News Breakfast, ABC2 - Sports budget

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PDF printable version of News Breakfast, ABC2 - Sports budget (PDF 19 KB)

12 May 2010

Topics: Sports budget

Michael Rowland: Now Paul Kennedy joins us with news of a funding boost for sport from last night's Budget.

Paul Kennedy: That's right Michael, there was $195 million put in there over four years. That's to be spread over community sport and elite sport, and there was some rejection of the recommendations from the Crawford report which recommended that Australia not try and be top five at the Olympics.

And also a recommendation that state institutes of sport and the federal combine, that won't happen. So there's a lot of goodwill from the Olympic people, Olympic boss John Coates likes what's happened last night in the Budget.
Let's hear now from the Sports Minister Kate Ellis talking to the ABC's Jennifer Browning.

Jennifer Browning: Can you give us a breakdown from that $195 million and the Budget for sport where the elite money's going to go and how much is going to elite sport?

Kate Ellis: Well ultimately the specific sports which are funded will be decided through the Australian Sports Commission. What the Government has done tonight is announce the new funding levels and also announce the new policy directions which the commission will follow when they're distributing that funding.

What I can say is of the new money which is announced tonight, $18 million of that will be directed towards strengthening sports systems. So that means helping local community clubs to increase their participation, working with national sporting organisations to diversify their funding base and help them to commercialise. Also a range of initiatives around promoting women in sport and promoting the position of sport within our schools and particularly within the national curriculum.

On top of that, $30 million will be put into supporting sports people. So that ranges from doubling of our talent ID program, going out there and finding our future champions and then giving them all of the support that they need to reach their goals, but also retaining our high performance coaches. We know that many of them are being snatched by our international competitors.

This will allow us to hold onto more of our coaches, but also support our athletes as they train hard to go out there, both at the London Olympics and Paralympics and beyond.

Michael Rowland: That's Kate Ellis as Sports Minister talking to the ABC's Jennifer Browning. And John Coates the Olympic boss has said that theme might be rain on their parade in London in 2012. He's been buoyed by that extra money and he thinks that it would make Australia a super strong outfit in 2016 when the team goes to Rio.