CHAIR – Minister, it’s good to hear about that and I fully endorse the work on those awareness campaigns and the work of southern councils and particularly the GM from Brighton who has looked at anti‑racism campaigns, which is good for the community but also good for for council workers. It’s those grassroots connections, if you like, that are so important in local government, as as we’re aware. The question is around the infrastructure for all manner of community members such as playgrounds, skate parks and all of those things. How are you supporting active communities with any sort of funding that’s going to local government?
Mr VINCENT – There are two parts to that. I would say on the transport side of things with the TPPs in planning that were introduced, part of that is looking at subdivisions and transport being near and what services are there before the subdivision is approved. Brighton is is a classic example of a large subdivision going in where social and affordable housing is but no bus service that connects and quite often you see people walking up past the council chambers there with several bags of groceries. We need to be a lot smarter and work with local government when those decisions are made. It’s all right for TasWater to say yes, we can connect to sewerage or we can’t, but I think it’s more than that because for social activities just having access to transport is something we all need to be involved with. State Growth are fully aware that is part of the TPPs and it will be looked at going forward.
With planning, some things are not in planning for open space when subdivision goes in. Walkways aren’t included in that and I’d like to change that, because of what we have seen over the last decade throughout Tasmania. Up on the north‑west coast it’s magnificent what they’re doing with the coastal walk and I know Sorell linked up all the new subdivisions in Midway Point, so the pathway is linked up now.
Developers are always looking to maximise land, I can understand that, but many developers know that the sale of their blocks of land is far better if they have playgrounds, rollover kerbs, nice street lighting and things like that. Certainly you only have to look around some of the townships at families out walking together of a night or a weekend to see how important those walkways are. There are things that we’ll be able to do through the combination of my ministries to work with councils to expand on some of those planning issues that might tidy some of those things up.
CHAIR – Is there funding available presently for local government in those areas?
Mr VINCENT – Sorry?
CHAIR – Is there funding specifically for activities?
Mr VINCENT – I might just ask Mr Healey here, he’s just brought up a few numbers.
Mr HEALEY – Yes, just from other Estimates that have I been involved in. I know certainly Active Tasmania since 2020‑21 has invested about $35.2 million into community‑based sport development programs. They’ve also, since 2021, invested about $195.4 million into community‑based sporting facilities. That’s just two areas where the government has invested over the last few years. There is quite a reasonable amount of money that is invested into local community‑based sporting and active – the Ticket to Play, Ticket to Wellbeing is quite a program.
