Thursday, 1 September 2022

Shooting sports facilities program

Mr RICH-PHILLIPS (South Eastern Metropolitan) (18:00): (2120) I wish to raise a matter tonight for the Minister for Community Sport, and it relates to funding for the shooting sports facilities program, which is a great program that the previous Liberal-National government was very pleased to support in the 2010 to 2014 period. The action I am seeking from the minister tonight is for that program to be re-funded.

Last week, along with a number of members of this chamber and the other chamber, I was pleased to be a guest of Field and Game Australia at the 19th annual pollie clay target shoot up at the Melbourne Gun Club in the Yarra Valley. Some members were able to attend; some other members were not able to attend on that occasion. But once again it was a great event hosted by Field and Game Australia, and it highlighted what a great sport clay target shooting is and indeed what a great facility the Melbourne Gun Club has in the Yarra Valley.

But of course there are clubs like the Melbourne Gun Club across Victoria. In my electorate in the south-east there is the Frankston Australian Clay Target Club, which doubles as a Field and Game ground for Frankston and Cranbourne. At Springvale we have the Sporting Shooters Association of Australia range. And elsewhere throughout Victoria, whether it is at Willowmavin, which is the main ground of Field and Game Australia, or throughout country Victoria, there are any number of grounds for clay target shooting and fewer grounds for rifle shooting.

But all these grounds require continual upgrade, continual improvement. They make a major contribution to their local communities and are an important recreational and sporting activity for so many thousands of Victorians, so there is a role to play for the Victorian government in supporting those recreational endeavours through the shooting sports facilities program. There is so much need for this program at many of these grounds, and Willowmavin is a prime example where government support could allow that facility to be developed in so many ways beyond the current work that has been put in. The action I am seeking from the Minister for Community Sport today is to fund that program, as the previous Liberal-National government did, to ensure that there are funds available for the upgrade of these important community facilities over the coming year.