Standing Committee on Environment and Transport and City Services
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LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY FOR THE AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL TERRITORY STANDING COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND TRANSPORT AND CITY SERVICES (Reference: Annual and financial reports 2018-2019) Members: MS T CHEYNE (Chair) MISS C BURCH (Deputy Chair) MR J MILLIGAN PROOF TRANSCRIPT OF EVIDENCE CANBERRA FRIDAY, 15 NOVEMBER 2019 This is a PROOF TRANSCRIPT that is subject to suggested corrections by members and witnesses. The FINAL TRANSCRIPT will replace this transcript within 20 working days from the hearing date, subject to the receipt of corrections from members and witnesses. Secretary to the committee: Mr D Leary (Ph: 620 50124) By authority of the Legislative Assembly for the Australian Capital Territory Submissions, answers to questions on notice and other documents, including requests for clarification of the transcript of evidence, relevant to this inquiry that have been authorised for publication by the committee may be obtained from the Legislative Assembly website. APPEARANCES ACT Public Cemeteries Authority ......................................................................... 108 Chief Minister, Treasury and Economic Development Directorate ..................... 95 Major Projects Canberra ........................................................................................ 108 Transport Canberra and City Services Directorate ....................................... 95, 108 i Privilege statement The Assembly has authorised the recording, broadcasting and re-broadcasting of these proceedings. All witnesses making submissions or giving evidence to committees of the Legislative Assembly for the ACT are protected by parliamentary privilege. “Parliamentary privilege” means the special rights and immunities which belong to the Assembly, its committees and its members. These rights and immunities enable committees to operate effectively, and enable those involved in committee processes to do so without obstruction, or fear of prosecution. Witnesses must tell the truth: giving false or misleading evidence will be treated as a serious matter, and may be considered a contempt of the Assembly. While the committee prefers to hear all evidence in public, it may take evidence in- camera if requested. Confidential evidence will be recorded and kept securely. It is within the power of the committee at a later date to publish or present all or part of that evidence to the Assembly; but any decision to publish or present in-camera evidence will not be taken without consulting with the person who gave the evidence. Amended 20 May 2013 ii PROOF The committee met at 8.59 am. Appearances: Berry, Ms Yvette, Deputy Chief Minister, Minister for Education and Early Childhood Development, Minister for Housing and Suburban Development, Minister for the Prevention of Domestic and Family Violence, Minister for Sport and Recreation, and Minister for Women Chief Minister, Treasury and Economic Development Directorate Kelley, Ms Rebecca, Executive Branch Manager, Sport and Recreation Transport Canberra and City Services Directorate Alegria, Mr Stephen, Executive Branch Manager, City Presentation THE CHAIR: Welcome to the second day of hearings for this committee on the 2018-19 annual reports. This morning we will first hear from the Minister for Sport and Recreation, Ms Yvette Berry MLA, and her officers, regarding sports and recreation and sportsgrounds. I will start by asking whether witnesses have read and understood the pink privilege statement in front of them on the table? Ms Berry: Yes, I have. Mr Alegria: Yes. THE CHAIR: I remind members that, according to standing orders, questions on notice and supplementary questions should be lodged with the committee support office within five business days following the conclusion of the hearing today. Responses to questions taken on notice should be submitted to the committee office within five business days of the proof transcript becoming available. Reponses to questions on notice and supplementary questions should be submitted to the committee office within five business days of the question being received. Minister, is there anything you would like to open with? Ms Berry: No. I note that everybody has been inviting us to, but we received instructions not to. THE CHAIR: I think we are just being polite. Ms Berry: Then politely I will decline. THE CHAIR: On Wednesday one person slipped their opening statement into a response to a question, so some people are still preparing them. Minister, there has been a huge amount of activity in the sports realm over the past year. There has been a long history of it, but there has been really commendable activity in the last year. We have seen greater encouragement of women in sports which have been traditionally dominated by men, and I congratulate the government on this effort, but I am also curious about what we are doing to bring even more attention to sports that have been traditionally dominated by women. I understand that netball remains the most popular ETCS—15-11-19 P95 Ms Y Berry and others PROOF team sport for women. I am keen to know what we are doing to continue to support something that still has such huge interest for women. Ms Berry: The old saying is that you cannot be what you cannot see. Bringing elite sport, particularly women’s sport, to the ACT is part of that story. We have had the Giants come to the ACT and play matches at the AIS, at the indoor arena. It always has sellout crowds; there are always mostly women and girls in attendance. It shows the popularity of women’s sport, particularly netball, in the ACT. We worked very closely with Netball ACT to make sure that our facilities meet the needs of that sport. In recent years there were upgrades to netball surfaces, courts and facilities across all of the city areas, in Belconnen, Charnwood, Calwell and the south-side courts. We are continuing to work with Netball ACT on growth areas. They have identified those as being particularly on the north side of town. Maybe somebody has some more detail about all the work that was undertaken on the local facilities here in the ACT? THE CHAIR: I am curious about those growth areas as well, if you are able to provide that. Ms Kelley: As the minister said, netball is one example of where we have been working really closely on improving facilities for participation. Sports like netball obviously have a female focus. We can get you the extent of the specific projects, but they sit within a suite of other works we have done. We have done audits right across our sportsground assets around female-friendly facilities, which are also tied into the netball pavilions, to ensure that those environments are safe and meeting the needs of females in terms of the layout of change rooms, the inclusions within change rooms and those sorts of things. That has been a piece of progressive work. Now that we have that audit information, we will be working progressively with sport and recreation and our colleagues in TCCS to progress all the upgrade facilities through improvement programs. Aside from facilities, other work within growth sports includes that again this year we will have our women’s sport and recreation participation and leadership grant program. We have committed $100,000 to that, as we have for the last three years. That will target new initiatives that sport is putting into place to encourage women and girls in their participation. The things we had out of that last year included the elite coaching scholarships, a new initiative which has given opportunity to 13 new coaches. We are starting to look at the leadership of our organisations so that they are improving environments and opportunities for women and girls. Tied to that is the governance work. We have been working closely with our state supporting organisations towards a 40 per cent target for female representation on our boards and committees. We are pleased to say that over half of our state supporting organisations, our peak bodies, have reached that target. THE CHAIR: That is excellent. ETCS—15-11-19 P96 Ms Y Berry and others PROOF Ms Kelley: Over the course of the next 12 months we are working closely with them on their plans so that we can have all of them at that target. The benefit of that is that we have women within the leadership. Then the needs of women and girls within the participation environments, and the facility needs, are brought to the table more readily. That is something that we have seen, and it has been the experience of sports over the last three years as they have moved towards that. Supporting participation further, we have an ongoing partnership with HerCanberra, so our promotion beyond the sporting realm is definitely progressing. Because we work particularly within adult female participation, we know that sport is perhaps not their activity of choice; it is walking, recreational activities, the gym and a whole raft of other activities on offer where we are seeing growth in participation for women. For junior girls, sport is still very much a focus. That is the key difference we see across the board in participation between adults and children. Adults are less oriented to organised sport, whereas juniors are very organised sport focused. That is where we see the importance of our ongoing work with grant programs and working with state sporting organisations and the clubs to ensure that junior team environments for their junior girls are well in hand. THE CHAIR: Where did you say the growth areas are for netball in particular? Or did you say you would take that on notice? Ms Kelley: Gungahlin is definitely a growth area, and that is our key focus in terms of new facilities. We are working with Netball ACT very closely around their strategic facilities plan at the moment. They have identified that Gungahlin is a key growth area. At the moment the spill of participation is falling back onto Lyneham and, in some cases, Belconnen.