSON—Yes, media seminars—two at the end of the year and two next year—bringing sporting organisations together with journalists so that they can understand one another better.

Mrs Tullberg—That is fantastic, yes.

Senator RONALDSON—I suspect it is probably a matter of the sporting organisations understanding the journos rather than the other way around. Will that help address that 150 unanswered letters issue, do you think?

Mrs Tullberg—I believe so. I have designed my own presentations to give to sporting groups to help break down that process. I give them advice on how to handle coverage. For example, I write for the Melton Leader, which is an outer-city paper. The women’s sporting group emails me a report every Monday morning and I have it there ready to go. Of course I have to write it for our style, but they feed me. If people do not feed me it makes my job tough, because I am ringing, ringing, ringing or I am searching internet sites for results.

I will give you an example. I cover VFL football and I check out the progressive scores and, as things happen, it is there on the internet. But I will look one or two days later for women’s football and the results are not even there. I have to ring, leave messages on mobiles—hunt, hunt, hunt, chase, chase, chase—which is very time-consuming. If they feed me with an email, it is simple. When they get that message and people are passionate about giving us the news, it is more likely to get in the paper.

Senator RONALDSON—Congratulations.

Senator WORTLEY—I would like to congratulate you, too, on your commitment both with respect to the newspaper and having women’s sport in the news. I thank you for what you are doing to ensure that women’s sport is in the newspaper and also for your representation here today.

Mrs Tullberg—Thank you.

ACTING CHAIR—Thank you very much.

Proceedings suspended from 2.01 pm to 2.14 pm

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CROSSWHITE, Mrs Janice Jean, President, Australian Womensport and Recreation Association Inc.

ACTING CHAIR—Before I go through formalities, on behalf of the committee, I express our sadness at the tragic death on 26 June of Kate Tamayo, who was the president of Womensport Tasmania, as well as treasurer of your national organisation. Please pass on our condolences to those who knew her.

Mrs Crosswhite—Thank you. That is very kind of you. That did delay our submission to the Senate inquiry. Thank you for your understanding and sympathy.

ACTING CHAIR—The committee has received both your personal submission, as submission 6, and your organisation’s submission, as submission 71. Do you wish to make any amendments or alterations to your submissions?

Mrs Crosswhite—No. I would like to speak to both of them, however.

ACTING CHAIR—I now invite you to make an opening statement.

Mrs Crosswhite—Thank you again, everybody, involved with the Senate inquiry into women in sport and recreation in Australia, because it is very needed. I thank you for the opportunity to double dip, that is, to present personally as well as to present in writing. I represent AWRA, the Australian Womensport and Recreation Association, as their president, and also myself. In doing so, I would like to start at the end and deal with solutions, and particularly the outcomes from this Senate inquiry. As I have written, I would be hopeful for a national working party that is well resourced with human resources, financial resources and with a structure that allows it to implement many of the findings that come out of the Senate inquiry. I have been involved in the women’s sport movement for many years and I presented at the Senate inquiry into sports facilities. I am probably mindful that not a whole lot seemed to change after that Senate inquiry.

We are now in a position with women’s sport where we have discussed these issues yet they have not changed over 20 to 30 years. We are really in a position, leading into the world conference on women’s sport that will be in Sydney in 2010, at which we need to showcase that we are really serious. We are going to run a terrific conference and we are going to report and talk about the things that have changed and we have improved in Australia in the last four years.

One of the things that encapsulates where we are at with women’s sport in Australia is the media release that Australian Womensport and Recreation Association put out after the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, with the heading ‘Gold and silver to the women and bronze for the men’. This was the first time in the history of the Commonwealth Games that the women won more total medals than the men, and they did this with 11 fewer competitors in the team. Australian women won 15 more medals with 11 fewer competitors, and more of those medals were gold and silver. Because of that outstanding result, we had huge media coverage and it was fabulous to see women on the front page, the back page, the middle pages—pages of the sports media and the newspaper they never really get to. It belied news editors saying, ‘We don’t want women’s sport featuring in our newspapers because nobody reads it.’ However, they

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS Thursday, 3 August 2006 Senate—References ECITA 71 do; given the chance to see what our women and men are doing, people are interested. This is such a sports cultured nation. We are all sports fanatics in this country compared with other countries in the world. Men and women are doing well—everyone is interested in it. But now we have to wait until almost 2008 for this to happen again, until the Beijing Olympics come around, because it is only at the time of multisports events, such as the Commonwealth Games, a world championship and Olympic Games, that we do get women featured in the media. This was another example, a good example, of women being there, but it is so different from what happens normally.

One of the other equity shortcomings of the Commonwealth Games for the Australian team— in going through the team handbook, the figures showed that there were 130 male officials compared with 50 women. A closer look at that figure shows that the big difference was in the area of coaching, with 68 male coaches to 15 female coaches. If you look even further, say, with the Australian swimming team, there were no women coaches. Tracey Menzies was to be there but Ian Thorpe pulled out. She was the only swimming official coach for Australia.

Another large difference was in leadership. If you looked at section heads of the team, you see there were 15 male section heads and seven female. Those seven were in the sports of gymnastics, basketball, hockey, netball, shooting, synchronised swimming and triathlon, and four of those section heads were heads of just women’s teams, such as the Hockeyroos and the Opals, for example. You would expect them to have female section heads.

This encapsulates some of the issues that we need to address in women’s sport in Australia today. We need some systematic change in the sports industry to improve the equity position. That responsibility is not only for women. It is for men and women, sports associations, the media, the policy makers and governments at all levels. Those are my opening remarks.

ACTING CHAIR—Thank you. Senator Ronaldson.

Senator RONALDSON—Thank you for both your personal and your organisation’s submission. You mentioned news editors about halfway through your presentation. I suspect that could well have been at the start of it. Are they the problem or are they just representative of the problem at the end of the chain? Where do those news editors fit into the pecking order of those who should be and could be doing something but have not been?

Mrs Crosswhite—I think they are part of the problem. When you approach them personally, as I have done, and explain the situation, you do get a response from them.

Senator RONALDSON—What is their response?

Mrs Crosswhite—It has been a positive response, as with my example of the editor of the Australian quite some years ago when I was living in Sydney. It comes up the chain. Many of them are not aware of the issues. Again, in Sydney, in the mid-1990s, with the New South Wales government, we had like a media seminar and brought in editors from newspapers, because this was seen as one of the issues. We needed to educate the editors to be more aware of the stories and how we can work better with them. I remember one of the editors was from a major weekly magazine that always features women in bikinis on the front cover. You might know what magazine I am talking about. It has terrific ratings and figures and sells well. His response was

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS ECITA 72 Senate—References Thursday, 3 August 2006 that he uses women to sell the magazine, but then features mainly male sports articles. It is a selling/marketing thing, particularly undressed women. He was not going to change that, because it is working for his magazine.

In the daily media, it is different. When we have done the research into media coverage of women’s sport, it is different in different capital cities, in terms of the results, and it is different between newspaper chains in terms of the results. It is more systematic than at one level. Also, a lot of it is education, but I am also convinced that we are at a time where we need policy or legislation to bring about change so that with media coverage, as has happened with drama content and Australian content in our media, there is something like a percentage; for example, media coverage of sport on free to air should not be 99.9 per cent coverage of male sport, and that is what we currently get.

Senator RONALDSON—The New South Wales organisation is opposed to regulation; the Victorian organisation is. Where are you putting your casting vote?

Mrs Crosswhite—Can you explain that a little bit further?

Senator RONALDSON—The New South Wales organisation gave evidence yesterday that they did not support regulation of content.

Mrs Crosswhite—Which New South Wales organisation?

ACTING CHAIR—I think that was a personal view that was expressed.

Senator RONALDSON—Was it ?

ACTING CHAIR—I am not sure. The point is that we have had a variety of views expressed, so we are testing the waters on the issue.

Senator RONALDSON—Yes, sorry.

Mrs Crosswhite—Yes, I used to be President of Womensport and Recreation NSW.

Senator RONALDSON—So you are in the camp of regulation?

Mrs Crosswhite—Yes, I am. It has not been tried. It has worked for drama content in Australia, but I have written that it needs to be well structured. It needs to be able to be implemented. I think we are at that position where we want change now. One of the ways to get that is through legislation or policy change. Waiting for attitudinal changes will take another two or three generations. The first media coverage of women’s sport research survey was done in 1992. In 2006, nothing has changed. Do we wait another 20-something years to get some improvements?

Senator RONALDSON—You do not think there has been any change at all?

Mrs Crosswhite—Certainly not on television. Indeed, years ago, when we had lifestyle sports shows, there were little segments on women’s sport. It is nearly all football and cricket talk

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS Thursday, 3 August 2006 Senate—References ECITA 73 shows. I think that is a real issue for sport generally, that is, the virtual integration of sport with media interests. We are getting more and more of the some football codes and cricket. With Channel 10—here I am concentrating on free-to-air television—you are just getting more of the same. There are hardly any amateur sportsmen or sportswomen, except for the ABC, which is wonderful on Saturday afternoons. Now through digital we have more scope with women’s sport. But digital coverage is not the panacea.

Senator RONALDSON—If you are going to regulate for women’s sport, do you need to regulate for minor sports that might involve men? Or do you just narrow it down to women’s sport?

Mrs Crosswhite—Personally, I would like to see more of a spread of various sports on television as well as women’s sport.

Senator RONALDSON—I think that is the difficulty, is it not, how you actually regulate it?

Mrs Crosswhite—Yes. What we are seeing now is basically professional male sport. That is the way our media is going because of media interest in those codes. I am here representing women’s sport. We get so little of that, but we get so little of other sports, too, besides the football, cricket and motor racing. In the print media, I think it has become worse. That is why we need to do this research. We need to see what the current situation is. We have not done that since 1996-97. That is one of the other issues we need to address.

Senator RONALDSON—A lot of it is anecdotal, is it not?

Mrs Crosswhite—Yes. I have had students do minor research for their degrees or whatever, and that is a terrific. They take their local newspaper, wherever they live in Australia, go through it for a week and analyse the coverage. You might say that is anecdotal, but it has been done, and coverage has not improved.

Senator RONALDSON—Can I take you to the section about the harassment of women athletes. Can you give the committee an indication of how prevalent that still is, whether any of the sports are taking proactive action to address the issue and what needs to be done?

Mrs Crosswhite—Thank you for raising that. I do not have personal experience of recent years, but in my time as a parent of elite junior athletes and as president of a regional basketball association in the nineties and up to 2003 we were dealing with harassment in sport. For my submission in the early nineties we did not have a name for it. You knew as a parent, when this thing happened to your children, this was wrong and it was inappropriate behaviour, and you did things to make it stop and to prevent it happening again. Then in New South Wales when the first Child Protection Act came in out of the royal commission—I think that was more the mid to late nineties—people like me did child protection courses, were identified as contact people and trained officers within sports associations. The cases that we dealt with were always teenage girls with complaints against male coaches. We did proper investigations with an independent person when the cases warranted that, and there were only three or four where the supposed accused persons was found not guilty. Those male coaches dropped out of coaching, even though they were acquitted. That became an issue for our association, that is, replacing coaches.

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There was a lack of counselling at that time of the accuser and the accused. I certainly found that in my family’s example. Indeed, sometimes when I talk about it, I still get emotional because of the position we were in. You were powerless to protect your children who were in the care of qualified coaches. In this case, we were bullied also not to take any action. We ended up at the Geelong Hospital with a carload of people. Our daughter was obviously very ill and was not going to be allowed to see a doctor and had been refused that during the week of the Australian championships. She was severely ill and was not allowed to participate anymore in those Australian championships. Mind you, she has gone on to play national league and get a scholarship and captain her university team in America, and graduate with a masters degree. It did not put her off sport. Coming from our family, she had the support structures around her. I was able to get a code of conduct developed for New South Wales elite coaches, and the particular person involved never coached a state team again. That is just explaining what I wrote in a bit more detail.

There are issues there, and at the world conference on women’s sport in Japan in May, this was one of the keynote sessions which I attended, with leading people from around the world, such as Celia Breckenridge, who was the initial writer on harassment. She was part of that group, as were other leading researchers from Europe and the USA. The women in the room from all around the world were telling stories, horrific stories, particularly at the elite level. My children have now progressed. They are still in elite sport, but not in that situation. There are issues there, from what I am hearing.

Senator RONALDSON—Is that gender harassment, as in your daughter not being allowed to go to the doctor, as opposed to sexual harassment?

Mrs Crosswhite—Yes, that is harassment, it is not sexual harassment.

Senator RONALDSON—Yes, I appreciate it is not sexual harassment. Are there two forms of harassment, sexual and gender?

Mrs Crosswhite—Yes, there are. In this case, it was what you would call harassment; it was not on a sexual basis. It is a control and power mechanism.

ACTING CHAIR—It is more like bullying.

