Parliamentary Speeches
Transript: Interview with Greg Cary 4BC
07 Aug 2008GREG CARY: Okay, on the hotline is Kate Ellis. Kate's our Minister for Youth and Sport and is in Beijing for the start of the Olympic games over the next few days. Minister, good morning.
KATE ELLIS: Good morning. Greetings from China.
GREG CARY: Well, a beautiful morning in Brisbane, a beautiful morning all around Queensland. More importantly, what's it like in Beijing?
KATE ELLIS: Well, it's pretty hot to answer you. Visibility is not great today at all, actually. I am having a look out of my window now. But we're hoping things clear up within the next couple of days and understanding that the Chinese have all sorts of measures in place to ensure that that happens.
GREG CARY: Well, they've had four years to get ready, it might be that they're just a little bit late now. Kate, what is it you're looking to achieve the next couple of weeks up there?
KATE ELLIS: Well, we've got a number of issues and Australia is hosting a meeting of the Commonwealth sports minister in a couple for days time which I'll be chairing. And we're really looking at the best cases of how we use elite sports and we use our Olympic role models to boost participation amongst the general community. So we're really trying to encourage those pathways right through and make sure that we use sport, not just for entertainment and to sit in front of the television. Whilst there will be few Australians doing that in coming days, but we use it to improve the health of our nation and get us all active and moving.
GREG CARY: This is a very important point, Kate, because at a time when we're confronting one of the highest levels of obesity amongst our young people, amongst all people, but particularly sadly our young people, we need them to get more engaged and one of the disappointing things after the Sydney games was everybody got excited but it didn't seem to follow through into an increase in participation in sport so you'd obviously like to see that happen a fortnight from now.
KATE ELLIS: Well, absolutely. And I have to say, that's one of the biggest challenges in my job is how do we get children to turn off the television or put down the Playstation console or get off the internet and go out there and enjoy the fresh air and run and walk and skip and catch and throw. It sounds really simple but it's actually a very big challenge and something that we really need to apply ourselves to for the long-term health of the nation.
GREG CARY: Why is it such a challenging thing? You know, it's clearly a role for parents, it's a role for schools again, but again we're placing too much, I think, emphasis on schools and too big a burden on them. Why is that a hard thing for parents to do?
KATE ELLIS: Look, I just thing that there's been more and more options of the way people spend their time and for example, I celebrate that there's a lot of sport on television and I think that's really important and as the Sport's Minister I encourage that but every time that we, you know, get a new, whether it be a Foxtel channel, dedicated to sport, or something else, we have this issue of more and more people watching sport and not engaging and participating in it.
And it's about getting that balance right. We love to go and cheer on our sporting teams, whether it be rugby, whether it be AFL, whether it be netball, but we have to make sure that Australians ourselves stay active.
So I guess, my message is, enjoy the Olympics, cheer on the green and gold but make sure that we get our there and do a little bit ourselves as well.
GREG CARY: That's a very good point. Let's just talk about the green and gold at the moment. I heard John Coates, the head of the Australian Olympic team, saying that it's the Government needed to pour more money into elite athletes and sport, do you agree with that?
KATE ELLIS: Look, I think that Australia has punched above our weight. We've done incredibly well on an international level, particularly over the last couple of decades. And we need to make sure that we stay ahead of the pack and John certainly argues that that means a funding injection. I think it's actually an issue more broadly than just funding. We need to look at the reasons why Australia got ahead in the first place. And it's not because of just money. It's because we have the smartest system. We've been innovative, we've used sports science, we've had the AIS, which is in a lot of places regarded as the Harvard of sport academies across the world and we need to make sure that we constantly are reforming and bringing about change to make sure we do get the competitive advantage and keep it.
So we - the Prime Minister has indicated, and I've certainly spoken with John Coates, that we're happy to sit down and talk about the funding issues and they've instigated a review and are investigating these issues.
But also, we're going to look at issues more widely than that. I think it's my job to make sure that we don't stand still, just because we're successful, we keep out there reforming and keep Australia succeeding, hopefully.
