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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2020-02-19 Daily Xml
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Women in Sport

Ms HILDYARD (Reynell) (15:27): South Australian girls and women are taking to football and other previously male-dominated sports in droves. In doing so, they are sending a message to our community that they are strong, that they are no longer relegated to the sidelines and that they belong in every aspect of their chosen sport. In turn, many clubs are sending girls and women a message that they are welcome to equally and actively participate.

Women's participation in footy and other sports at the highest levels is sending a powerful message to our whole community that the traditional perceived roles of women and men are shifting, because when we see women who are strong welcomed to play at the highest level we shift the way women and men are perceived and we are given an incredible opportunity to tackle persistent issues about gender inequality and the roles women and men can play.

But what message is this Liberal state government and their corrupt federal Liberal counterparts sending sportswomen? An appalling one: a message that they will not back them and provide funds for the facilities they need; a message that, despite some big talk, they will not do what it takes to see women equally included in the sport they love; a message that their support depends on where you live and your club's bank balance.

Like so many community members in clubs across our state, I am angered that this state Liberal government and their mates in Canberra are leaving girls and young women without the facilities they deserve. It is absolutely not okay that teenage girls and young women share an utterly inappropriate change room with men at the South Adelaide Football Club. South Adelaide women are magnificent athletes, SANFL Statewide Super Women's League back-to-back premiers and footballers who have had enough.

The only available change room at their home ground is completely outdated, with open showers, a single toilet, no appropriate space for women to gather before or after games and, when a double-header is scheduled, there is often no space for them at all. As gun player Madison Bennett says:

The Panthers have more premierships than they do toilets—and the competition is only in its third season!

Three years and we still don't have an area for the girls, it's kind of hard.

Two premierships—I thought they would think we deserve it.

The shameful reason this team, these women and so many others do not have facilities of their own is those opposite. The Marshall Liberal government denied them change rooms when they cut the $24 million dedicated female facilities program and cruelly grabbed $10 million from fourth round funding for which the club had applied.

They were then ruthlessly overlooked when the corrupt Morrison Liberal government rigged federal sporting infrastructure grants in favour of clubs not even fielding women's teams. Postcodes were more important than premierships, marginal seats more important than merit. This comes on the back of record numbers of women and girls pulling on the boots at South and record numbers of women playing everywhere.

State and federal Liberals have utterly failed South Adelaide women. I call on those opposite to immediately intervene so that the brilliant work done by South and clubs across our state to encourage women and girls to get involved in local footy is not undermined and so that these Panthers women can gather and change in a place that is safe, appropriate and provides them with some dignity.

This Premier and his hapless sports minister claim to support women's sport. In cruelly cutting the dedicated female facilities program, and in remaining absolutely silent whilst the federal Liberals' disgraceful sports rorts scandal grows, they have sent a message to South women and women everywhere that you will always come a distant second to your male counterparts and that their political expediency will always triumph your needs. It is a message to girls and women that is bereft of principle and deeply demonstrative of the lack of Liberal understanding about why inclusion and equality are so important and what they have the power to do.

Whilst those opposite are happy to occasionally turn up at elite women's sporting events for photo opportunities, they refuse to properly fund sport for girls and women in this state. They refuse to respond to South Adelaide women and women in clubs everywhere. Well, South Australian sportswomen deserve better. Together with them, and particularly the women of South, we will keep calling on the Liberals to immediately and fully fund the installation of women's change rooms at South Adelaide's home ground—and we will not stop until they do.

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