Mrs Crosswhite—Yes, and ‘I’m in a position where, if you don’t do what I tell you to, you’re going to lose your Institute of Sport scholarship or I’m not going to play you in the team anymore. You’ll only get five minutes,’ even though you are the best player and you should be playing 25 minutes, for example. Apparently, from what I am hearing, some of this still occurs, but I think you need to talk to the officers that deal with this in state government departments and in the sports.

Senator RONALDSON—Is there any discernible difference between the level of harassment against boys, girls, men, and women?

Mrs Crosswhite—Interestingly, at this world conference there was a very good presentation from the Danish people and also from the Dutch, who have centres and keep very good statistics on harassment, and have very good policies and procedures, counselling centres, training of

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS Thursday, 3 August 2006 Senate—References ECITA 75 officers, et cetera. In their experience, nearly all of the cases deal with—I am sorry to say—male coaches versus female athletes.

Senator WORTLEY—In relation to harassment and/or bullying, and given the conferences you have attended, how does that impact on participation right through to the elite level?

Mrs Crosswhite—People are generally unaware of harassment in sport. With respect to participation, children, teenagers, men and women, join up and play, but if they experience harassment, more often they drop out. In our case, as a basketball association, the coaches who were complained against dropped out. It is a factor impacting on dropout. With respect to administration, seeing it from the other side, it takes up a lot of time to deal with it, handle it and go through all the proper procedures, which you need to do to protect those who bring the issue forward and those who are accused. You have to deal fairly and properly and document everything. It can be very time-consuming to deal with.

Senator WORTLEY—In your submission, you put a case that the Sports Commission should link gender equity outcomes to its funding of national sporting organisations. Can you provide the committee with a bit more information regarding that?

Mrs Crosswhite—There used to be grants in the nineties to NSOs attached to women in sport initiatives. I was involved in some of that program work. It did make a change, but it is piecemeal, ad hoc and not ongoing. It is for that particular project. You usually get good outcomes from it. We need systematic change through our structure and delivery of sport. Until NSOs have linked to their ongoing funding that there needs to be more equity in their organisation, I do not think we are going to get top-down change.

Senator WORTLEY—If it is not top-down change, where do you see change coming in?

Mrs Crosswhite—At all levels. We need women to progress through, capable women progressing through, into positions of leadership, so there are more coaches, officials, managers and administrators. That will bring about an increase in opportunities, too.

Senator WORTLEY—That partly answers my next question. At the elite level, there are fewer opportunities available for women when compared with men. What needs to be done to address this?

Mrs Crosswhite—Again, it is more in the area of leadership and coaches/officials. We have greater parity with competitions in terms of participation. Again, the Commonwealth Games and the Olympic Games are good examples of that. Really, in today’s day and age, there are still some areas to improve. We have a national soccer league for men, but we do not for women. There are still some areas like that where we need some parity. I am sure some of the NSOs will bring some of those cases forward.

ACTING CHAIR—The committee has heard quite a bit of evidence about the benefits of investing in skills development for women’s sport administrators to help them take on more senior roles in the organisations. You reflect on that in your comments about women’s leadership, but that provides an underlying assumption that somehow women are deficit in their skills and attributes and require some sort of training before assuming leadership positions. Can

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS ECITA 76 Senate—References Thursday, 3 August 2006 you expand your comments on that and what you think that approach does to the attitudes surrounding the problem?

Mrs Crosswhite—You are damned if you do and damned if you don’t here, because I think for some women there is some need for training, but it also casts women as victims and deficient and as needing training. In my experience and knowledge, that is pretty much usually not the case, and that the women on national boards and committees are outstanding and indeed have more skills and attributes than many of the men on those committees.

ACTING CHAIR—Do you think women sit a tougher test in terms of those skills and attributes, on national sporting organisations?

Mrs Crosswhite—Yes, I do. A Women on Boards group started just at the time of the Olympic Games. The first seminar we held in Sydney was leading into the Olympic Games in 2000. That group has now gone on and got separate funding from the Office for the Status of Women. There is a huge database of capable women for government and non-government corporate boards through this organisation. There are plenty of women available with the necessary expertise and capabilities. I am not saying we should stop any of that training and leadership programs for women. I think we need them. But we have to be mindful that they are not the panacea. They are not the full answer to the question. Yesterday the Australian Sports Commission put out its latest grant round for women’s leadership, and I applaud that. But the funding is too small, because they—

ACTING CHAIR—What do you think the funding ought to be?

Mrs Crosswhite—I put that in my submission. I am trying to find it: $2 million—a nice round figure. It currently averages $2,500 per person or organisation. For most organisations, $2,500 is not going to do a whole lot. The total budget was $400,000. In our case, AWRA got $5,500. We have developed two learning modules to go on our new website. One is Readiness for board governance and the other one is Responsibilities of directors. Anyone around Australia can tap into our website, when it is up and running in a few weeks, and those training modules will be there. That is what we have done with our $5,500. We applied for $10,000, and you virtually know you are going to get half of what you apply for.

ACTING CHAIR—The Australian Sports Commission is to have a dedicated women’s sport unit. They have not had that for some time. Are you in a position to comment on that or reflect on the difference, positive or negative, that mainstream women’s issues—which I think is how they described it—has had generally on women’s sport?

Mrs Crosswhite—There used to be a unit of four people and it has been downgraded over the years. This was one of the issues that was discussed at the world conference. There seems to be agreement now that mainstreaming has not been particularly beneficial for women’s recognition and needs. That has been the trend over the last 5 to 10 years.

ACTING CHAIR—Is that the trend in other countries as well?

Mrs Crosswhite—Yes, it has been. Again, you are damned if you do and you are damned if you don’t. Some people are saying, if you have a women’s sport unit, ‘Oh, that issue goes over

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS Thursday, 3 August 2006 Senate—References ECITA 77 here to the women’s sport unit.’ So we have dealt with it:, it is done, it is going to be fixed up, but nobody else in the mainstream is aware of what is going on and how it is being dealt with.

Senator RONALDSON—Or for people to take some notice of—

Mrs Crosswhite—Yes, to make things change. In some ways, things are going to get done over here. If it is left here, it might not be addressed at all. How do we get this working better with things in the mainstream, but with enough people prepared to work on it? Again, it is six of one and a half dozen of the other. You certainly need the resources. That is why I think something like a national working party to come out of the Senate committee—it is not over here, it is working down the mainstream—needs to have some impact to bring about structural and attitudinal change.

ACTING CHAIR—It has been expressed a few times at the committee that this challenge is one equally for men and women.

Mrs Crosswhite—Exactly.

ACTING CHAIR—And that is how it needs to be approached. Do you agree with that?

Mrs Crosswhite— Absolutely.

ACTING CHAIR—In your submission you also express a bit of scepticism about the merits of the merger of men’s and women’s sports in some circumstances. Can you point to any particular safeguards that can ensure that women’s sports are not subsumed, whether consciously or perhaps just subconsciously or by accident, by men’s sports over time, given that is a pretty well widely accepted policy?

Mrs Crosswhite—We know from now on we will have one NSO representing a sport and not two. From Sydney Olympic days, that was very clearly spelt out as government policy. There will be funding for only one national body per sport. Around that time, we had a lot of seminars on amalgamation in sport and talked about issues to get ready for the formation of new organisations, because amalgamations create something new. Even though they are a bringing together, the ‘new’ has to be something that is going to operate better than two coming together. I think the only things that are going to help here are their constitutions. In my submission I have mentioned why the national sporting body, as a result of that, has written in their constitution that at least three of their board of eight must be one gender. Again, this is equity for men and women so that there is fairness working both ways, and that the positions of president and vice- president must be separate genders so that, again, it is not a domination and a takeover by one of the other. Hopefully, that then permeates down to the state level, because after national amalgamations state amalgamations usually follow.

ACTING CHAIR—What is your general view of the use of quotas on representative boards to ensure, in some cases, a female presence and, if not, a close to equal representation? We have been asking a lot of the witnesses this question just to test the proposition.

Mrs Crosswhite—I am personally in favour of that. When I lived in the ACT and worked there, it was a time when we had the new ACT government, and 50 per cent of boards were male

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS ECITA 78 Senate—References Thursday, 3 August 2006 and female. That brought about change. It was not easy change in some cases, but it was effective and you did get a balance. I sometimes think maybe that is jumping a bit too far down the gun, to go to fifty-fifty, but that there are some lower targets than that. It has been a catalyst for change. I think of the International Olympic Committee and its target of 10 per cent and now 20 per cent. It has not even reached that themselves. Their IOC structure is still, I think, 13 women and 109 men, or something like that. But it has set the example and it has brought about change in many countries. Again, I think some targets and quotas are giving the message that things need to be different from what they currently are, and we need to work towards these ends to have better balance and better representation. We are going to have a better sports industry as a result of this, with better outcomes for all involved.

ACTING CHAIR—Thank you for your evidence today.

Mrs Crosswhite—Thank you again for the opportunity. Can I leave you with our brochures? I meant to hand this out. This just explains who the national body is. We are fairly new.

ACTING CHAIR—We will accept those documents as having been tabled. Thank you.

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[2.40 pm]

ADAMSON, Mr Linden John, Chief Executive, Hockey Australia Inc.

BOWN, Mr Damien Craig, General Manager Game Development, Cricket Australia

WOODMAN, Mr Lawrie, National Coaching Development Manager, Australian Football League

ACTING CHAIR—The committee has received your submissions as submissions 44 and 69, and I think Hockey Australia is submission number is 43. Do any of you wish to make any alterations or amendments to your submissions?

Mr Woodman—Not at this stage.

ACTING CHAIR—I invite each of you to make a short opening statement and then we will open up to questions to all of you.

Mr Woodman—The AFL certainly welcomes the opportunity to be part of this, and we see female participation as one of our potentially very strong growth areas, starting currently from a relatively low base, which is about seven per cent overall. We have growth of about 39,000 female participants over the last three years and we are looking, through our newly developing strategic plan, to take that further in the next period, with a particular focus in that area. Overall, about 40 per cent of spectators at AFL games are women and we have a very high proportion of membership as well, which is around 33 per cent of the approximately half a million club members throughout Australia.

We have developed a number of things as part of our current planning period, including the National Women’s Advisory Committee, which is made up of five members basically from our state affiliate football organisations. One of those is also Nicole Graves, who is the female football development manager at Football Victoria, which is our first full-time position nationally devoted to that area. That body meets in a formal planning sense once a year and provides advice to the AFL.

Our strategic plan for 2006-08 is currently being developed and will soon be up for ratification. We have forwarded you an outline of that, with the different areas in which that will be implemented. All of our state affiliates are behind that and will be very actively involved in that particular area. We have women affiliates in each state now, directly affiliated. In the past, in some cases, they were not affiliated directly with the AFL affiliates. That is now standard practice throughout the country. With Auskick, which is our under-12 game, we have a specific focus where our promotional lines are that the ALF Auskick is fun and safe and it is for boys, girls and parents. That is specifically part of the catch-line that we use in promoting AFL Auskick around the country, and that it is managed by the community for the community. We now have a small number of girls-only Auskick centres around the country. We have introduced some specific girls and youth competitions, particularly in Queensland and Victoria, where

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Nicole Graves is working. The full extent of that will come out with our national census in October. We do a very formal national census each year of participation at all levels.

One of the new programs we have is AFL recreational football, which is designed to be played by anybody, virtually any age group, and it can be set up as single gender or mixed gender teams. Last year was the first time it was started to be implemented around Australia, basically as a summer competition, and there were 4,000 participants. Every team involved was a mixed gender team, and they had to have at least three girls in each team to qualify as a mixed team. It is a rotational system through the lines, so one girl has to be on each of the forward, centre and defensive lines. About 1,400 females participated in that.

As to our recruitment of female umpires, we are starting to work in that area as well. Currently, about five per cent of umpires around the country are female, including one of the AFL goal umpires. We have set up, through Adrian Panozzo, our development manager, a new female development committee, which will be headed by Jan Luckman in Western Australia, to help take that process forward. We are contributing to the AFL Women’s National Championships and helping to run those each year now, and we give cash and in-kind assistance to that program.

The schools competitions is where we are really moving ahead. We split our programs into programs where there is six weeks or more or less than six weeks, so we can measure what are proper leagues, as opposed to those who play in carnivals or those sorts of things. From the last census, we had 265 secondary school girls teams, with 5,000 participants, and 130 primary school teams, with 2,200 participants approximately. In the less than six weeks programs, we had many more than that. We had 748 teams at secondary school, with 17,000 participants; at primary schools, we had 100 teams, with 1,800 participants. We have grown to 38,000 over the last three years from a low base, and seven per cent of the total participation is now female. We have a specific strategic focus in our new strategic plan based in four areas that flow through our strategic plan as a whole, which is growing the game. The scope there is to maximise female participation in Australian football. Another pillar is quality, environment and culture— developing quality, safe, inclusive female environments. That is to do with club quality, training coaches, training umpires, administrators, volunteers et cetera.

