Friday, 19 August 2022
Bills
State Sport Centres Legislation Amendment Bill 2022
Bills
State Sport Centres Legislation Amendment Bill 2022
Second reading
Debate resumed on motion of Ms SHING:
That the bill be now read a second time.
Dr BACH (Eastern Metropolitan) (14:42): To be honest, it is with mild disinterest that I rise to make a contribution on the State Sport Centres Legislation Amendment Bill 2022. It is not a particularly important bill. It does make some minor changes, the nature of which obviously I have investigated thoroughly and will shortly expound upon for the benefit of the house. There is an amendment that my colleague in the other place Ms McLeish has circulated to other members for their benefit.
A member interjected.
Dr BACH: I have some text from Ms McLeish in the other place. I will plagiarise some of what she said in that place in this place, and then we will all be in a better position to ascertain the nature of those amendments, me included, and at that point we will have a vote.
Members interjecting.
The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Order! I know it is late on a Friday afternoon, but perhaps Dr Bach could continue without so much assistance.
Dr BACH: I think I may need it. The purpose of the bill is to give the State Sport Centres Trust management rights and responsibility for the Knox Regional Sports Park, Lakeside Stadium and Lakeside Oval Reserve. It is also to update legislation on the parcel of National Tennis Centre land following road widening on Hoddle Street.
I think the amendments may have been circulated, but if not then I am very happy for them to be circulated at this point if that would be a useful thing.
Opposition amendments circulated by Dr BACH pursuant to standing orders.
Dr BACH: I think before the circulation of the amendment—which is in my name, but to be a fair, again, Ms McLeish in the other place has done the legwork, so I thank her for that—I was going to remark upon some of the more specific and exciting elements of this bill. The bill will make amendments to the State Sport Centres Act 1994—that is an act of this Parliament apparently—and allow the State Sport Centres Trust to manage and operate the Knox Regional Sports Park and land, the Lakeside Stadium and the Lakeside Oval Reserve land. It will also make amendments to the Melbourne and Olympic Parks Act 1985 to reflect the new boundary of the National Tennis Centre land following the reservation of a strip of centre land as a road in the Streamlining Hoddle Street project—I hope I got that right. It also makes amendments to include the CEO of the SSCT, as I will now refer to the State Sport Centres Trust, on the State Netball and Hockey Centre Advisory Committee. The State Sport Centres Trust, or the SSCT, has management responsibilities over a number of entities: the Melbourne Sports and Aquatics Centre, the State Netball and Hockey Centre and the committee of management of the Lakeside Stadium. What this bill will do is expand its responsibilities to include the management of Knox Regional Sports Park.
In all seriousness, I did want to make a contribution today specifically because the Knox Regional Sports Park is a really important facility in my electorate. I know my friend Ms Terpstra also wants to make a contribution on this bill because she has been to this particular park and it is in her electorate as well, given that her electorate is in fact also my electorate. The nature of the provisions in the bill that relate to the Knox Regional Sports Park refers back to our amendment, which I will perhaps refer to now, given that it has already been circulated, for the benefit of other members. Here is what we are seeking to do: in short, we are seeking to ensure that this legislation provides the opportunity for user groups specifically at Knox to be heard and indeed have the same opportunities to be heard as other groups. We would like to insert an amendment, should other members see fit to join us and vote in favour of what I think is an important amendment. And I do think, to be fair to some of my friends and colleagues in the ALP in the other house, several of them support it also. I am actually not sure of the position of the government regarding this amendment, but my advice is, unusually—and I am not being in any way facetious when I say this—that it may be possible to gain the support of the government for our amendment, and I hope so. Here it is. We want to insert:
‘26FF Knox Regional Sports Park Advisory Committee
(1) There is established by this Act an advisory committee to be known as the “Knox Regional Sports Park Advisory Committee”.
(2) Subject to subsection (3), the Knox Regional Sports Park Advisory Committee consists of members appointed by the Minister including—
(a) a person nominated by the Trust, being a member of the Trust;
(b) a person nominated by the Knox City Council;
(c) a minimum of 5 persons nominated by sporting clubs and community groups that use and are interested in the operation and management of the Knox Regional Sports Park.