GREG CARY: Yeah, there's no doubt in the world that our success on the international sports fields and all around the place does our nation a great deal of good in perception but at a time when we're struggling in so many areas, our hospital system needs money, or education system needs money, pensioners need money, I just really bridled when I heard Mr Coates asking for more money and the Prime Minister seeming tacidly agreeing with that proposition when in fact we have 434 athletes at the Olympic games and which on per capita basis translates back to about 31 compared to the rest of the world. So I am wondering if we could make the argument, we've gone too far in pouring money into elite sport.
KATE ELLIS: Well, I can assure you that as the Sports Minister, it's not my job to be making those arguments. I think that sport is incredibly important and it's important not just for our athletes and - but I think for our community that when we look at Australia and anywhere, anyone that travels internationally will have somebody bring up the fact that we're known as being a healthy adn active and outdoors nation largely because of our sporting...
GREG CARY: But we're not, we're not. We're a nation of fatties.
KATE ELLIS: Well, we're working on that yeah. But - and that's why we need to make sure that investing in elite international sport, the purpose of that and the reason that we invest taxpayer dollars is one, because it's very good for our national identity and our national pride but two because we have these remarkable role models that we hold up to the rest of the community that particularly we hold up to children and we hope that people will look at these performances and get inspired and decide that they'd actually like to take part and that maybe they dream of one day being Olympians themselves or even just...
GREG CARY: That's true.
KATE ELLIS: ..enjoying the benefits of sport. I think that...
GREG CARY: Good point there. Do they...
KATE ELLIS: ..role models are very important.
GREG CARY: Yeah, to that end though. But when you sit around a table and you're talking about the budget and these things, I am just wondering, philosophically, how we can possibly argue at this time, for one more cent going to a lead sport when pensioners are struggling. How do we do that? How do we morally do that?
KATE ELLIS: Well, there is no question that we've got processes in place to look at pensioners to look at the most vulnerable in our community, to look at the people that are really struggling at the moment. And I am certainly not taking anything away from those very, very valid causes. And...
GREG CARY: But if we give money to sport, we are doing that, we're taking away from those who really need it to something that doesn't really need it.
KATE ELLIS: Well, do you know - my view is that we need to start thinking of sport and physical activity not just as an outlay of money but actually as an investment in our nation's long-term health. And the statistics, when you have a look, particularly at our health sector going forward at just how much money taxpayers are going to have to put in to treating largely preventable diseases to dealing with the obesity epidemic that we're seeing or looking at, whether it be type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease. But if we seriously invest in sport and physical activity and we get this nation moving, then that is actually an investment in the long-term...
GREG CARY: Yeah...
KATE ELLIS: ..because we will be cutting down from future taxpayers...
GREG CARY: Yeah, I understand the argument you're making. I think there's a gap in logic though. And we've seen it already since Sydney. There was an investment at the local level after the Sydney games and these - the same statistics applied. In the end that responsibility for getting the kids out and about goes back onto the parents. And if the parents aren't going to accept that responsibility, doesn't matter how many gold medals we win in Beijing, the kids will still go back to their computers.
KATE ELLIS: Look, I think that we can argue that but frankly when we have obesity rates as they are at the moment then I think Government needs to step in. I think it's in the national interest that we step in ourselves.
GREG CARY: But not funding elite athletes. Going back to the grassroots level.
KATE ELLIS: Funding sport across the board. And that's why the Federal Government invest in the active after-schools program to get children in primary school moving after school just to teach them the basics of how you run, how you jump, how you catch, how you throw. Those foundations that they may later use to go on and participate in organised sport. And we certainly hope that they do.
But we're not concentrating just on elite sport. And obviously at the Olympic time, that's where the focus is and that's what we're talking about at the moment but I can assure all of your listeners that we think that sport is important right across the board and we think that participation in sport is very important not just for those people that are going to go and be a chance to win medals for our country but for all people no matter what their age, no matter what their ability.
GREG CARY: It's good to talk to you. Enjoy your time in Beijing and I hope we achieve some of those things you're trying to achieve, good luck.
KATE ELLIS: Fantastic, thanks for having me.
GREG CARY: Our Minister for Youth and Sport Kate Ellis from Beijing.