We also are looking at the talented female pathway so that girls can look towards representative football. There is an Australian women’s team going to Ireland to compete in an international rules series this year against an Irish team. The last area is media and promotion, whereby we want to promote a good image of female football and promote awareness of and drive participation in our programs in those areas. In the past—particularly, for example, with the AFL Auskick program through the targeted sports program from the Sports Commission— we made tremendous gains during that period, and we would certainly be interested in those sorts of partnerships going ahead to develop women’s football.

Mr Bown—Firstly, I extend our apologies from James Sutherland, our chief executive. He wanted to be here in person, but he is in Brisbane at a board meeting. I have to zoom up there straight from here, too. Interestingly, we are taking the board there to see the Centre of Excellence, which is now managed by Belinda Clark, the former Australian women’s captain. She has done an incredible job in that context over the last 12 months since she took on that role.

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There are few things from our perspective. Firstly, we certainly support completely this investigation and we applaud this group for going down this path. We see women as an integral part of the future of Australian cricket. We have a bold but clear vision to be Australia’s favourite sport, and we are very clear that unless we engage women better than we are we are not going to be that, we are not going to achieve that. We see that as central to what we want to do.

From our perspective, we are clear that we have some work to do. We are not sitting here saying that everything is where it needs to be. In terms of our participation, over 10 per cent of all participants, or about 550,000, across the country are female. Interestingly, similar to the AFL, we have a significantly larger proportion of the entry-level participants being females. We are passionately committed to getting young girls involved in cricket at an early stage to start to address some of those trends in the longer term.

There are a couple of issues in terms of the work that we are currently doing. We are developing a females in cricket strategy as we speak. It is a comprehensive piece of work that cricket is undertaking to ensure that we engage females better in the game. In terms of representation, we have a women’s cricket reference group that is chaired by the Cricket Australia director, which I am closely involved in. We also have a national game development committee, where there is female cricket representation, to make sure that those opinions are coming through in the right areas.

There are a couple of things at a very high level in terms of what we believe is important for the government in this inquiry—that is ongoing support and investment. I know that government budgets only stretch so far. You can sit here and talk about cricket, but a lot of people do not understand that we are in fact a not-for-profit organisation and that the money that we raise goes back into developing the game. Any support that we can gain in terms of our female specific initiatives is very important. One great example of that is that we launched a female-only entry- level program called CrickHit for girls, through government assistance, and we are using that model to get more and more girls involved in the game of cricket.

Secondly, from our perspective, we are really clear that sport specific initiatives around particular programs are probably the best way for us to make an impact and for us to support you in this inquiry and in involving women further in sport. At a higher level, you would have seen from our submission that one of the areas in which we are much more focused is making sure there is a stronger media presence for women in cricket. We just launched with the AFL and Netball Australia the 1Seven childhood obesity program. Both Karen Rolton, the Australian captain, and Mike Hussey were present as ambassadors. Fox Sports showed the women’s world cup final last year, which was a great step for us to start to engage them in a different way, and we are getting much clearer about making sure that when we are promoting the men’s game we need to promote the women’s game at the same time. So there are a few high-level comments. Hopefully that helps, but that is probably it for the moment.

ACTING CHAIR—Thank you. We will come back to you with questions shortly.

Mr Adamson—Thank you for the opportunity to appear before this important inquiry. Hockey Australia is a very young organisation, having been established only six years ago following the amalgamation of the previous men’s and women’s associations. The guiding principle of the merger was one of gender equity, and, by most measures, I think we have been

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS ECITA 82 Senate—References Thursday, 3 August 2006 successful in managing those in key areas, such as board representation. I thank the previous witness for concisely describing the Hockey Australia constitution as a five-three situation. I have a personal view, and it is a view of the board, that that should be four-four. However, operating in a federated system of governance, it is the state associations that will vote on changes in constitution.

I think we have the constitution that enables us to treat the men’s and women’s parts of the organisations equally. We have a guiding principle on resource allocations to national teams and high-performance programs which says that they must be equal. I can assure the committee that is a mere coincidence that, since the merger, the Hockeyroos have dropped from No. 1 to No. 4 in the world and that it is nothing to do with the resource allocation. Our participation growth programs are equally attended. Our athlete pathways are equal and our participants—our players and officials—are roughly equal as well.

I want to touch on world-level events in hockey in which Australia participates—world cups and champions’ trophies. I know that there has been media attention on certain sports regarding the media coverage or television coverage that either men’s or women’s programs gain. From a hockey perspective, the television coverage of those world-level events from overseas is provided by Fox Sports by agreement with the international federation, and the coverage is exactly the same. There are the same number of hours and same timing for men’s and women’s events, which I think is great.

Hockey Australia engages in a bidding process with other nations to host world-level events in Australia. The last men’s tournament was held here in 1999. The No. 1 ranked team in the world has not had a world-level event since 1999. Since that time, we have hosted a women’s world cup and two women’s champions’ trophies, all with ABC television as the host broadcaster and Hockey Australia contributing grandly to the production costs. An interesting sidelight of our current women’s team, which is leaving next week to travel to the USA, is that it is comprised of a 17-year-old schoolgirl, a 30-year-old veteran of 10 years representing her country and another player who is a mother of two children. That shows the broad cross-section of the elite women hockey players.

Being a gender-equal organisation, a lot of the issues facing Hockey Australia are the same for men and for women. Whilst I guess we could modestly say that we are probably one of the more advanced gender-equal organisations in the country, there are still a number of challenges that particularly pertain to women. We need to get more state association compliance with gender- equal principles, particularly with their governing board. One of our state organisations does not have one female on its governing board. The federated system, however, allows only leadership and guidance in those terms, because the state associations are autonomous in their own right.

I am pleased to say that, since the national merger in 2000, the subsequent mergers of all the state associations have captured some of those gender-equal principles in their constitution, but the one I was particularly talking about merged well before the national body. We need to create and maintain opportunities for female coaches. We need to extend our apprenticeship program, which identifies talented female coaches and attaches them to national and state high- performance programs. We need to continue to utilise the Sports Commission’s Scholarship Coach program and develop after that a pathway for the people who have the ability to go on following their scholarships. We further need to develop our mentoring system. These are key

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS Thursday, 3 August 2006 Senate—References ECITA 83 elements in our strategies to go forward. We are missing half our population because of the fact that we do not get enough women coming through in the elite areas of coaching. Very briefly, they are two single issues.

Senator RONALDSON—Mr Adamson, does it drive you mad, coming along here and hearing cricket and AFL talking about pinching the pool of girls and women from hockey? I am being tongue-in-cheek, but I do in a serious sense wonder whether, with AFL, Cricket Australia, hockey, netball et cetera, there are going to be enough girls and young women participating in sport to enable you to meet your goals. That brings me to my next point. Over the past couple of days we have heard about very significant dropouts of girls in particular in the 13-14 age group, at years 8 or 9. What are your sports doing to encourage participation in sport and recreation which will provide you with the pool of girls and women that you want to drive forward the programs you have?

Mr Adamson—I can take the first point first, about the AFL and cricket. I am very privileged to be sitting on the front table with the professional sports. However, as an Olympic and Commonwealth Games sport, we do offer different areas of opportunities for both male and female players. We are not a professional sport in terms of paying our players. However, that said, our participation has remained pretty constant over the last 10 years. I do not think we are losing those that we gain; it is getting them in the first place. Our participation growth programs are now starting to take effect. One of the issues for us is facilities. We need to have enough facilities in terms of not only a hockey pitch but also people to coach and administer the new participants. You will never be satisfied with your participation rates—you will always want them to increase because it increases the pool and the opportunities. Right now we are not satisfied, but we are not uncomfortable with our participation rates.

Senator RONALDSON—Do you have any programs in schools?

Mr Adamson—We have just introduced a new participation program that hopefully will be picked up in schools. It is called ‘Rookey: the new hockey’. Rookey provides a softball and a bigger-headed stick to make it easier, and it is aimed at primary school kids. We hope that those introduced to ‘Rookey: the new hockey’ will then progress into—sorry about all of this terminology—a program called ‘Hook into hockey’. ‘Hook into hockey’ is more specialist and kids are provided with their stick, ball and shin pads. Then they move through into the club system. The basis of our sport is the strength of the clubs.

ACTING CHAIR—Do not forget Minkey.

Mr Adamson—I am sorry, but Minkey has been replaced by Hook into hockey from a national perspective. There are some states that are still playing Minkey.

ACTING CHAIR—How come my son still plays Minkey?

Mr Adamson—We want him to play Hook into hockey.

Mr Bown—In terms of your first question, we are convinced that our responsibility is to have kids playing sport, and we are convinced there are enough to go around. We are not in competition and we are not there to take kids out of other sports.

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Senator RONALDSON—I was being tongue-in-cheek, obviously.

Mr Bown—I understand that. It is a responsibility we take very seriously. We have the responsibility in the community to make sure that at the ages of three, four and five kids are being exposed to activity in an organised sense that they can start to get involved in. The reality of today’s society, as we all know, is that kids are sampling things more and more. We need to get better as organisations and to start working collectively to make sure that that sampling can happen across sports. A project we touched on between ourselves, the AFL and netball is a good example of our starting to develop some strategic alliances and partnerships where we can do that.

The retaining of young girls in cricket—the 13- and 14-year-olds—is a really important issue. There are two things that we are doing specifically. Firstly, we are adapting game format to make it more relevant to that age group. One of the biggest growth areas for us is in fact beach cricket. You might ask, ‘How formalised can that be?’ You should go down to Torquay this summer and have a bit of a look at it or go across to Adelaide. There are 5,000 to 10,000 people down there in organised beach cricket competitions, which is much more appealing to a 14-year-old girl than going out in their whites in the middle of an oval. Those are the sorts of things we are getting much smarter about.

I think the other thing—and I am not speaking on the AFL’s behalf, but I know they have thought about this, too—is that consumerism in the sport is important. We can keep girls involved in different ways. Yes, we want them playing the game, but they can also be attending games and being inspired to be involved in sports in other ways. There are a couple of issues that you have raised that are very important and that we are very serious about addressing.

Mr Woodman—In the end, all of those things are largely about choice. We are offering people a lot of choice of activities, and we all strongly believe in young people being physically active. What that then comes down to is, in a sense, the quality of our programs and how well we provide for those kids while they are sampling our sport. In terms of the dropout, certainly amongst boys, we have done a fair amount of research on what causes a teenager to drop out. It works across both genders pretty much. That depends on a range of things, including the form of the sport and the older styles of presentation to the kids. For example, early Sunday morning for teenagers is not necessarily the best time. Also important is the way coaches work with kids and how they communicate with them in particular. We have developed a specific youth coaching course with a very clear focus on dealing with young people of that age group.

ACTING CHAIR—Can you point to anything specific in any of your programs that relates to the dropout of girls, or is it more wrapped up in the whole picture of the dropout rate?

Mr Woodman—I cannot speak specifically on girls. Our research is—

Mr Bown—We are identifying specific issues through research, but we are taking very much a whole-of-sport approach. There will be differences, but we want to make sure that the infrastructures are the same. There is no doubt there is a huge issue between kids in schools participating in cricket and then moving to a club environment. We have to make sure there are opportunities in the club situation for women and girls to be more involved. That is one of the key issues for us, and that was part of our submission as well.

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Mr Adamson—It is the same issue. It is all of sport, rather than just females, I think.

Senator RONALDSON—Your sports, particularly AFL and cricket, clearly have significant influence in relation to the question of women’s sport being given appropriate levels of publicity. In fact, one of the witnesses suggested that, when you are sitting down with Channel 9 or whoever it might be negotiating your ongoing contracts, there is almost an obligation on you to use your purchasing power to ensure that there is publicity given to women’s sport. AFL is probably in a similar position, and Hockey Australia probably to a lesser extent, but there is some possibility. This has been a real issue over the last two days. There are some who say there should be press quotas and some who would say there should not be. Where do you see your roles and, more importantly from the committee’s point of view, your responsibilities to help address that situation yourselves?

Mr Bown—That is a very good question; there are probably two parts to that question from our perspective. The first is that, as you have touched on, we do have very serious commercial agreements with Channel 9. There is no doubt, just so this committee is clear, we are working actively to incorporate exposure of women playing cricket as much as we possibly can. Being frank about this, there is serious work to do, and that sort of suggestion is where we need to keep pushing down that path.

That being said, it is shifting and we are seeing clear signs from our relationship in that context that it is moving. Where we have some real opportunity—and we touched on this earlier—is in relation to not just Fox Sports but also some of the mainstream media outlets. A lot more work is being done to make sure that we do provide exposure at the elite end. For example, we had a test series and a one-day series in Adelaide last year for the women’s cricket team versus India. We achieved media exposure literally a hundredfold anything we ever had before. As an organisation, we are focusing on this more. One of the realities of our business—and we have touched on this—is that women are about 10 per cent of participants and over our budget that that is 10 per cent of what we invest compared with what is happening across the board. We need to keep making sure that we are growing that commensurately to influence those outcomes.