(3) The chief executive officer of the Trust is a member of the Knox Regional Sports Park Advisory Committee.
(4) The chairperson of the Knox Regional Sports Park Advisory Committee is the member appointed under subsection (2)(a).
Then we want to insert:
26FG Function of Knox Regional Sports Park Advisory Committee
The function of the Knox Regional Sports Park Advisory Committee is to advise the Trust on the operation and management of the Knox Regional Sports Park and the Knox Regional Sports Park land.
Finally, we want to insert:
26FH Procedure
Subject to this Act, the Knox Regional Sports Park Advisory Committee may regulate its own procedure.”.’.
Just briefly, for the benefit of the house, let me tell you why I think that this is an important and uncontroversial amendment. Ms McLeish and indeed others in the other place have been seeking to work collaboratively with friends and colleagues across the aisle—including some members of the Labor Party in the other place and in this place too, I understand—to see if we can get bipartisan support for this, which would be a great thing. Broadly speaking, what Ms McLeish said in the other place regarding the amendment that she has drafted but nonetheless comes to this place in my name was that nothing that is not already in the current act for other entities has been proposed here. Indeed these amendments have been based on section 26D of the current act, which is about the State Netball and Hockey Centre Advisory Committee—so that already exists. As such, what we are seeking to do is to replicate those arrangements, which are supported by government, for the Knox Regional Sports Park by creating a Knox Regional Sports Park advisory committee.
As I know Ms Terpstra will note in her comments, because we were just talking before—she being a big basketball fan, just as I am, has actually been to the Knox Regional Sports Park to play basketball—I think it is something like 11 000 young people use this park. It is a massive centre in our electorate, and I think, especially given what we have all been through over recent years, to create a mechanism for a louder voice and a clearer voice for folks in our electorate would be no bad thing. It is fantastic that so many young people who of course had very few opportunities to get out and about and to exercise are able to now do that in our electorate at this really important centre.
On this side of the house we have very few concerns about this legislation. Ultimately we will support it, of course, whether or not our amendment is successful—I am not sure if it is politic to advise the government of that beforehand, but there you are—
Ms Shing: Your largesse is impressive, Dr Bach.
Dr BACH: thank you—because we do think it is good legislation. In the very thorough consultation process that was conducted by Ms McLeish, some groups expressed some concerns to her that we considered and we note and we certainly do not dismiss, notwithstanding the fact, in the spirit of constructive engagement, we will still support the bill. Some user groups, it was put to Ms McLeish in her consultation process, could be pushed out once the long-term lease agreement is over. So, for example, Knox City Council want this to remain a community-accessible facility, not only for professional sport. That sounds like a sensible thing.
It is fantastic with this facility and other facilities named in the legislation that of course any number of elite teams can use them but also that these facilities are used so extensively by community groups. Community sport clubs are not entirely sure—this was reported to us—if it will be viable for them to lease space at the Knox Regional Sports Park due to fee payments and lower club membership numbers post COVID. Typically user clubs get discounted rates, but with new facilities costs can be higher. So our view is that the situation should simply be monitored. Perhaps Dr Kieu, who is the lead for the government on this matter, could bear that in mind. Finally, there is no direct position on the SSCT board of trustees for a member for the outer east. The creation of a consultative committee, similar to that which already exists, would provide direct contact and potentially deal with this issue.
On the whole this bill seems eminently sensible to us. We would like to make one change that we think is very important, because I know Ms Terpstra—I would not want to verbal Ms Terpstra, and I am not seeking to—and all of us who represent this region recognise the great importance of the Knox Regional Sports Park. For that reason I commend to the house the amendment that my friend Ms McLeish has put much time into crafting after consulting broadly, and more broadly I also commend the legislation to the house and I wish it, hopefully with an amendment, a speedy passage.
Dr KIEU (South Eastern Metropolitan) (14:54): With great pleasure I rise to speak on the State Sport Centres Legislation Amendment Bill 2022. This is a technical bill but, nevertheless, a very important one because it deals with sports and sports facilities. We know that sports play an important role in our lives. They make our lives healthier and happier and get us connected at the same time. Also, they are not just for the wider public; sports facilities and activities have helped our state, and indeed our country, very much through our achievement in the world arena.
