Ms O’CONNOR (Hobart) – Thank you, Mr President. I do not plan to speak very long on this motion, but I do want to thank the honourable member for Elwick for bringing this forward and also for the really thorough and meticulous work you have put into providing us with some necessary facts in order to inform the debate and our vote on this motion.
Thank you very much for advocating for community sporting facilities. It is a cruel irony that in this beautiful city of Hobart, we have so few readily accessible and well‑maintained sporting facilities across the codes. In fact, although we are the capital city – and, when I was listening to the honourable member for Elwick rattle off the numbers about the state government’s prioritisation on an electorate basis for where it allocates capital funding for community sporting facilities, it reminded me of all those terrific roads they have up in the north and the north-west as well. Very different –
Ms Rattray – Have you been on the Sideling lately? Come on.
Ms O’CONNOR – I have not been on the Sideling lately, honourable member for McIntyre, but it has been a feature of driving life in Tasmania that the farther north you go, the better the roads get. The farther north you go, the more is invested in community facilities and community infrastructure and –
Mr Gaffney – I did not think people drove out of Hobart.
Ms O’CONNOR – What is that, sorry?
Mr Gaffney – I did not think people drove out of Hobart.
Ms O’CONNOR – All the time. There are so many beautiful places to see on this island. Sorry, what were you saying, minister, that we are driving towards the sunshine?
Mr Duigan – Yes.
Ms O’CONNOR – Yes.
This is a motion which is eminently supportable. It simply asks the state government at the end to back in, if you like, the Premier’s stated commitment towards basketball, make a commitment towards a home for Hobart basketball and send a message to the federal government, which is splashing around the cash at the moment – both of the major parties, that the state government recognises the need for such a facility.
The irony is certainly not lost on me that we are talking about community sporting facilities being starved of funding, inadequately maintained facilities, an absolute dearth of well‑maintained or in any way accessible facilities in rural and regional Tasmania at the same time as we have been having a discussion about the state government stumping up for a stadium, which the planning expert panel has found would cost about $1.4 billion, and the extra number that needs to be layered in here is the Planning Commission’s finding that within a decade an extra $1.8 billion will be added to the state’s debt as a consequence of the folly of, first, Peter Gutwein and, then, Jeremy Rockliff, allowing the AFL to call the shots.
Now within the AFL contract, which I have been having a look at in preparation for the honourable member for Nelson’s motion a little later today, you can see there is a little bit of money they are prepared to chuck in for – this is the AFL – I mean, they get everything that they demand, but they have offered to throw in a little bit of money for community and regional sporting facilities to promote engagement with and uptake of AFL, but it is relatively small change compared to what the state would be chipping in. And we are in a situation where this is a discussion about political choices. There is only so much capital money going around.
Through this place last week, we gave permission for the state of Tasmania to borrow nearly another half a billion dollars just to fund recurrent services.
I think it would be a very different conversation on behalf of the Hobart Phoenix Basketball Association and basketball players in the south of the state as well as soccer players, table tennis players, people who enjoy skating or even pigeon fanciers. If Gil McLachlan hadn’t swanned into town back in 2022 and demanded a billion-dollar roofed stadium on the waterfront, we would be able to have these sensible conversations about what the community actually needs. Not what the AFL wants, but what the community needs.
Every second day, but particularly on the weekend, because of where we live, I hear the sports being played at Wellesley Park with the South Hobart Football Club games. It is a joyful, uplifting sound, a celebration of connection and community and sporting excellence. What we know, and it is something that the honourable member for Elwick alluded to and in fact made a clear point of in her contribution, is that team sports build character. Team sports build connection, they build respect. As a parent, I certainly know that we were determined to have our kids play in team sports so they understood that it is much more about ‘we’ in any given situation than it is about ‘I’.
It is much more than about having a home for basketball in the south of the state. It is about building community and connection. It is about giving young people the real chance, whether it is to play at that elite level or just to be leaders in their community on the basis of their character, that is what these kind of sporting facilities can deliver. Being part of team sports, no matter what’s happening in your life beyond the field, can change your life.
I was listening to Mr Edmunds contribution on Men’s Sheds this morning recognising that they can be lifesaving places of connection. Similarly, being part of something bigger than yourself that you enjoy and are challenged by, where you feel like a valued member of a team, that can be extremely good for your mental health and wellbeing, your sense of yourself in a world which, when you are a young person, can be particularly overwhelming.
I am very comfortable supporting the honourable member for Elwick’s motion. I acknowledge the contribution made by the honourable member for Pembroke, and respectfully I say this:
I understand that the honourable member for Pembroke is a strong supporter of community sports and well maintained community sporting facilities, but you cannot have this conversation, as a member of the Opposition, without acknowledging, as I have called it before, the giant roofed elephant in the room, and it is a matter of some frustration not just to the Greens and the crossbench, but to members of the community.
I ask honourable members who have not been following the Mercury’s comments pages since the Planning Commission’s report came out, and since we heard that the Liberals are planning enabling legislation, to read the comments section of our local paper. This has gone down like stink. The prospect that a government would bypass proper planning and bring in enabling legislation has gone down like stink, as has the Labor Opposition’s abrogation of its responsibility to scrutinise that project. I just encourage the honourable member for Pembroke when he advocates for his community and to have community sporting facilities that are well maintained, to have a home for basketball in the south, which we deserve, to also talk to his colleagues about the need to scrutinise the government over this stadium.
In closing, I just want to note the information that has been provided in the Basketball Tasmania State Facilities Strategy for 2025‑2035, which I have not had a chance to properly examine yet, but it does point to the lack of facilities creating exclusion.
I know that the honourable member for McIntyre will proudly talk about her municipality, so I will not go to the numbers in your community, honourable member for McIntyre, but when you look at the areas with low participation in basketball, the highest participation is in the north and regrettably, right now, despite our population and the fact that we are the capital, the total participants in basketball in Hobart are 566 people. Our total population in Hobart is about – within the small part of Hobart, not greater Hobart, is about 56,000, so around 1 per cent of the population of Hobart participates in a sport that is increasingly popular, which we heard from the honourable member from Elwick, is the number one most popular sport amongst adults, where you are seeing Tasmanian kids absolutely captivated by the JackJumpers.
To me, on the data, this information provided by Basketball Tasmania strongly makes the case for a Hobart home for basketball because we know it is a growing sport. We know what it can provide to participants, not just players, but also people who are enjoying the excellence of the sport. So, in terms of a capital expenditure, $25 million in government terms – and it would be staged out and it would have to be matched by the Commonwealth, is a relatively reasonable sum and it is certainly something that we think the state government should be taking seriously and it should start sharing some of this infrastructure money, whether it be sporting or road funding, more equitably across the state so that people, certainly in my community in Hobart, and my electorate, are also able to access excellent sporting facilities.
Ms Forrest – Big shiny stadium. What are you complaining about?
Ms O’CONNOR – I do not want that big shiny stadium. It stinks.
A member – I do.
A member – My kids do.
Ms O’CONNOR – I don’t know if – well, interesting. I would just encourage anyone who says they do, to put beside each other the two reports which we will talk about later today, the report by Dr Gruen and the Planning Commission’s report, and ask themselves the honest question if they would consign their children to that level of debt over the next 10 years.
With respect, Mr President, those interjections incited the response.
Mr PRESIDENT – Yes. That is why we must be careful with interjections.
Ms O’CONNOR – Yes, just be careful. That is right.
So, thank you again to the honourable member for Elwick for not only bringing this motion forward, but also her enduring and tangible commitment to her community. Thanks.
