Tuesday, 28 October 2025

 John BERGER (Southern Metropolitan) (22:25): (2029) My adjournment is for the Minister for Community Sport in the other place. The action that I seek is for Minister Spence to join me in visiting Camberwell Central Bowls Club to see how the community sports organisations are benefiting our communities in Southern Metropolitan Region. The Allan Labor government supports local community sports and active recreation organisations across the state to address barriers to access and participation. I am pleased that in round 2 of our 2024–25 sporting clubs grants program one of the successful recipients sits in my electorate of Southern Metro in Camberwell Central Bowls Club. They received a grant of $1000 to purchase DHB hacksaw bowling arms and replacement defibrillator pads, ensuring that avid bowlers in the electorate of Hawthorn can continue to play safely with the club, whose history spans almost a century. In fact Camberwell Central Bowls Club will be celebrating their 100th anniversary just next year. With two quality grass greens and facilities, events and functions, Camberwell Central Bowls Club is an excellent community sports organisation for competitive and social players alike.

This grants program complements the Allan Labor government’s $40.3 million investment into community sports and active recreation through the Victorian state budget 2025–26, including $20 million put into the development of high-quality, accessible community sports infrastructure across Victoria with programs such as the 2025–26 Local Sports Infrastructure Fund. Over 3.8 million Victorians aged 15 or over were engaged in some form of physical activity once per week in 2023–24. Community sports infrastructure contributed over $7 billion to the state’s economy, including 71,000 jobs supported by the sports and recreation sector. Community sport and active recreation organisations matter to Victorians. I was incredibly pleased to see Camberwell Central Bowls will be benefiting from our government’s investment into community sports and active recreation.