Victoria is not only the cultural and entertainment capital of Australia, it is also the capital of sports. Indeed we are in many respects the world leader—not just the Australian. I have a long list here, but be nice to me and I will go through it quickly. Melbourne is the only city in the world with both a tennis grand slam and a motor grand prix. Only last month, Manchester United, which is a very big football club in the UK with more than 17 million fans globally and 150 000 people on its member waiting list, played two exhibition games at the MCG—so they chose the capital of sport. Next month we will host the Wallabies and the All Blacks during the Bledisloe Cup, and of course the AFL Grand Final will be played right here, as it will be every September until at least the year 2050. Not only that, in October this year the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup cricket will also be played in our state of Victoria. Then the month after—November—we will have the Spring Racing Carnival, with the race that stops the whole nation. Then in December the Big Bash League begins and we will also host the Boxing Day Test, a tradition that has been going on for years in Australia and held right here in Victoria. Then beyond this year, next year we will host the FIFA Women’s World Cup, with our investment in the home of the Matildas right here as well. And of course we are all aware that in 2026 we will host the first-ever regional Commonwealth Games, showcasing the best and the beauty of our region to the whole world.
Victoria hosts major event after major event, and our athletes win medal after trophy, and those happen not by accident. They are all by design and intention. We are very proud of that. This bill—
Dr Bach: Great bill.
Dr KIEU: Thank you, Dr Bach. This bill follows through on the commitments to redevelop the State Basketball Centre within the Knox Regional Sports Park. Even though this may now be in somebody else’s region, I want to remind people that in November the State Basketball Centre will be in the South Eastern Metropolitan Region, my electorate, via the redistribution. The bill will make sure that it can continue to provide accessible facilities for the local community.
Primarily this bill transfers responsibility for the management of certain significant state sporting facilities that have dual community and professional utility from the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning to the Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions and, ultimately, the relevant responsible minister. It should be noted that all environmental protections remain, but the bill allows for the Minister for Tourism, Sport and Major Events, via the State Sport Centres Trust, to manage more efficiently the needs of relevant stakeholders. Also, the bill contains some minor and technical amendments around updating the current records of the boundaries of sport precincts after some of the roadworks and refining how some of these state assets are defined.
Before I move further, I would like to briefly mention the State Sport Centres Trust. This is a very important entity. The trust facilities attract more than 2.5 million visits per year, contribute $164.6 million—nearly $165 million—per annum in economic benefits and provide over 1000 jobs. That was in 2019 data. I am sure that will be growing this year and in years to come. It also facilitates further support for Victorian sports by hosting over 100 significant events per year—once again in 2019; there will be more to come. It also hosts 20 professional and semiprofessional and representative teams and over 30 sporting tenants, including state sporting associations, national sporting organisations and the Victorian Institute of Sport.
The bill will amend the State Sport Centres Act 1994 to, first, make the trust responsible for the Knox Regional Sports Park, including the newly redeveloped State Basketball Centre.
Dr Bach: A good bill, that 1994 bill.
Dr KIEU: This 1994 bill, the State Sport Centres Act? It is about time to amend it. Two, it will amend the bill to make the trust directly responsible for the Lakeside Stadium and the Lakeside Oval Reserve under the SSCA 1994, rather than as a committee of management under the Crown Land (Reserves) Act 1978 as is currently the case. The amendment will also aim to provide the trust with general leasing and licensing powers when managing Crown land. There will be no loss of public open space because of those amendments. It is also important to note that the reservation of the land as Crown land will be retained and its public character will be maintained.
The amendment also aims to provide for administrative efficiencies in the operation of the trust, including enabling the trust to prepare a single annual business plan and operate from a single bank account. Secondly, it will change the membership structure of the State Netball and Hockey Centre Advisory Committee. I know that the opposition has circulated an amendment for a new committee, but we already have the State Netball and Hockey Centre Advisory Committee. This bill will require the appointment of a trust member and a trust CEO to reflect the importance of the supervisory role played by the trust in that advisory committee.