The reality is we are working more closely with our media partners to keep women in cricket at the front of our minds as much as we possibly can. Some of the small things, although they seem small, are significant, such as having female commentators involved. Belinda did quite a bit with the ABC. That will start to shift the Australian public’s perception and understanding of cricket as a sport. There is some serious work to do, but we are working vigorously to drive it. That is the only way we are going to achieve our vision. We understand that.

Senator RONALDSON—When will the Mrs Crosswhites of this world, who legitimately have been waiting for a long, long time to see some action, see the product of these discussions?

Mr Bown—I was listening attentively, or aggressively you might say, and really taking that in. I have a different view. I have been at Cricket Australia for only 18 months but worked at the FFA and was the CEO of the Victorian Soccer Federation prior to that. I believe the landscape has shifted and that it is shifting. My view is that results are starting to take place. I am talking about cricket here today. Would the World Cup final for women’s cricket have ever been shown on any television? The real answer is no, and those are the sorts of things where we can say, ‘Well, we are starting to head in the right direction.’ My view is that it is starting to shift. My

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS ECITA 86 Senate—References Thursday, 3 August 2006 view is that we have a long way to go. When will it be absolutely equitable? That is very hard to call, but in terms of our strategic plan over the next four years, we are serious about making sure women are more—

Senator RONALDSON—If you are talking in a fifty-fifty sense, that is probably not realistic, but if you are talking equity in a sense of women’s sport getting a run at all, then we do need some equity.

Mr Bown—Yes, I agree.

Senator RONALDSON—What about the AFL?

Mr Woodman—We have some similarities to cricket in that we are starting relatively small. We do not have what you call a real elite program at this stage in terms of international AFL opportunities for girls. As I said, that is just starting off. The key areas where we have made some inroads in the short term have been through websites, through each of the AFL state associations and our own. We now have women’s sections on the websites. In the local media, particularly around the country, we are looking to highlight at least one female player in each state to become the face of football in that state. We have a number of female journalists now working for the code around the country. Through some of the major promotional events, such as the Women’s (Mother’s Day) Round and the Field of Women breast cancer initiatives, we are promoting women’s involvement in the game in the broader sense. As I mentioned before, part of our strategic plan going forward in women’s football is to promote and present women’s football in a very good light and build it up step by step.

Senator RONALDSON—I applaud the things you are doing with the cancer day et cetera. However, there may be a view that that is designed to increase match attendances as opposed to the promotion of women in AFL. Are your journos seeking out, at the grassroots level, publicity and promotion opportunities?

Mr Woodman—Some are, and certainly the AFL media unit and state media units are looking for opportunities and trying to put out good stories about women’s involvement in AFL at all levels—playing, umpiring, administration and so on.

ACTING CHAIR—We heard from a witness earlier in the day that they found it very easy— and this was a journalist who reports on sport—to find all of the men’s scores, but they have a hell of a time trying to track down women’s scores for women’s AFL games. How differently do you treat the posting of those scores on the internet website? What sort of priority do you give it at that very prosaic administrative level, in terms of getting out news about your sport?

Mr Woodman—As I mentioned before, currently, in most states there is a women’s section on the website, and that is where those scores tend to be posted.

ACTING CHAIR—Maybe you should take that feedback to them, by the sounds of it.

Mr Woodman—Yes.

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ACTING CHAIR—It was a point well made, because this was clearly a journalist who wanted to report on those scores.

Mr Bown—In that context, we do now have live scoring for women’s matches, both in the national league and also the international games. You make a good point. I think it is a low base, we acknowledge that, but there is some genuine progress being made. How do we treat it? We treat it, in those contexts, equitably. It is important that we start to drive some of those initiatives right through our business.

ACTING CHAIR—You said you had some success in getting a very important international match to air. Can you give the committee the flavour of how difficult that was, and how open the media organisation was to cricket trying to leverage coverage of the women’s aspects of your sport? This was raised in our hearings yesterday in Sydney as a key role that NSOs can play— that is, using that point of negotiation to increase women’s sports coverage very specifically.

Mr Bown—To put it into context, we saw it as a significant success to have secured that as a fixture being shown on television. It was hard work. It was a huge credit to James and to others that it was achieved. It was achieved in the context, as you were touching on, of how we leverage potential partnerships. I think you are all probably aware now that Fox Sports is going to be televising domestic men’s cricket this year, and we want to push that over into women’s in due course. But it was all built into that leveraging, to say: ‘Well, we are looking at having a partnership. Here is something that is really important to us. We would like to see it go to air,’ and it got there. But it was a lot of hard work.

ACTING CHAIR—What sort of feedback did you get from Fox Sports about the relative success of the product that was created?

Mr Bown—The ratings were not great. They are in a different market and it is interesting the way that they view that. That being said, they were very pleased that they had taken that innovative step and had moved down that path. We need to see some icing on the cake, so to speak, in terms of what our relationship with them looks like in the future, but we are having very real dialogue about how we can build in some component of women’s cricket with their overall broadcasting of the game.

ACTING CHAIR—I have some questions for Hockey. Quite a few witnesses, including Mrs Crosswhite, mentioned the constitutional structure, which provides for close to or equal representation on the board and mandates a gender-equity principle. How has that specifically affected the point you made about women’s and men’s hockey at the top level being treated the same? Do you think that has been a key factor in that outcome?

Mr Adamson—I think the guiding principle in the merger was the key factor, and that was actually specified in the agreement papers between the two organisations. I do not think it is any secret to say that the women’s association did not rush to the altar, and for very good reasons; they were a very successful organisation. It was important to encapsulate that. As I said before, for the first four years of the new organisation we had an absolute gender-equal board, of four and four. It has only been in the last two years where, due to election issues, it has changed to five and three.

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ACTING CHAIR—Which way?

Mr Adamson—The male way. We do have the opportunity, as a board, to appoint additional members, and we used that last year to appoint two females. There is that option for us.

ACTING CHAIR—On the question of media, the Hockeyroos and the Kookaburras combined represent a phenomenal success story in Australian sport. I note from your submission that you feel there has been reasonable media support but a particular lack of corporate support in the sponsorship those teams are able to attract. Can you reflect on that, particularly in relation to the Hockeyroos? I should put the question in the context that we have also had feedback that this is an issue and a lot of these problems affect sports that are not major football codes and cricket; that it is not just a women’s sport issue.

Mr Adamson—No, and it is certainly not in hockey. It applies to both. Certainly, the sponsorship has been much better for the women’s team than for the men’s in recent years. Hopefully, after a couple of meetings this week I might be a little bit more positive next time. But, yes, it is an issue for us. If you look at the sponsorship worldwide of the leading 10 teams in men’s and women’s hockey, only both Australian teams are without major sponsorship, and the English women’s team, which is ranked ninth in the world. You can see that in international hockey there is much greater corporate support from those countries. We hear a lot from the commission about how much the government is spending on sport overseas, but it does not take into account the corporate support, which in Olympic and Commonwealth Games sports I think is much higher overseas than it is here.

ACTING CHAIR—You mentioned before that Hockey Australia contributed to the production costs of the Champions Trophy going to air on the ABC. Can you elaborate on that and on the contribution of Hockey Australia?

Mr Adamson—Yes, I can because it is now public record in terms of the ABC’s income and expenditure. We had in Canberra, which was the latest one, in November-December last year, 13 hours of free-to-air coverage on the ABC. Might I say that ABC Sport is probably the best free- to-air channel or network for us, because 50 per cent of our players come from country areas and the reach of the ABC is terrific for that. For those 13 hours we paid $200,000. That is why we will not continue to pay that amount of money when there is international hockey in Australia, because that would send us broke. It is a significant amount of money for us and, quite clearly, we would be suggesting to the government that more money goes into the ABC, particularly for sport, and directed at sport.

ACTING CHAIR—For women’s sport in particular or sport generally?

Mr Adamson—For hockey, both; we will take anything.

Senator RONALDSON—Does the $200,000 arrive with any particular title? Is it for production costs or—

Mr Adamson—Contribution to production costs.

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ACTING CHAIR—Do you think it would have been any different with men’s hockey or do you think you would have had the same thing happen with the ABC?

Mr Adamson—I am fairly certain we would have had the same thing happen. It is a very expensive undertaking to televise hockey. We are not the only sport like that. It takes six cameras and all those people in the production area, so it certainly would not have covered their whole costs by a long way.

ACTING CHAIR—Did you get any feedback from the ABC about how it rated?

Mr Adamson—The ABC was in fact very pleased with the ratings and wished to do more this year. They spoke about taking the world cups from Germany and Spain, which we were excited about, but unfortunately they decided that, because Fox Sports had achieved a relationship with the FIH, they would bow out.

ACTING CHAIR—The experience of female athletes, particularly elite athletes, has been an issue we have been looking at. In your submission, you alluded to a survey of high-performance athletes, particularly around the time when they retire and around retaining them in the sport. Can you tell the committee about the findings of that survey and what that told Hockey Australia about the needs and issues in terms of retaining talent in the sport post retirement?

Mr Adamson—That was particularly directed at those successful Hockeyroos teams of the nineties and what has happened to those players.

ACTING CHAIR—Have many of them stayed with the sport?

Mr Adamson—Some of them have, but not as many as we would have liked. They were obviously a very high-achieving group of people and so logic would suggest that they would be high achieving if they stayed in the sport in an administrative or particularly a coaching capacity. I said before that hockey players are not very well paid. There are two or three issues with those players, once they finish playing. Firstly, after training for all that time and committing themselves to competition for three months of the year, many of them were tired of the sport and wanted a break. Many of them wanted to start a family and many of them had not had the opportunity to start a career in a meaningful way and needed to establish themselves. The latter applies to men’s hockey as well. In particular, there was the issue of starting a family; they retire from hockey at 30 or 33, and that became an issue for us. So there are those three things. We have been able to grab a number of them in certain positions. Our current scholarship coach is a former Hockeyroo. We have two former Hockeyroos on our board. We have been able to get some, but not as many as we would like.

ACTING CHAIR—In response to that survey, have you developed some strategies to try and improve that, to keep that corporate knowledge within the sport and have them playing a role in the sport in some way?

Mr Adamson—Since we conducted the survey, we have actually recruited into either the state based national training programs or the national program in Perth some consultant coaches. We are using people such as Clover Maitland and Kate Starre in coaching roles. In a part-time situation, that strategy has worked, but we do not have enough yet. It is a challenge.

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ACTING CHAIR—It is an ongoing challenge.

Mr Adamson—It is a major challenge.

ACTING CHAIR—Can I ask Cricket Australia a similar question. Obviously, there are a lot of elite female cricketers out there who are no longer competing at the highest level. What strategies do you have as an organisation to retain that corporate knowledge, experience and talent in your sport?

Mr Bown—Firstly, because we are growing women’s cricket and working towards that, engaging them in coaching the sport is something that we have been able to achieve. In terms of the level, I think you could always say that, like hockey, it is never quite as high as you would like it to be. As the sport increases in profile and other things happen around that, we are finding it much easier to keep women involved in coaching. I was at the Australian women’s cricket camp in June this year and spent a lot of time with the team. I got a very real sense of the degree to which they are actively involved in their clubs, because that is the reality of having to deal with that environment.

You are dealing with a group of sportspeople who are already open to that and are already actively involved. That transition for them is possibly even easier than on the men’s side of the equation. That being said, it is not necessarily a highly lucrative career pathway right now, but we are keeping them engaged in that sense. The other part of the strategy we are starting to evolve is to keep not only female but also male cricketers who have retired involved in helping recruit new kids to the game of cricket. The Australian Cricketers’ Association is a group that at this stage works with the male team. But we are doing a lot of work with them to broaden their scope, and we do see an active role for past players, if you like, in terms of helping us promote and recruit for the game. That has started in a couple of instances.

There are 15 in the current national squad. Six of them are employed within state associations. We are certainly working towards driving that right through the sport as well, to help skill up people while they are involved in cricket. That has assisted a number of them in that context. We still have work to do, but it has gone from nothing to that.

ACTING CHAIR—Forgive me for asking the most obvious question: when does Cricket Australia think they might see a woman on the board?

Mr Bown—That is the million-dollar question.

ACTING CHAIR—It sure is.

Mr Bown—Yes, it is.

ACTING CHAIR—Is it a goal of the organisation?

Mr Bown—It is an active goal. We have a federated model of governance. That is different from the AFL but similar to hockey in that context. The current constitutions mean that we need to go through the processes that we do. There has been a female director on the Cricket Australia board meetings on three occasions. Her name is Rina Hore. She is a director of New South

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Wales Cricket. So in that sense we have had a female influence on a number of occasions. She is not a permanent director, but we are very keen to see that shift.

ACTING CHAIR—Perhaps I could ask the AFL to comment on that issue. Obviously, you do have a woman on your board who is making a substantial contribution. What other moves is the AFL making at that governance level? You seem to have a lot of programs on the ground designed not just to promote the involvement of women playing the sport but also for women’s involvement in the sport. How does that translate into getting women’s perspectives expressed where the decisions are made?

