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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-06-23 Daily Xml
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Sporting Pathways

Ms LUETHEN (King) (14:38): My question is to the Minister for Recreation, Sport and Racing. Can the Minister update the house on how the Marshall Liberal government is investing in sporting pathways, from the young and grassroots to the elite?

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD (Gibson—Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, Minister for Recreation, Sport and Racing) (14:39): I thank the member for King for her question and note her passion for sport in her community. I also note her passion for our $17.9 billion infrastructure spend and the jobs it is going to create. She is very aware that we need to be delivering for the people right across the board of South Australia. We know that affordability for grassroots sports in general for her constituents is incredibly important.

So we have announced, I think just last week, a huge milestone in our Sports Vouchers program. Of course, coming into government, we put that up from being a $50 program to being a $100 program. In fact, those opposite didn't even fund the $50 program going forward. But we were very happy to do that. We have so far put out 232,000 vouchers, so that's more than $20 million worth of money going back into the pockets of South Australian families. We can't emphasise how important that is—$20 million back into the pockets of families—and, of course, that lowers the cost for South Australians right across the board.

We could have been satisfied there. We could have sat back, admired our good work and said, 'Wow, this is fantastic!' But that's not to be. What we have done, and very much on the back of the advocacy from the member for King, is we have expanded that program out to year 8s and 9s. We are funding almost $10 million a year for our Sports Vouchers program because we know the success that creates. That means that year 8s and 9s, who often start dropping off from sport and not being as involved or engaged, will be able to take part in physical activity, and their families will be helped by money going towards their fees and charges.

We are excited by this, but we didn't stop there. That's the grassroots. We know how important it is to get young people involved in grassroots sports. There is the entire sport pathway that we are concerned about from the grassroots right through to elite. So what we have done is we have invested in the South Australian Sports Institute. This is a great institute that has never really had its own home. It started, I think, at the Underdale campus when it was called the College of Advanced Education and then it expanded into an old high school. It just got put into an old high school and they did an outstanding job with those resources.

But now they are getting their own purpose-built facility. So SASI will have its own new home, which I think is absolutely wonderful—a $49 million commitment—and, of course, this will be the home for our athletes who aspire to be on that world stage. But there will be more. We will be engaging with education. I look forward to working with the minister here and making sure that we have primary school-age students coming through, seeing this facility, being part of this facility and aspiring to do wonderful things.

It will also accommodate multisports, not just Olympic and Paralympic but sports right across the board. It will be a truly inclusive world-class facility. That's not it, though. There will be more. Of course, we have invested in the netball stadium right next door and we have invested in the athletics stadium as well. Now SASI will fit in the middle. Often when you come into Adelaide, you come up Sir Donald Bradman Drive and you see the sign that says International Sports Gateway. This is truly an international sports gateway. The opportunities to bring those from the regions in to access this facility as well will be sensational.

The other opportunity that we are excited about with this SASI facility is the ability to bring in international teams, national teams and regional teams to train in this high-performance environment. That is truly exciting and will add to our economy and grow our sporting business. So there we are: grassroots right the way to the Olympics. What we are going to do is give children more opportunity—again, more reason to be here in South Australia.

The Premier often talks about not having the brain drain out of our state, and we are doing everything we can to make sure we keep people here, young people here, and bring more back from interstate. Facilities like this will deliver that. This will help people live out their sporting dream here in South Australia, produce more champions, produce better citizens, and this is a big part of our Game On program.

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