The bill also amends the Melbourne and Olympic Parks Act 1985 to correct the details of the parcel of National Tennis Centre land that was acquired for the Streamlining Hoddle Street project. There are some more minor but technical improvements, including consequential amendments that have been made to the Albert Park Land Act 1972 and the Australian Grands Prix Act 1994 to reflect the change in management of the Lakeside Oval Reserve and also to the Major Events Act 2009 to include a definition of the Lakeside Oval Reserve land and to update the provisions for temporary closure or temporary modification of roads to include the land. Another technical point is about providing the transitional provisions that have also been drafted to facilitate the transition from current management arrangements to the new arrangements under this bill. The bill also provides that existing leases at Lakeside Stadium and Knox Regional Sports Park will transition as though they had been negotiated under the bill.
This bill ensures that the Victorian government is delivering the Active Victoria 2022–2026 strategy to build a thriving, inclusive and connected sport and active recreation system that benefits all Victorians. This bill will mean that sports clubs and associations will get better access to better facilities, and it will reduce the regulation burden on both those community clubs and the internals of government. I wholeheartedly commend the bill to the house.
Ms TERPSTRA (Eastern Metropolitan) (15:06): I also rise to make a contribution on this bill, the State Sport Centres Legislation Amendment Bill 2022. I have had the benefit of listening to the contributions from Dr Bach and Dr Kieu. I have to say that both of them have very adequately addressed the scope and content of the bill. My contribution will focus on my interaction with this great sporting facility as it is in the Eastern Metropolitan Region, in Knox. I had the great pleasure of attending a charity basketball match at the Knox basketball centre. I have to say that my knowledge of basketball is pretty much next to zero, but I thought I would give it a crack anyway because it was for a good cause.
A member interjected.
Ms TERPSTRA: It is a sad thing. I mean, I am a little bit too old for the whole basketball thing. I think I was a generation—
A member interjected.
Ms TERPSTRA: Well, there you go. Clearly I thought I might have been, but I did not grow up playing basketball at school. We played other things, and basketball as a thing really only became a thing after I left school. In any event, when I was asked to come and play a charity basketball match, I thought, ‘Well, why not? It is at the Knox basketball centre. It would be a great thing to come and do’. I think the Minister for Veterans, Shaun Leane, had some role in organising it all, but it was a charity match with the Koori basketball association. It was a pretty amazing day. It was a wonderful day. Minister Ingrid Stitt came with me as well, and might I say, Minister Stitt is a dab hand at basketball. It was amazing. The best thing I could do when I was there was to run up and down the thing making like I looked like I knew what I was doing. I had no idea what I was doing at all.
A member interjected.
Ms TERPSTRA: I know. A little bit like that. But it was a wonderful day, and I have to say that that facility is a wonderful facility. The number of children and adults that come to play basketball at the state—
A member interjected.
Ms TERPSTRA: Thousands of them. It is really important in this post-COVID era that people are able to connect with sports, because we know that being active makes you healthy, keeps you fit and all those sorts of things. It is critically important to make sure that we provide good spaces and places for people to be active and to stay active and connect with sport.
As Dr Kieu said in his contribution, this bill helps to deliver and maintain the State Basketball Centre located at the Knox Regional Sports Park and replicates the best elements of the Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre model to allow for more efficient management of significant sports infrastructure that is utilised by both community and professional athletes. The good thing, as I said, about the Knox centre is that it is of such a high quality that we do attract high-quality matches and professional athletes to play there.
It was a fantastic day. I was surprised to see when we played against the Koori team that Nicky Winmar was in there. I was surprised—
A member interjected.
Ms TERPSTRA: I know. It was amazing. Nicky Winmar—wow!
A member interjected.
Ms TERPSTRA: I know who he is too. I am not an AFL aficionado, but I know Nicky. Also Lidia Thorpe played. She stole the ball off me. She did a big steal, and I got thrashed.
Members interjecting.