Mr Woodman—There are women directors in some of the states now—in New South Wales certainly. Melbourne Football Club, I think, has three female directors on their board now. It is starting to flow through the system gradually.

ACTING CHAIR—Do you put much pressure on your member clubs to look at gender equity issues or at least gender representation on their boards?

Mr Woodman—The best way to put it, I think, is to be always mindful of it. We are always conscious of trying to get good information on making decisions, whether through market research, formal research or through other things. We have a number of mechanisms through which we gain information from the population as a whole including post-game surveys and things like that, and many of the respondents are women. Because we want to grow the game, and we already know that a large proportion of our supporters and members are females—that it is a very important part of where we are today and where we will be in the future—we are always looking at opportunities to get their feedback onboard. Female footy supporters and people who are interested these days are pretty good at coming forward with their perspectives.

We have quite a significant number of female employees now in our office and also in the state offices, so it is changing from that perspective. We have a number of senior positions now that are filled by women, including a new position that started late last year, that of the general manager of people and culture, which in a sense is a move down a more formal human resources approach to what the AFL does in our own organisation, in our state affiliates and our affiliated clubs. The work that is done in that area, including things like the ‘respect and responsibility’ policies, will flow down through the system and be driven down through our affiliates.

ACTING CHAIR—Overall, has the number of females on your state commissions increased or shrunk over the past 10 years?

Mr Woodman—I do not have that exact answer with me. I will have to get that information for you.

Senator WORTLEY—Mr Bown, I refer back to a comment you made regarding men’s cricket appearing on Fox Sports. You made reference to discussions about women’s cricket appearing in due course. What are you hearing in these discussions and what barriers are you being faced with? What are the issues?

Mr Bown—What we are hearing from Fox Sports directly—and I guess it is put in the context that they are really wanting to create a new product, for want of a better phrase—is that they do

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS ECITA 92 Senate—References Thursday, 3 August 2006 want to do things differently. They want to be innovative and they want to take onboard new ways to present the game of cricket. That applies obviously to match-day formations but it also applies in the broader context of news around cricket.

Their initial relationship with us is about telecasting games, but linked into that inevitably— and I think I heard this in an earlier presentation—there is a sense of ‘what sorts of lifestyle shows around cricket can start to evolve from that’. That is where we are having real conversations as a starting point about actively involving female cricketers in that type of programming as that evolves. There is definitely, to be frank, a commercial resistance to it. The bottom line is that it is a commercial enterprise and they are looking for returns on a significant investment. We have to be real in that context in terms of our business and say, ‘What returns can we provide?’ That being said, all of our conversations with our broadcast and media partners are very clearly bringing female cricket and women in cricket into those discussions. I think the barriers, frankly, are the commercial realities of what will rate and what will give returns, and what we are hearing is that we need to find creative ways to bring that into the programming.

Senator WORTLEY—Have you embarked upon that course yet or are you in the process of doing it?

Mr Bown—We are in the process of doing that, yes.

Senator WORTLEY—Senator Lundy made a point earlier about the media to a journalist who appeared as a witness. You were talking earlier, Mr Woodman, about the women’s page as part of the AFL team web site—was that correct?

Mr Woodman—The AFL’s web site overall, yes. We have a game development section and within that there is a women’s section.

Senator WORTLEY—Is that when you log onto a particular AFL team or is it just the general—

Mr Woodman—No, the general afl.com.au. Our state affiliates generally have a women’s page as well in their development section.

Senator WORTLEY—I would like to go over something that was said during the statement by a witness with regard to women’s sport appearing in the media and get your comments on that. What she indicated was that very often journalists have to look for the information, they actually have to go and log onto a web site or they have to make numerous phone calls and leave messages to actually access the information. What do your organisations have in place to feed the information through to the journalists with regard to women’s sport? Or perhaps, what could be put in place?

Mr Woodman—In terms of women’s activities that the AFL central office is involved in, we put out press releases regularly about activities. That includes the women’s national championships. Those results go on our web site and press releases go out in relation to that. The rest of the women’s competition activity occurs at state level, in state leagues. Basically, they tend to put their results on their own web sites. I would have to follow up with them as to what

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS Thursday, 3 August 2006 Senate—References ECITA 93 methods they use to distribute it to the state media and so on. I am not exactly sure of the answer to that at the moment but I will follow that up.

Senator WORTLEY—I would appreciate that. Thank you.

Mr Woodman—As I mentioned before, going forward, media and promotion is one of our strategic priorities for girls and women. We are starting from a fairly low level. It is part of what we want to take forward in the future.

Mr Bown—We have incorporated live scoring into our website. It is fair to say that, collectively, women’s scores are more difficult to find than men’s scores. That is the reality. In cricket’s context, we are definitely attempting to address that by making sure that it has an equal opportunity.

Senator WORTLEY—When you say they are more difficult to find, are they more difficult to find on the website or—

Mr Bown—My view is that when you are looking for scores and you work your way through the newspapers and you go down all the—

Senator WORTLEY—In the newspaper itself?

Mr Bown—Yes, that is challenging.

ACTING CHAIR—Why is your women’s part in development and not just part of the same stream as the men’s stream? Why is it in development?

Mr Woodman—Currently, the way the AFL operation is structured women’s football is part of game development in terms of responsibilities and it comes under the participation section of that. The way our website is structured—

ACTING CHAIR—I am just asking more in the general sense and I am happy for you to take that on notice.

Mr Bown—Can I just address that briefly? I am the general manager of game development, and cricket has a very similar situation. I am fundamentally responsible for women in cricket. I think it is the reality of where we are strategically to say—

ACTING CHAIR—You are still developing the women’s part of the game?

Mr Bown—We are developing it, and the best opportunity for us to genuinely shift the culture and shift things is at the very base of the game to make sure that we are engaging women actively and to start to grow it in that context. I am not answering on anyone else’s behalf but certainly in our context that is why—

ACTING CHAIR—I did not realise it was the same with you. Thank you very much. I am sorry about the shortness of time, but we need to have a short break. We thank you for your evidence.

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Proceedings suspended from 3.45 pm to 3.51 pm

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS Thursday, 3 August 2006 Senate—References ECITA 95

RENDELL, Mr Mark, Chief Executive Officer, Bowls Australia Inc.

WEST, Miss Sally, Operations Manager, Bowls Australia Inc.

DIX, Ms Noeleen, President, Netball Australia

CROW, Ms Susan, Chief Executive, Softball Australia

QUIGLEY, Miss Kate, Athlete, Softball Australia

ACTING CHAIR—The committee has received your submissions as Nos 70, 24 and 65. Do any of you want to make any alterations or amendments to your submissions? I now invite you to make opening statements. As we did previously with other witnesses, perhaps if we start on my left and work through, and then we will have the opportunity for questions.

Ms Dix—It is certainly a pleasure to be here. I know that we have heard a few versions of the netball story over the last two days. I am hoping that I can add a little bit more to that discussion. The tack that I wanted to take was the reality issue that probably Netball Australia is facing, and it was the theme of our submission—that is, women’s sport is basically a product. It is a product in a very crowded marketplace. Netball as a sport probably sees its biggest competitors in the market as other sports. Obviously, football is a huge monolith that we are contending with all the time. A good example of the differences between one of the football codes and us is the fact that the AFL, as we all know, has attracted $780 million in just its broadcast rights for the coming years, and we are a sport that has a total turnover of far less than $10 million a year. Yet we are in this crowded market place and trying to make a position for ourselves. We do not have the PR, the media machines and the amount of revenue that these sports obviously have.

Just recently the federal government has created another competitor in that market in making the Football Federation of Australia a giant to be reckoned with. They threw in Frank Lowy, Ron Walker and John O’Neill in a star-studded line-up to breathe life into a sport that had a major opportunity on the world stage. Having watched that, as another sport in the marketplace, my question is: how can women’s sport ever match the power that these men hold in corporate boardrooms with their political connections and their credibility in the marketplace? That is the reality of what we are up against.

I believe that netball needs the same opportunity, because otherwise things will never change for netball and certainly for women’s sport in Australia. We are by far the largest and most popular women’s sport in Australia. We are well structured and administered, and yet for the last 15 years since we stepped out into the limelight at the conclusion of the 1991 world championships, when we thought, ‘This is it, it is all going to start happening for us,’ it just has not. We have continued to keep going on, but we have never been able to take that next step.

I believe that women’s sport and therefore netball suffers from the legacy of the status of women within our society. For hundreds of years women have been slow and not given the opportunities to market themselves; they have just gotten on with doing sport very well, but have not necessarily had the ability to market themselves. I now believe that our female athletes

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS ECITA 96 Senate—References Thursday, 3 August 2006 deserve to be professional like their brothers. I firmly believe that. That is something we are obviously striving for with our Australian Netball Players Association. They have provided us with the momentum and the incentive to get out there and push hard right now. Now is the moment for us. We know that it can be done, because the telecasts of and the media interest in netball in New Zealand is there for everybody to see. It is a sport that rates on television. It rates 20 to 30 on the scales of measurement of television viewers. The product is marketable. It is just that Australian netball has never been able to break into that particular market.

We believe that young girls and women should be idolising elite female athletes, and I do not think that that is happening. They are more interested in teen stars, celebrities and things like that. This is what our media and teen magazines portray. I hope that this inquiry delivers some results because, since 1985 when the first inquiries were held into women’s sport that delivered us the Women’s Sport Promotion Unit in Canberra in 1987, the media and the perspective of women’s sport has gotten a bit better but we have never been able to break into that real world.

Government agencies have to support women by using female athletes to deliver their messages. We are terrific tools for them to use. The big-spending corporates need to invest in our game and, therefore, they need a leap of faith to be able to know that they can invest their money and have confidence in the fact that we are going to portray them and portray ourselves very well. We have got a couple of really good things on our horizon, which is why this particular inquiry is great for us. We are looking at restructuring our product in 2008. We are also looking at staging a world championships in Melbourne, if we win the bid, for netball. Any work that we can generate in developing women’s sport and that profile that we have in the media is going to mean that we will start to win those battles for those particular events. That is a summary of it.

ACTING CHAIR—Thank you.

Ms Crow—Thank you for the opportunity to present today. As part of my presentation, I have invited Kate to present from an athlete’s perspective as well. It is well documented that sport provides enormous social and health benefits to participants. As an inclusive sport, softball offers both competitive and recreational streams. We are well positioned to cater for families and women of all shapes, sizes, ages and abilities. Our challenge is to find a way to promote these benefits in an extremely crowded media arena that is obsessed with traditional male sports. How good would it be for the government to provide funding for a regular television program that features highlights of women’s sports and also features their role models?

Softball is a sport of choice for Indigenous women and girls, and we are working hard to provide social and exercise opportunities through community carnivals in remote areas. Male football codes are well resourced to visit communities and provide activities for young men, but what do the women do? They sit and watch. We are extremely proud that Stacey Porter was the only female Indigenous athlete to represent Australia at Athens 2004. We need the resources to be able to identify and develop more Stacey Porters.

The impact of the IOC decision to drop softball, the only stand-alone female sport on the Olympic program, from the 2012 Olympic program is yet to be known in terms of funding post Beijing 2008. Australia has participated in three Olympic Games and we have medalled in each of them. This has meant that our high-performance programs and our athletes have been well supported by the Sports Commission and the IOC. The future is unknown. Corporate

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS Thursday, 3 August 2006 Senate—References ECITA 97 sponsorship is becoming increasingly difficult to secure. We have plenty of bats, balls and helmets, which is great for the athletes but that does not grow our sport. Our heavy reliance on government funding means that we are using our limited resources extremely well and giving great value for money. In terms of leadership roles, Softball Australia has five full-time professional coaches and one high-performance manager. They are all males. As far as our officiating goes, we are probably fifty-fifty, and also at our board level. It is our aim in the future to have a female professional coach, but we are working on that through our leadership programs.

Miss Quigley—I have been a member of our Australian squad now for three years. Unfortunately, I did not compete in Athens; I had just returned from a scholarship over in the United States playing softball. I have been lucky enough over my career to have my parents’ financial support, but I feel the prime reason for girls leaving the sport of softball is the costs associated with playing the game. Managing to train at the level required to be selected for state squads and the Australian squad demands full-time employment, and it gets too demanding on many of the girls and they have to give it up.

The government assistance that we receive once we reach the AIS squad and the Australian team is extremely helpful, yet we are required to take about six to eight weeks off a year from our full-time jobs to travel to international competitions, and that just gets too much. The decision is: fulfil your dream and play for Australia but maybe not have a job when you get home. Most of the girls in the squad, 99 per cent of us, have a university degree, so we are quite employable.

ACTING CHAIR—What percentage?

Miss Quigley—Some 99 per cent. Every single player bar one has a degree. We are very employable. Some girls choose going off and taking a good wage over playing softball, which is unfortunate. Women in sport are some of the best role models in society today; although we work full-time and train the hours of professional athletes, like some of those in the AFL, NBL and NRL, we find time to still work with the development of softball. A lot of us go back to our local clubs and associations and work with charities such as Red Dust Role Models and ARM Tour, where we go up to the Northern Territory and work with the Indigenous children up there.

