Thursday, 26 May 2022

Local Sports Infrastructure Fund

Ms GREEN (Yan Yean) (17:22): (6395) My adjournment matter is for the attention of the Minister for Community Sport, and the action I seek is for her to make public the successful recipients in the Ripon electorate for the latest round of the Local Sports Infrastructure Fund. As the Parliamentary Secretary for Sport and Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Victoria, I get to meet the most amazing sporting club participants and leaders. In recent weeks I visited amazing communities in Ararat, Clunes, Creswick, Dunolly, Maryborough, Stawell, Port Fairy, Mildura, Rupanyup, St Arnaud, Carisbrook and more. Since the Andrews Labor government came to office, we have invested more than $1.2 billion into community sport for facilities in every corner of the state. One of these projects currently underway is the $2 million-plus stage 2 development upgrade of the Carisbrook Recreation Reserve facility.

I really enjoyed the recent visit that Labor’s candidate Martha Haylett and I had to the ground and the welcome we received there. It is home to the Redbacks, who have a phenomenal number of women and girls in particular playing football. I felt very much at home, because I am the patron of the Redbacks in the Northern Football Netball League. They are Panton Hill, but red and black are my favourite colours. The clubs throughout the Ripon electorate and the municipalities there have had a very high success rate in projects going forward through our sport and recreation programs, and that is because of the quality of the work and the projects that they put forward and also the work that they do collaboratively with the clubs. There are phenomenal, very good leaders in those clubs. I met with them recently at the football in Ararat, where they were playing Dimboola, and I was able to see firsthand particularly how important football and netball are of a Saturday—I know that you know that, Deputy Speaker—especially in regional leagues, where you see the whole town. It was Ararat versus Dimboola, and they were relocating to Ararat, contributing to that economy and having a family weekend away but also just participating in some great sport.

I think that the clubs and the municipalities that have worked so hard on their applications would love to see those applications get a public announcement so that they can take the next step of working collaboratively to deliver those projects.