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Commonwealth Sports Ministers' Meeting

09 Aug 2008

Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen.

Welcome to the 4th Commonwealth Sport Minister's Meeting

Acknowledgements

It is a pleasure to welcome you to Beijing. On a personal note it is an honour to be part of this gathering and the broader Olympics community since my appointment as Minister for Youth and Sport following the Australian election last November has given me the opportunity to develop public policy in an area I am passionate about.

Today's gathering is an opportunity to reflect on what has been achieved since the last meeting in Melbourne in September 2006. I thank those countries which have provided written updates on their activities since Melbourne.

Today is also a wonderful opportunity for us to make a difference.

It is testament to the diverse powers of sport that at a time when we - and the world - are focussed on our elite athletes and the fierce competition to beat each other for Olympic success we can meet here and work together to use sport to achieve better health, education and community wellbeing outcomes for our nations.

I would like to suggest that today we consider the presentations that we receive today, particularly in the first session as an opportunity to offer our own thoughts and ideas, as we have much to learn from each other.

To this end and with your agreement I would like to ask the presenters to keep to the essential elements in the case studies they present to provide this opportunity.

I am sure that there will be examples here in Beijing of the power of sport to boost national pride and morale.

We can all attest to the inspiration that our athletes provide. Our challenge today is to develop shared strategies to bottle this energy that the Olympics generates to bring about desired social outcomes for our communities.

Just yesterday I was sitting alongside the wife of a fellow Australian Minister as we watched a video package of past Olympic glory - she turned to me and said simply, "It makes you want to go and play sport."

This basic exchange demonstrated the connection our Olympic endeavours can have in boosting participation rates and once more highlighted the potential for us to use this exciting and grand scale event to stimulate grassroots change in a number of areas.

I have no doubt that sport has the power to transform lives. Whether it be through encouraging education, teaching leadership and discipline; achieving health outcomes or bring communities together sport can bring about great change.

There is an example I often cite from my own electorate of Adelaide where the area was undergoing some social tensions.

The local area has a large number of refugees from vastly different backgrounds.

A local under 12 cricket team was put together with only one English speaking player.

(It's great to speak at a Commonwealth function where people know about cricket.)

Many of these children, who thought they had little in common, came together to share a common team goal. Parents also came along to games to support and hand out the oranges.

Soon the barriers were slipping away and, through sport, the community was coming together.

Today we will be learning of some amazing case studies about the healthy benefits of sport in the Caribbean, of inclusive communities through sport in India, about an Australian program to boost participation in South Africa and sport and physical education in the UK.

I will be attending a wide range of events over the next week or so; I hope you will excuse me for being a patriotic supporter of Australian athletes even when they compete against athletes from your countries.

It is also my great pleasure to Chair today's meeting which I hope we will find stimulating, useful and perhaps even inspiring .

I would like to thank the CABOS members for the work they have undertaken over the last 2 years and acknowledge the outcomes that have been achieved and I look forward to hearing some detailed examples of activities from across the regions.

I would like to acknowledge the assistance my Department has received from Nick Pink, the Sport Advisor over recent months in the preparation of this meeting.

This meeting also provides an opportunity for us to consider how we can best use this Forum and to build on our achievements and establish a strong and sustainable framework that will support this work into the future.

At the conclusion of the meeting I propose we set down the outcomes of our meeting in a Communiqu�. I will be circulating a draft document later in the meeting for your consideration.

Full-time Sport Adviser

An important part of our future success will be our consideration of the place for sport within the Commonwealth Secretariat and its link within the Commonwealth Youth portfolio. As you will have seen from the papers circulated prior to the meeting, the Commonwealth Secretariat is proposing that it is time that a full-time sport advisor is established within the Youth portfolio of the Secretariat.

I support this proposal and believe that the role is an important liaison point for the host of upcoming Commonwealth Games and for the subsequent Commonwealth Sport Ministers' Meeting.

With the extension of the role to be full-time, I am confident that a number of initiatives could be advanced in future years.

It also leads me to the opportunity for us as a group to set some detailed work plans on issues which we are each grappling with. In Australia our Government has released a directions paper which outlines our priorities in the sporting portfolio  in addition to update and reform of both our elite and community sport structure. We have highlighted some key themes which will be policy priorities for our Government this term  namely the promotion of women in sport, utilising sport to more effectively deliver outcomes for our indigenous community and investigating best practice to foster disability sports.

In conversations with some of you in recent days it has become apparent that many of you are working on similar issues and it seems sensible that we may wish to better coordinate these efforts and perhaps in future set some specific themes to progress through this forum.

Anti-doping

This is also another key opportunity for us to take an unapologetically tough stance against drugs in sport.

This Commonwealth forum has traditionally been a strong advocate for progress in Anti-doping reforms and this meeting will again discuss ways to support the anti-doping movement across the Commonwealth particularly in relation to the Regional Anti-doping organisations.

Importantly, our colleagues from the World Anti-Doping Agency will be advocating that all Commonwealth countries to become state parties to the International Convention against Doping in Sport as a sign of commitment to the Anti-doping program.

As a Foundation Board Member of WADA and as a strong advocate of the need to protect the integrity of sport, I would urge you all to send a strong message to other parts of the globe that the Commonwealth family takes this issue very seriously.

We can hardly advocate sport as a vehicle for social cohesion, community building and personal development, if the vehicle is damaged.

Youth

Naturally I think youth and sport have a particular synergy and relevance, particularly because sport provides opportunities for young people to grow and prosper within their communities as well as offering an arena for international engagement.

Recently recommendations were adopted by the Commonwealth Youth Ministers at the Commonwealth Youth Minister's Meeting (CYMM) in April 2008.

One of the recommendations states that young people should have a voice in shaping sports strategies.

In my own country, the Australian Government is giving youth a voice in shaping youth policies, including sport strategies, through the Australian Youth Forum, and we are making sure that youth are meaningfully involved in the implementation.

With regard to another recommendation that youth sport policies should draw together key departments at a national and local level to ensure an integrated sport strategy, we have established an Office for Youth which is working toward an integrated approach to youth policy.

We intend to draw together youth policy at all levels, and this will include the areas of education, health, sport, and social inclusion.

CONCLUSION

Thank you for coming today, enjoy the Beijing Olympic Games and may we all be inspired by the power of sport to change the lives of people in our nations.

With those opening remarks, it is now my very great pleasure to introduce our recently appointed Commonwealth Secretary-General, His Excellency, Kamalesh Sharma.

Mr Sharma has a distinguished diplomatic career and has been a significant contributor not only to the Commonwealth but to the global community over many years.

Mr Sharma's special interests lie in the empowerment of young people, the advancement of women's rights and the challenge of poverty eradication.

Please welcome Mr Sharma to his first Commonwealth Minister's Meeting as Commonwealth Secretary General.

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