I do take quite a bit of joy when I am able to rise in this place, in fact in any place, and get to speak about sport. It is my first great love of course, and there are no boundaries – I will watch pretty much anything, darts included.
I am more than happy to rise to speak on the State Sporting Legislation Amendment Bill 2024. It has been spoken about before by the member for Nepean, who did not go through every clause, but there is quite a bit to go through with the tidying up of red tape. There are a couple of things I do want to highlight. We will start with the State Netball and Hockey Centre advisory committee, netball being one of my great loves. I have played at the State Netball and Hockey Centre many, many times. I have even competed in taekwondo at the State Netball and Hockey Centre. It is a multifunctional centre and has had a level of investment. It is a great place. I have also played and refereed state titles in netball there a number of times.
The advisory committee was a committee that offered advice to government on issues. Changes in all sorts of sporting rules – Netball Victoria have changed the rules again this year – do have an impact on things like that. When there are rule changes, which might be the run-off of the netball courts for referee safety, player safety or that kind of thing, they are the things that need to be fed back to government so that there can be changes made to spaces. This is really important stuff, but unless you are involved in playing netball at those facilities you would not know about it, so to abolish the committee, to me, does not make any sense. Fixing it, yes – there may have been all sorts of issues around the committee and getting onto it et cetera et cetera, but to abolish it rather than to rectify those issues is perplexing, to say the very least.
We know that it is a great facility, and one of the great joys when I was growing up playing country netball was that I got my C-grade umpiring badge at the State Netball and Hockey Centre. I will not give you the year, but I was 15 years old. It was quite an achievement for someone of 15 to be awarded their C-grade badge back in those days.
Yes, eight years ago. That is exactly right. Thank you, member for Nepean; I appreciate that. But the training for that happens on our country courts, and when you get there you see these facilities that are like ‘Wow’. Meanwhile our home courts, the courts at Blackburn Park in Ouyen, for example, have needed resurfacing for years and years and years. There are complications around the committee of management at a grassroots level which also perhaps need to be and could have been looked at in this bill. When it gets down to councils, committees of management, different clubs and associations that might use these facilities and who is responsible for what, it ends up largely being the volunteers that do the work in maintenance, that do that resurfacing work if it is for netball. I know the Ouyen football–netball club did a huge amount of work to make sure their courts were safe. These are volunteers in a town of around a thousand people. They are a magnificent community, but there is a very stark contrast when we talk about grassroots level facilities and things like the State Netball and Hockey Centre.
Kardinia Park is one that many constituents have come to me post budget about, when the $4 million scoreboard was talked about. It is now not very affectionately known as ‘Pork Barrel Park’ in my electorate because of the rigmarole that many clubs have had to go through to get new digital scoreboards. When I was growing up the footy score was changed by kids up in the scoreboard on freezing cold winter days, changing the scores manually for a can of Coke and a packet of chips. That was reward aplenty for us, but we have evolved – it is 2024. The rigmarole that many clubs have had to go through to get simple scoreboard upgrades, because volunteerism, as we know, is dropping off and it is hard to find volunteers. They do a magnificent job. Every sporting club in the state and the country and the people who volunteer for them does a magnificent job, but it is hard to find volunteers. Even trying to run a canteen these days is really, really hard.
So you can understand the contrast for those of us out in the most isolated parts of the state. I was in Murrayville last week having a look at their new clubrooms and their new facilities, which are fantastic, but their league is in South Australia – just to give you some perspective on how isolated some of these clubs are and how much they rely on volunteers. Just a little fraction of that money that goes into places like the State Netball and Hockey Centre and Kardinia Park I know John James Oval would have benefited from greatly.
The Hattah Desert Race – I spoke about that in my members statement earlier – is a magnificent event. It has been going for 26 years now, but the security of this event centres around land. They do it on private land at the moment. What happens with succession planning in farming when that might change hands? There is no security, so an investment from the state government to support such a huge event – and events like it in all disciplines of sport, which bring such huge economic value to smaller regional and rural towns – is vitally important.
The Mildura Harness Racing Club is another one. The Minister for Racing was in Mildura a couple of weeks ago and was kind enough to give the Mildura Harness Racing Club time to meet and discuss with them their options for upgrade and also there are also some issues around scheduling and whatever. But it was great of the minister to come and discuss that with the harness racing club. That is another shared facility. You have got two footy clubs that play there and two netball clubs, you have got cricket clubs and you have got harness races. Trying to manage a venue like that is difficult to say the very least – and it is the local showgrounds.
The Mildura Racing Club, which I also mentioned in my members statement earlier, were inundated for six weeks in water taller than me and managed to run their 100th Mildura Cup a couple of weeks ago, but it took over 12 months. They were 18 months without racing, and that hurts clubs that rely on those facilities to be able to hold events like the Mildura Cup, which was a fantastic event. It really was. The minister also attended that, which was fantastic. These are the sorts of grassroots clubs, when we talk about sport being the backbone and the spine of country Victoria, that really are. So when it comes out in the news that Kardinia Park has had a $4 million investment, or the MCG and things like that, you cannot blame regional people for getting a little bit frustrated when there are so many volunteer hours that go into the maintenance and improvement of local facilities.
The Mildura Lawn Tennis Club is another one that was inundated during the floods, and they have done a magnificent job – tennis clubs do do an incredible job – to bring that back to the state that it is in. They had their pro tournament earlier this year, which was fantastic and which I believe the member for Nepean won a long, long, long, long time ago. He is ignoring me, and that is fine.
The Hopetoun go-kart club is also another fantastic community club which has managed again through volunteerism. A lot of speedway and motorsport local clubs rely on their own funds, running raffles, sausage sizzles at Bunnings and things like that.
Just to finish up – I could go through and name every single sporting club in my electorate, but I would be here for the entire 10 minutes – I also need to mention the Birchip–Watchem Netball Club, another club that needed upgrades to their court, which have been completed, but for safety reasons they have been unable to play on it. Councils are trying to manage this as well, particularly small rural councils, who are already stretched for resources. That is not often the remit of councils, which is why it lands in the lap of volunteers.
For the Nullawil and Wycheproof–Narraport footy clubs, it is their last year this year, both of those small clubs. As I said, it is getting harder and harder for grassroots clubs to remain, so it is their last year. I wish them all the best and all the best in their venture as an amalgamated club next year, which will be the Lions. I look forward to being able to support them next year.
Jade Benham MP
The Nationals’ Member for Mildura