Finally, on the issue of the media, Sue and I were discussing that it is sometimes said that any publicity is good publicity, but hopefully I stand here today as proof to Austereo Network and any of the other networks that got on board during the 2004 Olympics that not all softball players really belong behind the wheel of a Mack Truck, which is what they said.

ACTING CHAIR—Thank you very much.

Miss West—Thank you for the opportunity to speak. Bowls Australia is a national organisation with a vision to deliver an exceptional sport experience that is accessible to all Australians. We represent over 2,000 clubs and a membership of 267,000. Our members include 86,000 women, of whom 80 per cent are aged over 55. That makes Bowls Australia one of the largest sporting organisations representing adult women in this country. Despite the fact that women make up 33 per cent of our membership, all of our policies are based on providing gender equity.

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Bowls is a sport that promotes good health and prolongs life expectancy. Once committed to the sport, bowlers tend to stay involved for the rest of their lives. Apart from the physical benefits, there are also outstanding social and mental health benefits, particularly for the older bowler. Bowls clubs are a safe, welcoming environment and their members enjoy a strong sense of community.

In terms of accessibility, bowls is one of the few sports that women can play at all ages. In fact, it is quite common to have three generations from one family enjoying a game together. For those that are time-rich, the sport provides great accessibility, particularly through the many mid- week competitions that are played at most clubs throughout the country. But for those who are time-poor, like me, the sport makes it extremely hard to participate. As a 31-year-old female bowler, I play the sport despite the barriers it throws at me. I play bowls because I enjoy it; I love the strategic part of the game and the social aspect. But until Mark gives me Tuesdays off to play in the ladies pennant, every Saturday I will put on a really unflattering white uniform, tell the ladies committee that I am not going to make sandwiches for them in the afternoon, and play with the men. Our extensive research has led us to think that the outdated dress standards, the restricted playing times and the general lack of promotion are what makes the sport so unappealing to younger women. There is no reason why the number of younger women playing bowls cannot rise significantly. But for that to happen we have to remove those barriers.

When looking at the portrayal of sport in the media, bowls like many sports suffers from a bias towards the men’s game. In terms of leadership, the opportunities for women in bowls are particularly strong at the national and state levels, but that is not the case at club level, where men tend to occupy the main roles and still dominate the clubs. Bowls Australia is actively addressing many of these issues, being one of only two sports working with the Women and Sport Unit of the Australian Sports Commission. Given the nature of bowls, there is no reason why women should not be represented equally in all areas addressed by the Senate.

ACTING CHAIR—Thank you very much. Mr Rendell, do you want to make an opening comment?

Mr Rendell—No, that is basically it for us.

Senator WORTLEY—In relation to your comments about the uniform, we have heard from a significant number of witnesses and have read in the submissions about the issue of dress code impacting on the participation of girls and women. Perhaps starting with bowls, would you like to comment on that?

Miss West—At national level our dress code is very flexible, but it is the states and the clubs that implement those policies and they are very strict. The skirts are sometimes measured; there are regulations for the length of sleeves and so on. It is about educating the clubs and the states that that is not appealing to younger women. They do not want to do that. When I drive to bowls, I do not get out of the car to put petrol in the car.

Senator WORTLEY—Is there any move within Bowls Australia to change that dress code?

Mr Rendell—Nationally we have a very flexible national dress code. We have just conducted research, again, with the help of Sweeney Sports, into the barriers presented at a participation

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS Thursday, 3 August 2006 Senate—References ECITA 99 level. The dress code was still one of the major barriers. It is being actively pursued now from a board point of view, looking at a more positive policy to be implemented at state and club level that will take out some of these barriers about the type of dress codes, particularly for women, that are stopping the sport being attractive to a younger demographic.

Ms Crow—I was Chief Executive of Women’s Cricket Australia, too. It has always been a choice: do you make them look sexy, or do you dress them appropriately for the sport? When you have athletes who are sliding on the ground and taking dives or whatever—

Miss Quigley—I will show you my scars afterwards.

Ms Crow—The softballers do look nice in shorts, but they are sliding on the ground and ripping their legs to pieces. Or do we go back to the old-style pantaloons or knickerbockers? It is a real choice. Do we market the game so that we attract some media coverage and they look really good, or do you play the sport as it needs to be played at the really high level?

ACTING CHAIR—It is amazing that sports still find themselves having to weigh up those issues, as opposed to saying ‘Of course we will do what works best for the sport.’

Senator WORTLEY—There are two issues. Firstly, you are talking about the media presentation. Secondly, you are talking about participation. Netball?

Ms Dix—Our experience is probably based on the reason netball is so popular, and that is that we attract an incredibly wide range of girls and women to play, of all different shapes and sizes, and so the netball uniform that has been developed for the majority of players is one that they feel comfortable in and do not feel threatened in. They do not need to feel sexy; they are just there to get out to play and to be free to move and participate. Our uniform has just been based on that. But at the elite end it has grown into that sexy sort of look. That has always been managed by keeping account of the fact that they are obviously good athletes and they need to be comfortable in the gear that they wear. I think that we have found that happy medium so that they feel good and look good in what they wear. It has become more liberalised. We have found that what the elite players have worn at that national level is slowly trickling down to perhaps the more elite teams in the local community competitions.

Senator WORTLEY—Some submissions have put that the Sports Commission should link gender-equity outcomes to its funding of national sporting organisations. How would you respond to that suggestion?

Ms Dix—It is probably the reverse gender-equity issue for us, because there is a small number of men playing netball, about 4,000 out of around 400,000. That is very interesting. The work that we have done is mainly done at that state level, because they are young boys that enter the competitions as primary school players. That has then built the demand and the growth in those numbers that are now competing nationally. It is probably not an issue for us.

ACTING CHAIR—Thank you. Softball?

Ms Crow—With additional funding I would respond favourably to that. Again, we have very successful male softball teams and softball players. Our funding is very much skewed to the

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS ECITA 100 Senate—References Thursday, 3 August 2006 female side of the game, because that is an Olympic sport, but I would certainly like to see some more gender equity for the men.

Senator WORTLEY—Bowls?

Mr Rendell—We amalgamated as men’s and women’s bodies in 2002. Similar to hockey, the founding principles of that amalgamation were, firstly, best practice and, secondly, gender equity. Our constitution enshrines our council, which comes from our state and territory associations. One male and one female from every state comes to the national council. They are the ones who elect the board. Our board currently has bowling directors as fifty-fifty. We have two independents, which are at this stage both male. We do have gender equity enshrined in our constitution. Our board must have at least one bowling member of the opposite gender. That preserves gender equity on the board. Having a council of 50 per cent male and 50 per cent female has, since 2002 anyway, ensured that the board of Bowls Australia is 50 per cent male and 50 per cent female.

Senator WORTLEY—The position of women participating in sport at all levels, from player through to coach, umpiring, administrative and leadership positions, has been raised in a number of submissions, specifically with regard to the issue of childcare. An interesting comment was made earlier regarding bowls—namely, that it was impacting on grandmothers because they were now, in some cases, the childcare providers and that was having an impact on bowls. The women could participate in other sports. How does the issue of child care impact on those areas within your sports?

Ms Dix—You heard this morning from Kate and Lynn about this and how it affects netball, so it is really the legislation that has impacted on those sports centres.

Senator WORTLEY—Also, do you have any suggestions as to how that can be overcome? What about softball?

Ms Crow—Softball is very much a family oriented sport. The whole family can be there, so it is not such a matter of mum coming with a child to be looked after. There are other people around to look after the children. We have a player in our national team who has a child. She is a single mum and that has created problems for her. At times the child travels with the team. We allow that. But it also impacts on her, her daughter and the rest of the team members.

Miss Quigley—Coaching wise, a lot of the females who have hung around after playing the sport and who are in their 30s or 40s do not have families. They are single, quite powerful women and they have never gone on to settle down in a relationship. They can continue coming back to softball, which is a huge advantage. That may come from same-sex relationships in our sport, which has been of benefit coaching wise. My coach played for Australia. Basically, the whole board of my club down at softball continue to come back, which is an advantage, but maybe in the future people like me may go on to have children and not come back and remain in the sport.

Ms Dix—One thing that impacts on the childcare issue and winding people back in to serve your sport is that clubs and associations specifically for women do not necessarily have the club amenities and things available to allow people to wind back in socially. You either contribute as

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS Thursday, 3 August 2006 Senate—References ECITA 101 an administrator, an umpire or a player or there is really nothing there for you. We have gone about attacking that by instituting things like halls of fame and so on where you bring these people back in. It costs money to do it and it is normally done on a large scale with glitz and glamour. But it is about bringing those people back so they continue their involvement. It is when you get them back in those sorts of social circumstances that you do reignite their interest. Perhaps they have had their children and they are able to then give some time. Most women are time poor when they finish playing. That is the reason why they give it up. Family is normally the reason, or it is their careers and things like that. It is that balance of things. It is about women’s sport now trying to do things that do wind those people back in and make them feel that they are still part of that sport. We have not traditionally done that very well at all.

Mr Rendell—That is where we say they should be coming to bowls and starting to play bowls instead of going back into the sports that they played as a younger female. I do not think that sport has changed with society, and in particular bowls has not. What we are trying to do with access now is to create different access points for the different community aspects so they can get back into the sport or play the sport of bowls when they want, at a time that suits them. Childcare may be an issue that bowls is easily able to accomplish—behind a fence or a hedge within a confined area. Bowls is not a sport where you need to be concentrating all the time. You can see what your children are doing. But that gets down to how well our clubs are educated and how well our clubs think about how they can do that. Management or governance at club level is still dominated by older men who probably do not have the inclination to look at some of those areas.

Senator RONALDSON—If nothing else over the last two days we have seen the enormity of the issues that face various sports. Yesterday we were in Sydney and we were given clear evidence about the real issues with 14-year-old girls seeing some of their team mates wearing lycra. We heard about the body issues that creates for teenage girls. But Miss West, today, wants to wear something a bit snappier. There are lots of issues and probably no single outcome. Ms Dix, you talk about the Frank Lowys of this world and the Ron Walkers. Have women’s sports looked at approaching people like Gail Kelly, the St George Bank head, or Janet Holmes a Court? Presumably these women have played sport at some stage. Does women’s sport need to take some ownership of this issue as well and try to get some of those high-profile businesswomen in Australia involved in this process? Has that been tried and failed or is that part of the long-term plan?

Ms Dix—We have certainly tried to attract people and get them more involved in our boards. One issue we find is the lack of prestige involved in being on the board of Netball Australia. The reason for people to be on boards is to further their own interests, to grow and to obviously network in the group that they are working with. Again, it would be a philanthropic sort of thing, and somebody would join under those circumstances. Bill Shorten has come into our sport. One of the terrific things that he brings with him is the fact that he does have contacts within the corporate world. We are happy that our players are now becoming known by these people so that they start to see that we have a viable product. Whether men or women get involved in the boards is really irrelevant. It is about attracting somebody who has the ability to sign cheques, because that is what we need to get our sport out in the open. We need to be able to market and present ourselves. The funding that we get never allows us to be to go that extra load and put our product out there properly.

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This morning, the AFL announced that they are putting a further $1 million into selling their product in Sydney by using Barry Hall. We only dream of being able to get our hands on $1 million to position our entire sport across the whole of Australia. They are going for just the allegiance of one city. We have never, ever had the opportunity of doing that. We need that in order to get out there, make our presence felt and get people to watch us on television. The media and corporations are not charitable. They want results. They want ratings and things like that. It is about women and the community identifying with this product and saying: ‘Yes, we’re excited about it. We want to watch it, we want to buy your tickets and we want to wear your merchandise.’ Then it is about them coming out there and supporting us. At the moment we do not have the ability to get out there and tell them that, because we are battling with the programs that we run and making ends meet on an annual basis.

Senator RONALDSON—With respect to softball, is there a professional circuit in the States?

Miss Quigley—Yes, there are professional leagues in America, Japan and Italy. We have players in both Italy and Japan playing professionally. The USA is pretty tough because you need a green card. You have to get married first. I am lucky, because I am going to marry an American. I will be all right. Yes, there are professional leagues, which is great.

Senator RONALDSON—I am sure that had nothing to do with your decision!

Miss Quigley—I did not go over to college just looking for one. I think that is awesome for the sport and I promote things like that to the younger girls when I go into schools to coach. Also, with respect to the university system in America, most of us finish year 12 and go straight over to the States and get two to four years. We get our degree for free. We play 55 games in the season. We get to experience another culture, another country, and come back here bigger, better and stronger to play for our own country. That is a really great deal that we have got going on with the USA. We all come back, draft players and send players back over. It has been going on for 10 years now and it is getting bigger.

Senator RONALDSON—There is no money involved?

Miss Quigley—Not in college.

Senator RONALDSON—It is education?

