Tuesday, 17 March 2026

 Ros SPENCE (Kalkallo – Minister for Agriculture, Minister for Community Sport, Minister for Carers and Volunteers, Minister for Treaty and First Peoples) (14:14): I rise to update the house on our investment to provide cost-of-living support to families by making community sport more accessible for Victorian families. The Allan Labor government’s Get Active Kids voucher program provides eligible families with up to $200 to cover the cost of uniforms, equipment and registration fees. We are providing more vouchers for more children, with $23 million invested to extend the Get Active voucher program to 2027. Round 10 of the program opened just two weeks ago today, and we have already received more than 40,000 applications from Victorian families. We know from data collected from the previous round of the program that more than 60 per cent of these kids would not be able to participate in their chosen sport without this program.

We know the benefits of community sport, especially to children. Sport teaches resilience and teamwork and provides health benefits that extend far beyond the time spent playing. The most popular sport in the previous round was swimming, which means that kids are accessing the life-saving swimming skills that can help keep themselves and others safe around water. Clubs benefit from this investment too, because more vouchers means more kids taking up sports they might not ever have been otherwise able to try. There are more than 2300 registered voucher providers covering well over 70 sports. Whether you are swimming with the Peninsula Flyers in Frankston, playing netball at the Wyndham netball club in Werribee or kicking the round ball at Casey Comets football club in Cranbourne, the Allan Labor government has you covered all year round, making sure that cost is not a barrier to participation in sport and getting more kids active in the sports that they love.