Ms TERPSTRA: I know. I was a bit of lead in the saddlebags on that day for the politicians who played with me on the team—I think Dustin Halse, the member for Ringwood, and Jackson Taylor, the member for Bayswater. There were quite a few of us there—
A member interjected.
Ms TERPSTRA: Yes. And of course the Knox centre is in the Bayswater electorate.
A member interjected.
Ms TERPSTRA: Yes. It was a marvellous day. I might talk about aspects of sport for a minute. Earlier this year a thousand Get Active Kids vouchers helped families get their kids involved in organised sport and recreation activities, reimbursing the cost of membership and registration fees, uniforms and equipment. When we went to play this charity match I was given a uniform to wear as part of that charity match. That was amazing. I did not expect that. I just rocked up with my own—
A member interjected.
Ms TERPSTRA: I know. I rocked up with my own things, but there you go. These things do add costs for parents with children who want to go and play organised sport. Like most kids, when they are growing you are buying them a new pair of shoes every six months because they grow out of them and they wear them out on the courts and those sorts of things, so these active kids vouchers are really useful and helpful. You have got the cost of competition fees or registration fees—really, really critically important. They have been incredibly popular.
As we know, the health benefits of sport participation are clear, and we also know that every kid should get to experience the camaraderie, community and joy that come with club sport. We also know that when you play a sport it is good to learn how to be a graceful winner and a graceful loser, because it is hard to lose sometimes. We see some people being incredibly poor losers around the place. This is one of the things that sport teaches you: to lose gracefully. That is an incredibly important thing—to lose gracefully and to be a gracious winner. Community sport does that.
A member interjected.
Ms TERPSTRA: There you go. Community sport does that. That is why it is so critically important. We know about the Get Active Kids vouchers. We committed a further $24.2 million into the active schools initiative, which builds on existing programs and funding to boost support and resources for schools to give kids opportunities to find and participate in the sport they love.
We know that kids love basketball because so many of them are going to the Knox basketball centre in my region, in the electorate of Bayswater at Knox. Across Victoria there are 44 amazing state sporting facilities. In particular our State Netball and Hockey Centre in Parkville and the Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre in Albert Park, and soon the State Basketball Centre in Wantirna South, give Victorians access to world-class facilities that they can train in so they can develop all the way up to the professional level. It is really, really important that we continue to provide these access points for kids through community sport into state sports so they can make their way up into those competition levels. It is fantastic.
The State Sport Centres Trust helps to subsidise access to elite facilities for the community and helps to manage their complex administrative and infrastructure needs. Knox local council acknowledged the trust’s expertise and support capacity would ensure that the $132 million State Basketball Centre redevelopment could be fully utilised and maintained. It is why they have asked that the trust take over the administration of the Knox Regional Sports Park, which houses the centre. The legislation acknowledges those local voices and, in doing so, expands access and support to local community athletes and spectators who will benefit from the State Basketball Centre, which will include 12 new indoor community courts for local basketball competitions for a total of 18 courts; comprehensive training facilities for high-performance basketball, including the WNBL and NBL teams—wow, amazing; new gymnastics facilities; new administration facilities to support sport organisations and clubs; and an outdoor town square space—amazing.
The idea is that it is not just a sport complex but there is something for everyone. Everyone can go and attend. You can get a coffee there if you want. You can sit outside in the town square if you want and just soak up the atmosphere. We see that when the Australian Open is on: if you are not inside a court watching the tennis, you can be outside watching it on the big screen, and there is a really great atmosphere. Whatever your thing is as a spectator and however you want to be a spectator for these sorts of sports, it is there for you in Knox.
And I think the other thing is, as someone who has participated in community sport and served on committees of community sporting clubs, I know it is really important to have those administration facilities to support sport organisations and clubs, because when I took over as secretary of a local sporting organisation I ended up with a cardboard box full of papers and things. It is not the best way to administer clubs. You want to make sure that records are being passed over appropriately. There were some very old papers inside that box, I might add. Some of them went back 40 or 60 years, so it is good that things were being passed on. Nevertheless it is really important to make sure that those new administration facilities support the efficient operation of clubs and the facility being run so that when you get new committees or different people serving on these things there can be a seamless transition. No-one wants to look at papers that have been kept for 40 years in a box. That is not great, so those mechanisms are important. It does not sound like much, but I know as someone who has put hours of volunteer time into those sorts of things it does make a difference when you have got proper administration facilities to support the good operation of organisations and clubs and do those important things.