Miss Quigley—Exactly, but you are looking at possibly a $150,000 deal at the end of the day. Some of these girls possibly would not even get a TER to go to university here, and they are coming back with an education. I push the parents and their kids to get into softball. You can go over to the States, get a degree and forget HECS.

Ms Crow—There is a professional league in Japan. That is something that we would like to look at—that is, linking into some sort of Asia league post Beijing, so that we can have a sustainable league going in the Asia region. Then the Americans can come knocking on our door too, rather than our spending $200,000 to go and play them, which we do for a week or two weeks once a year. We feel that Asia really is the key.

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Senator RONALDSON—I know it was only a colloquialism when you said that people were hanging around after they finish at that league level. But was it a bit of Freudian slip to the extent that people at the elite level, whether it is netball, softball and perhaps not so much bowls, are so exhausted by the requirements both in a financial and in a physical sense when they come out that they just do not want to see another netball or softball? Is that the environment that we are creating, where they just want to get out of it?

Miss Quigley—For some athletes, yes. They get to the end and they say, ‘I have had enough. I’ve had my 20 hours a week of training and my full-time work.’ Maybe some of them even end up resenting the sport for putting such pressures on their lives. Maybe they have missed other opportunities along the way—their friends have purchased their first home and are getting married, and they are just finishing their sporting career. Sometimes they feel: ‘I’m done with it. That’s enough.’ They might come back in 10 years. They might decide that they miss it. But that could be why so many people just take off and you never see them again.

Senator RONALDSON—I am not necessarily talking about financial inducement, as they have in New Zealand, but is there something that the Sports Commission through the government could be doing to actually get people at the end of their time in sport before they do disappear?

Ms Crow—The AIS coaching scholarship program is very good. We have one of our players going through that at the moment. However, again, it is at a stage where they are starting families or they have young families, and is that the time to be dedicating yourself to coaching? It may be that they need to have that break and then come back in their 40s or once they have put their children through sport. I am not sure we have got it right in targeting athletes to go straight into coaching. Sure, we capture them, but it may not be the right time in their life.

Mr Rendell—All sportspeople at the elite level suffer from the time that they dedicate to being an elite athlete in sports such as bowls, netball or softball that are not able to pay them, so they have to give up their family and work commitments to commit to their sport. The average age of the Australian bowls men’s team is 30 and it is 33 for the women. They are committing a lot of their time when they are in their prime working lives to play sport at an elite level, and we are unable to reward them financially as two of the three sports prior to this forum are able to do. It is an issue that always needs to be looked at from a funding point of view. Australia loves to have winners. One of the ways women in sport, particularly, can create a profile is to have more world champions, more gold medallists, at Commonwealth and Olympic Games. That is one of the ways we can do that. So how can we help fund that?

Senator RONALDSON—That will not necessarily guarantee you press coverage though, will it?

Mr Rendell—Not necessarily, but it is part of the mix that has to be there. Sports like the non- professional sports rely on government—we are not getting that financial support from corporates—to supplement the income of our elite athletes. You made a point about getting more women on boards. The board of Bowls Australia identified the fact that we needed an independent female on our board who would bring either governance expertise, to assist the sport to grow in that area, or marketing and promotion expertise. We have advertised on every website available and still have not got one hit for a female to come on to our board at a national

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS ECITA 104 Senate—References Thursday, 3 August 2006 level. It is very hard to get the quality of board members that can take you to the next level in a sport that does not have the profile of AFL or cricket.

Senator RONALDSON—Ms Dix, how many men do you have on your board?

Ms Dix—None at the moment. We did have one up until the annual general meeting just gone, and he was an independent person. The rest of the board are women. If I can pick up on your question, I think it is all about offering opportunities. I was an Australian netballer and I was a teacher when I was playing. I was given opportunities to get involved in working professionally within the sport in the coaching area, and then I meandered my way through different administration levels. It is about the sport supporting its own and putting them forward and encouraging them. I have done that; I have worked within netball on using traineeships and things like that for players. Netball has done that well, particularly at our state association level. We also strongly support leadership programs for our players within the Australian team, which gives them skills to be able to be terrific spokespersons and to go out and be able to market themselves independently. Quite a number of well known ones—the Liz Ellises and Anne Sargeants—run incredibly successful camp and holiday programs and things like that because of being able to market off their image and their work. We are very much into rolling those sorts of things in. As an employer we are very sensitive, if they are still playing, to giving them time off and making sure that their commitments as a player fit around the work commitments that they might have.

Senator RONALDSON—I will ask you all a general question, and I am playing devil’s advocate to a certain extent. We talk about board governance and getting far better mixes of men and women in sports dominated by men. We talk about getting women on to those boards, and they are under scrutiny and in the limelight in relation to that. Should we be doing the same thing with female dominated sports such as netball as a matter of fairness, or is it not an issue that needs to be addressed? I am just wondering if it is good enough for one, why isn’t the focus on the other?

Ms Crow—Before Noelene responds, when I first began at Women’s Cricket Australia the entire board were all female and mainly of a similar age and a similar occupation. I moved very quickly to bring some men and some gender balance on to the board, because I think it is really important. That is just my opinion. In softball we do have an excellent gender balance.

Senator RONALDSON—Now existing?

Ms Crow—Yes, and the diversity is good.

Senator RONALDSON—Can you comment on the effectiveness or otherwise of the Sports Commission sports leadership grants for women? Does more need to be done in that leadership area?

Mr Rendell—We have been working with the commission now for 12 months on a women in sport pilot program, where the funding has been a lot higher than it would be for some of the other grants that you get through the leadership ones. Because that funding is a lot higher, we are able to put in place a lot more programs that are effective. The women in leadership grants of $5,000 up to a maximum of $10,000 for an organisation are not going to be effective in

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS Thursday, 3 August 2006 Senate—References ECITA 105 instigating the institutional change that has to happen in sport. If the funding is going to be at that level, it will not have as much impact as it would if the funding were increased.

Ms Crow—The grants are good. I was just thinking back, when Janice was talking before, to when I was on that very first Women in Sport three-day workshop. That gives you a lot of confidence and the ability to think of what you can do and achieve. I have staff and some of our athletes going through these various grants and programs. I think they are beneficial, and the more the better.

Senator RONALDSON—There has been a lot of talk today about putting some quotas in for women’s sport in the media, and some have been talking 10 per cent, 20 per cent and 30-odd per cent. While that looks at first glance to be attractive, is it something that can legitimately work and, if it cannot, what is the next best thing? Is it assistance from the Sports Commission in relation to media training for—and I will use the expression—minor sports in the context of the perception not the reality? Around this table certainly two out of three—and I presume softball as well—are very high-participation sports. How do we get around what is clearly a significant issue?

Mr Rendell—At Bowls Australia, prior to 2002 and prior to the amalgamation of the men and the women, the only product that was on television on ABC was men’s bowls. There were hardly any women’s bowls whatsoever. There was the one-off 2000 world championships but, other than that, it was the men’s bowls, driven by the men’s organisation. From the amalgamation and our gender-equity principles we have now balanced that up, and in 2007 it will be fifty-fifty male and female programs on the ABC. What we have found with that from our point of view is that it provides a real diversity and it adds value to our product. Providing a mix of male and female bowls on television has been extremely beneficial for us, and our ratings on the ABC have continued to grow. We are moving up the timeslots. In fact, they have moved us now from half past five to half past six, up against the news, which hopefully will be a good thing for the sport. It takes us into prime-time television ratings. That would not have been achieved just on the male sport platform. The mix of men and women in bowls is beneficial for us. We impose that quota from the Bowls Australia programming point of view.

ACTING CHAIR—You insisted on it to the ABC?

Mr Rendell—Exactly.

Senator RONALDSON—I suspect that you get publicity that some of the others would kill for?

Mr Rendell—I am sure, and we are very grateful to the ABC. They are an extremely positive partner for the sport of bowls and they are working with us extremely well to take our program even further into the coming years. It was our imposing of quotas and saying as a board and an organisation at Bowls Australia that we want to balance the exposure of men and women on television.

ACTING CHAIR—What did they say? Was that hard to achieve? They obviously agreed.

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Mr Rendell—Every discussion I have had at the ABC has been extremely positive about doing that.

Ms Crow—Any amount of media training will not attract more media coverage for softball. We just do not have a budget to purchase television coverage, which is what we need to do. That is why I suggested earlier that it would be fantastic for the Sports Commission to fund a half- hour regular television show for not only female sports but some of the minor sports that do not get a look in. This could feature some highlights of whether it be national championships or international games, and also some human interest stories on their role models, to get the Kate Quigleys in front of the public. No-one gets to see them.

Ms Dix—Netball has had a terrific relationship with the ABC. They have been incredibly supportive of us. We have tried something this current year which I find interesting because it ties in with your press release from yesterday’s hearing, in that we have decided to go onto digital with our live coverage on a Friday night. It has been very difficult for our membership to accept that, because we know for a fact that only 15 per cent of television viewers have digital currently. We have taken out some of our ability to get our game across the nation, which is what the ABC2 used to provide for us. The other way where the ABC works against us is the difficulty with being able to put out our corporate messages. They have incredibly strict guidelines as to what signage you can use around your courts, which has meant that we have been at cross- purposes with the sponsors that are paying us to put the competition on, so we have never been able to develop that.

Also, the contribution that the ABC make is a terrific contribution in terms of production costs but they do not go out and promote us very widely. They do a little bit of promotion of what they are going to carry on netball and they do a great job of it. We have a very loyal following. A terrific example that has happened only last week is that there was a rating of 20 to 30 of people who watched the Brisbane netball game between New Zealand and Australia in New Zealand, but in Australia it rated at one. That was because the ABC put it on at the end of the evening, when people were in bed.

ACTING CHAIR—What time was it on?

Ms Dix—Eleven o’clock at night.

ACTING CHAIR—And the Sydney test—how did that go?

Ms Dix—I do not even know what the ratings were. It was a little bit higher. It certainly missed the mark.

ACTING CHAIR—It was still on at 10.30 p.m.?

Ms Dix—Yes, and it was a replay. It was not direct. This ties into educating women to support themselves and having women go out and buy newspapers. Editors will write stories if the women want to read or are going to buy their newspapers to read about that. It is about women becoming passionate about their own sports. Netball in particular carries the tag of being a terrific wholesome participation sport, but even the people who play it do not understand that it is a terrific spectacle as well. We have never sold that message properly to them, and that is

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS Thursday, 3 August 2006 Senate—References ECITA 107 never translated into their supporting the sport and purchasing tickets. It becomes a vicious circle. We have a wonderful membership that are a terrific corporate tool. We are very valuable to companies sponsoring us, but we just do not get that message out there.

ACTING CHAIR—In talking to the ABC yesterday about the nature of the relationship, they said at the moment netball does not pay them and part of the arrangement is that they cover the production costs. Did netball used to pay a fee to the ABC to put their product to air?

Ms Dix—There have been times where we have had to put money up for a particular series or international test, so there has been a contribution needed to be made. But the money that we receive to sponsor that particular event is stretched to cover the operational costs. There is absolutely no way we could cover production costs. We are incredibly indebted to them in being able to put that product together for us, and they do it well.

ACTING CHAIR—They also get a pretty good deal as well, because they get to screen the content.

Ms Dix—That is right. Yes, they do.

Senator RONALDSON—What does bowls pay to them?

Mr Rendell—We pay to put our product on, so we do not have the benefit of them paying. We pay the production costs. It is around $220,000 a year. We are fortunate in one sense in that we have television contracts with Fox Sports and BSkyB in the UK for our product, which helps us offset the production costs. If we were able to have no production costs in Australia, if it was covered, then we would be able to put that money into the prize money pools for the events, which helps then to offset the living costs for our elite bowlers. We understand that we have provided revenue to the ABC and it is hard to ween them off that over a long period. We get about 60 programs a year on the ABC now, which is fantastic and probably the cost per program is not too much. But that money could be spent in other areas if there was more funding for ABC television to assist us in the production area.

ACTING CHAIR—It was about the same amount that hockey paid for the going to air of the champions trophy. It is a different set-up, but the principle is still there in that you are either providing the content for nothing and having the production costs offset or paying production costs to get your product to air.

Mr Rendell—In one sense, we are getting funding from the Sports Commission, a government agency, to run our high-performance programs, which are our television programs. Then we are giving money back to the government to have those things produced.

ACTING CHAIR—Can softball point to any examples where you have had women’s games broadcast?

Ms Crow—The world championships next month will be broadcast, but we still need to pay any TV station in Australia to take the coverage. We will be able to provide the coverage, if we can afford it.

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ACTING CHAIR—So it is going to be a question of what your financial resources are looking like at the time?

Ms Crow—Yes. We also packaged up some of our national league games and international games this year to provide highlights for all the news.

ACTING CHAIR—Did that work?

Ms Crow—No.

ACTING CHAIR—You obviously made an investment in doing this?

Ms Crow—Yes, we did.

ACTING CHAIR—How did that make you feel?

Ms Crow—Either someone’s groin perhaps got injured or there was something more interesting for them to put on the news that night!

ACTING CHAIR—Sarcasm does not often come through in Hansard.

Ms Crow—Good; strike that!

ACTING CHAIR—We do note the tone in which that comment was made. It is a point well made. Obviously it is an example. We have heard evidence from some who would say that women’s sport can make an extra effort to pre-package news items and that would really help, but this is evidence of that investment having been made and not being successful. That is important to us.

Mr Rendell—Just to support that, every time we have a bowl’s event that is televised, from the game that day we package up a three-minute highlights package, provide a press release to every media outlet and put it on the air with the assistance of the ABC. Sport is absolutely fantastic to us, but to get ABC News to actually run it is just about impossible. We do not get any of that coverage, except maybe in some regional areas.

ACTING CHAIR—Miss Quigley wanted to add a comment.

Miss Quigley—I know this sounds like it has come out of left field—pardon the pun—but part of me thinks, with respect to women in sport: why not go with what is cool at the moment? Reality TV is cool. Jessica Simpson and Nicholas Lachey were nothing until they did Newlyweds. Why not put some athletes in a Big Brother scenario? I am not saying that Big Brother is the go. One of our Australian girls was going to go on Big Brother. She would have been awesome.

Senator RONALDSON—From someone who is about to get married, that is a fairly interesting suggestion.

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Miss Quigley—Not necessarily Big Brother, but some sort of an idea for a reality show that people would want to tune in and see. They want to see people in real life. Pop a netball player, a softball player and a lawn bowls player—someone older—in a funny situation. Get people involved and thinking, ‘I want to be like her. I’m going to play softball. She’s funny. She’s cool.’ That is just an idea when we are talking about TV. People do not want to tune in and watch softball, but they might want to tune in and see some girl who is really funny and has something to say. That is just an idea that I am throwing out there. When we are talking about TV shows, reality TV is where everyone is going at the moment and maybe sport and women should get involved.

Senator RONALDSON—Is Fox putting on a second—

ACTING CHAIR—A third sports channel and a 24-hour sports news channel. That, in a way, presents some further opportunity for content, notwithstanding the issue that it is on pay television.

Ms Crow—Before pay TV came along, I remember that we were all sitting around the table talking about the exciting opportunities that pay TV would present, and it just has not.

ACTING CHAIR—It has not eventuated?

Ms Crow—No. But maybe with a third channel.

Miss Quigley—Maybe a sponsor or a corporate would love the idea of something different, like an Amazing Race athlete style or the The Mole. It might be something totally different. All the sports could get together and come up with something.

ACTING CHAIR—The point you make is one that has been well made, and that is the dire need for some creativity in how women’s sport is portrayed. Going back to netball, a couple of comments were made at yesterday’s hearing that were non-specific, but I want to put them to you because netball has probably had the most interaction in terms of regular coverage in a women’s dominated sport. We asked quite blunt questions to the media organisations that came before us about how they interacted with women’s sport. It was mentioned by both—and it was all in the positive—that there needed to be flexibility, a true partnership with sporting organisations, and adaptability as far as the product goes. Those sorts of attributes are all attributes that Netball Australia believe they bring to the table. We heard that they are not necessarily the attributes of women’s sport generally that are perceived by these media organisations. Can you give some insight as to what the disconnect might be? Perhaps you could take this opportunity to share a bit of insight as to what you are looking for when negotiating with a media organisation, from your sports point of view.

Ms Dix—The media is huge. To actually service the needs of the media you need an incredibly clever media and communications team to manage that. There are obviously lots of strategies and things like that, and very clever people who know how to manipulate, direct and produce things that are specific to the media. A lot of the football codes employ people who have been quite successful within the media in previous lives. Netball employs people it can afford, and quite often those people do not come with those same connections that open the same doors as people employed by football codes. I will use them as the example because they do it so well.

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You need to be incredibly well resourced. When our players get the notoriety, become fully professional, develop their profile within the media and start to get the intrusion into their lives that happens when you become an identity, you then have to have an incredibly powerful machine protecting and supporting that. It is something that needs to be managed very carefully. You can grow that interest, but what women’s sport has done is that it has only intermittently come through with a product. We do not have a constant product and a well-known product that we have been able to deliver, where the media understands it, you have systems and methods to be able to deliver information to them and you are well resourced. We have never been well resourced to serve them.

I was listening to Julie Tullberg today about the work that she does in chasing women’s media, and it is usually because the people feeding those stories are volunteers within organisations. From a Netball Australia perspective, we have one person who is our media PR person and she can never get on top of being able to feed what is an incredibly ravenous group. If it worked properly, it would probably need at least dozens of people supporting it. It really is an incredibly complex thing and it needs to be well resourced.

ACTING CHAIR—The ABC raised a particular point that I want to put to you. They made mention of the quality of the coverage of netball in New Zealand. A number of witnesses said that they were not that impressed with the quality of coverage on the ABC and that it could be better. Their response to that was that it was not their fault. They made specific mention that they were not allowed booms or cranes to carry cameras at Australian games. In fact, that was a feature of the New Zealand coverage. They said that this was a requirement of Netball Australia. I know that you would not have direct knowledge of that, but that seems to me to be indication of why they think that the flexibility is not there. I do not know if you want to comment on that or just take it on board and maybe investigate it.

Ms Dix—I can comment because I actually saw it in action. The two tests that they covered for us were in Brisbane and Sydney. The Brisbane venue allowed them to get a boom camera in.

ACTING CHAIR—So they had a boom camera there?

Ms Dix—Yes, they had a boom camera there. Because they were getting a better view of the game, they increased their production team so they could have action replays. We play in venues where there is not the ability to put video boards up, because it costs a huge amount of money to do that. It did not work for us in Sydney; we could not fit the boom camera in. It is also about costs. They run on a slim budget and they try to get the best possible product out there for us. It does not compare to New Zealand. TVNZ, which covers the netball in New Zealand, spends more money on their product and so they have a lot more resources in putting the game to air. It is more interesting, because they are presenting it to millions of people instead of hundreds of thousands of people. Their investment is obviously there because they want it to rate and they are driven by ratings.

ACTING CHAIR—That implies that, because the ABC is covering the production costs, and netball’s good grace and particular market conditions allow them to do that, they could choose as an organisation to up their production investment, could they not? That would be up to them?

Ms Dix—Yes, that would be their decision.

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ACTING CHAIR—You would obviously be encouraging that as much as the market conditions allow?

Ms Dix—Yes, that is right.

ACTING CHAIR—We have heard some evidence about the issue of the state MOs having responsibility for their elite teams or the Commonwealth Bank Trophy teams and how that creates particular challenges. Obviously, Netball Australia has responsibility for the national team but also has some involvement in the Commonwealth Bank Trophy competition. We have had some suggestions put to us by ANPA and others. Is Netball Australia looking at the way those different organisations interact and considering ways that they could operate better?

Ms Dix—Yes.

ACTING CHAIR—I am not trying to anticipate anything other than what you have already got on the table and are prepared to discuss publicly.

Ms Dix—When we started the Commonwealth Bank Trophy, which was 10 years ago, the teams were franchises. Within the first couple of years of the competition being played, if they had not been underwritten by their state associations they would no longer be in existence. It was because there were no naming rights sponsors of those teams. The money just was not there. They were not attracting sponsorship. They did not attract people who could contribute financially or were not able to tap on doors that were going to be able to support them as teams. A lot of learning has come out of that, and what we are looking at, in our discussions with starting something on a trans-Tasman basis, proper franchises and hopefully being able to attract investors into that and proper boards who can drive that. One of the conflicts, as we have heard from other witnesses, is the fact that we are parent bodies and we are representing amateur players but also trying to drive and make sure that we continue what is becoming this professional league in the right direction. We need it there. We need to be part of that system, but it probably needs to be set free now so that it has people that are managing it who are making decisions specifically on a professional basis and driving the interests of that particular club.

Senator RONALDSON—You may not have been here earlier today, but it was suggested that having cheerleaders at a netball game was somehow as demeaning as a commercial depicting a woman throwing a netball into a washing machine, which was selling a sponsor’s product. I am just taking up Miss Quigley’s comment before about doing something different. I saw a bit of twitchiness around the table. Is the ability of women to market their own sport now being held back by an element of political correctness? They boys seem to be able to do pretty well whatever they want, but there are different rules applying to women doing new things to promote their own sport? Do you feel inhibited about what sorts of things you can do, and I note the Quigley view of life about doing something different? Are there different rules applying from a perception point of view? Are we being a bit precious about some of the things that you are or are not allowed to do?

Ms Crow—I do not think there are necessarily different rules applying, but probably the standards of behaviour that we would like to see from our athletes and people in our sport are maybe higher than what is tolerated.

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ACTING CHAIR——That is a fair general comment because of the role model status of athletes. Perhaps that is where that point comes in.

Ms Crow—I am quite new to softball; I am not a softball person. I have entered a very traditionally run sport where, ‘This is the way we’ve always done things,’ and I think it is going to take a bit of time for people to start thinking outside the square. It is really good that we have athletes on our board who can bring some of these new ideas to the board. You might be right. I am not sure that I see it as there are rules that stop us, but it is more—

Senator RONALDSON—I was not putting it as fact; I was asking the question of whether you feel inhibited about the boundaries you think you might be able to push because of the perceptions, whereas men’s sport may not be so restricted? Miss Quigley, do you have a view on that?

Miss Quigley—I am just thinking of Pumped Up Down Under calendars and stuff like that. The AFL guys do that every year, and then Tamsyn Lewis does a spread in a Women in Sport magazine and gets absolutely pounded in the media. She had to go on Nova and Triple M and justify why she did it. She looked amazing. Let us appreciate that a female trains her bottom off every single week in the weight room and on the track to look like that. There are 15-, 16-, 17- and 18-year-old girls who think, ‘I want to be like that. I’m going to start running the 1,500 metres.’ I think that is fantastic. The guys do the calendar and no-one gets onto them about it. Tatiana Grigorieva goes fully naked in the Sydney 2000 Olympic Dream magazine and everyone was astounded by it, but the guys are naked. That is my opinion.

Ms Dix—I do not think that the things that Netball Australia does or its member organisation’s in-crowd entertainment have ever been demeaning of women. There was absolutely no way that we would do that, so I was surprised to read in the ANPA submission that the players’ perspective of it was that it was demeaning. We have been out there supporting Dancesport and different other things and we have tried lots of different initiatives. I honestly do not think that they were demeaning, or that that was the general view.

Senator RONALDSON—It is like dancing and performing arts; it is a pathway. Even VicHealth supported it.

Ms Dix—I honestly do not know where that comment came from.

Senator RONALDSON—It is just ridiculous.

Miss Quigley—Think about sport in America. They have got cheerleaders at all their games, and that might attract supporters. They might go to watch a female softball game because there are good looking girls dancing. If that brings the crowd, then my opinion is that the system needs people to watch it to get money and to get participants. If a cheerleader is going to bring the crowd and she is getting fit at the same time, go the cheerleader. That is my opinion.

ACTING CHAIR——I am conscious of time. I just want to go back to bowls. Miss West, you mentioned in your opening statement the issues relating to social inclusion and mental health, and particularly that of older women. This inquiry is looking at participation of women across all age groups, so I was hoping that you could expand upon that from the perspective of

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS Thursday, 3 August 2006 Senate—References ECITA 113 an older female participant in bowls: how important it is for them and the role that your sport plays?

Miss West—A bowls club is generally a real community. Particularly for the older community, where people have lost partners or are recovering from an illness, the bowls community rallies. There are social activities as well as the sporting nature of it. It plays an important role and it generally improves their health and their outlook on life. There is always someone at the club to have a bowl with or play bingo or do those things. That is an important role as they get older and lose a partner or get sick.

ACTING CHAIR—I imagine that, because so many women live longer than their partners, that would become the only social interaction that many older women actually have.

Miss West—Definitely, and they rely on that. A lot of them are there a lot of the time. It would be rare that you would turn up at a bowling club and there would not be people there doing something, be it organising a bus trip or, even in the off season, organising social activities, which they do all the time. It is quite important.

ACTING CHAIR—Has Bowls done any particular survey or research into that mental health-social interaction inclusion aspect of your sport?

Mr Rendell—No, we have not done any formal survey. It is all anecdotal. If you look at the average age of a bowler, I am not sure—

ACTING CHAIR—I was hoping for a useful reference for the committee.

Mr Rendell—Unfortunately, we cannot give that to you. It is anecdotal, but that is the case. A lot of emphasis at the moment is on obesity in children, and that is fantastic. It needs to be there and we fully support that. But, at the same time, from a health perspective, what not only bowls but masters and all sports can provide to keep people proactive and involved in their community should not be underestimated for their health benefits to the community as we age.

ACTING CHAIR—Thank you for that. We are at the end of our day. On behalf of the committee, I thank you all very much for your time today. It has been very valuable evidence, which will be considered by this committee.

Subcommittee adjourned at 5.03 pm

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE ARTS