I talked earlier about the charity match that I attended with the Koori basketball association. There are countless thousands of hours that go into supporting organisations like that and also continuing to connect with local community groups like the Indigenous communities who support that. It was an amazing atmosphere. It was a party atmosphere when we were down there playing that match, and it was great to see the music and the interaction with the crowd. The people who were there spectating at that match were from far and wide, Koori communities right across metropolitan Melbourne and beyond, so it was a really good atmosphere. And that is testament to the fact that there is a strong club organisation around that Koori basketball group and that they were able to connect with lots of people—and politicians. It was the politicians team versus the Koori team, and actually we thought we were going to win close to the end but then we got smashed right at the end. We nearly got there. We were nearly there and got pipped at the post, but that is how it goes.
Look, I will conclude my contribution there. I know Ms Shing wants to have a few minutes just to wrap up, but I commend this bill to the house. It is an important bill. It does not sound like much, because it is machinery and it is about blah, blah, blah.
Dr Bach: It really doesn’t.
Ms TERPSTRA: Yeah, we know. But it is important to have machinery provisions there to allow the efficient and effective operation of sporting facilities like these, so I commend the bill to the house.
Ms SHING (Eastern Victoria—Minister for Water, Minister for Regional Development, Minister for Equality) (15:18): Now, I know that it is 3.18 on a Friday, and the regular crowd is shuffling in. But what I want to do with the time I have left is talk about one of the great hits of the 1980s from the extraordinary talent that is the late great Olivia Newton-John, and it is Physical:
Let’s get physical, physical
…
Let’s get … physical
Let me hear your body talk
Now, when I was growing up in fact nobody wanted to hear my body talk, because quite frankly I have no catch reflex, I have no spatial awareness and I have no capacity to actually set foot onto a court or indeed any sort of pitch without causing a ripple effect that is devastating in its consequences of ineptitude across entire teams, if not leagues. I have been a disaster as any sort of sporting comrade, and I do not even know the names of sports teams. I did have to ask the Acting President, Mr Gepp, about the team orientations for various people involved in different codes of sportsball, and I thought that that was a significant set of challenges for me.
Having said that, what I do love is law and what I love is good regulation, and what we have here is a delicate constellation of these things coming together in a statutory dance that is as dexterous and nimble as I am uncoordinated when on my feet. And when I think about how far we have come in engaging with, on the one hand, people with my decrepit absence of talent when it comes to being outdoors and doing anything other than trying to walk in a straight line and, on the other, the expertise of people who graced our television screens in recent times from Birmingham, I think of the variation and diversity that is the human condition.
I am inclined, as I think many Australians are, to sit watching Ninja Warrior with a bag of Cheetos, much like everybody else, feeling as though we are vicariously engaging in some form of vigorous physical activity. But I know full well there are actually people who do that legitimately, actually, and when they do they need good facilities in order to participate, to practise and to train. No amount of good facilities was ever going to mean that I could make my way into the world of sport. I can, like a wombat, paddle myself up and down a pool for several lengths at a time. I quite enjoy that. It is a dreadful thing to watch. It is never going to make any kind of synchronised swimming competition or live stream. I am also inclined to go for walks, but that is about where it ends.
What these facilities do is provide opportunities for people of all ages and abilities, except probably for me, the opportunity to participate—as Olivia Newton-John sang, the opportunity to get physical. These are opportunities that mean that everybody has a better quality of life. When I think about the amendment that Dr Bach has spoken to, I am drawn to the establishment of a committee as a means by which there can be better governance and decision-making of the way in which these facilities and resources operate. Ms McLeish in the other place has worked hard. She has worked assiduously on this amendment. It has been good to hear Dr Bach speak in favour of it.
Motion agreed to.
Read second time.
That the bill be committed to a committee of the whole on the next day of meeting.
Motion agreed to.