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Media Conference - Australia's performance at Beijing Olympics and sports funding. Commonwealth Parliamentary Offices, Adelaide 20 August 2008

MEDIA: Media Conference, Commonwealth Parliamentary Offices, Adelaide

DATE: 20 August 2008

TRANSCRIPT: Australia's Performance at Beijing Olympics and sports funding

Kate Ellis: Well, I'd first like to take the opportunity just to congratulate all of the Australians who are putting in such remarkable efforts over at the Olympics. And of course overnight, we've seen the amazing performances of Sally McClelland and Anna Meares, both of whom displayed once again what is the true magic of the Olympics  to put in such great performances but also to have such great stories and be such incredible Australian role models.

There has of course also over the last few days been a great focus on both the level of performances put in by the Australians as well as the levels of funding to Australian sport and I would like to just make a couple of comments about this. First of all, that Australia has already achieved 35 medals, 11 of them gold, which is an absolutely remarkable performance, and I think it's important that we all remember that this is young Australians up there against the very best that the world has to offer and 35 medals, to date, is certainly a great performance.

On the other issue of funding, the Australian tax payers are enormously generous supporters of Australian sport and I believe that they get a very strong return for this investment in Australian sport and the Prime Minister has made very clear that our government intends to remain very strong partners with the Australian Olympic Committee going forward to make sure that we're supporting Australian sport.

But I think we also need to put out there that, frankly, we are never going to be able to compete on a dollar for dollar basis, nor have we ever been able to compete on a dollar for dollar basis, with much larger countries in terms of both populations and economies. What we have instead done is made sure that every dollar of Australian taxpayer's money has been spent smarter, has been spent to have a more innovative system, and to make sure that we keep ahead of the pack. And this is absolutely what I am committed to ensuring continues for Australian sport. And that means that we need to look at the system as it is in place and ways that we can reform this system to make sure that we keep the smartest system in the world, we keep the most innovative system in the world, and that Australian's stay ahead of the pack in terms of their performances.

Journalist: It appears that this is becoming a fairly regular thing, John Coates, after the Athens Olympics, said we need more money to make sure we do well in Beijing. He's now saying the same thing for London. How far down the track before you're able to determine the kind of money the Federal government is going to commit towards that London effort?

Kate Ellis: Well the AOC themselves have unveiled a review process of looking at funding levels in terms of the number of medals that they want to get to. The Australian government have said that we'll look at the AOC process as it unwinds and we'll keep in contact with them, and I'm sure we'll have many future discussions about the level of funding and what is an adequate amount going forward. But we don't think that this is the time that we should just be throwing around figures, we want to sit down and have a look at the system as it works at the moment, any ways we can remove duplication and make it a more streamlined and effective system and then sit down and have the discussions about funding.

Journalist: The bet or the challenge that you have with your British counterpart, before the Beijing Games, have you been in touch with him?

Kate Ellis: I am yet to touch base with my British counterpart and will probably hold off on doing that until the end of the games. Of course, I am not one to shirk on a bet, but we are very closely checking the fine print about whether or not the bet was about the total number of medals won or who finished on top of the other on the medal tally  either way it's looking close. I'm getting pretty nervous  I've lost a few fingernails over the past few days and I hope that the Australians can continue to put in some great performances so I don't have to be adorning the Union Jack&.

Journalist: What was the bet Minister, what will you do and what would he have to do?

Kate Ellis: Well, the bet in the end was that, as I said, I hope it was which ever country won the lesser number of medals would have to wear the other team's colours the next time that Australia and Great Britain met in a sporting contest. So I haven't checked the fixtures  whether that's going to be the cricket or the rugby or a netball game  but it will be interesting to look forward. Basically, the UK Ministers were doing a bit of tough talking back home and we stumbled across some of these comments, and I think it's my job as the Minister for Sport to always back the Australian athletes and that's something that I will always continue to do. I just hope that it doesn't get me into strife this time.

Journalist: I understand that the Brits are looking at some type of lottery system to help fund their athletes for the London games& worth of support. Would that ever be considered here in terms of additional ways of raising sponsorship for elite athletes?

Kate Ellis: Look, the British did set up a lottery system a couple of years ago now. This was something that was looked at by the Australian Government, by the former Australian Government, after a recommendation was put to them in 1999 that they should investigate setting up a similar lottery style system here. Because of our system of Federal and state jurisdictions, it was deemed not a viable option at the time and I don't think it's likely to become a viable option. But one of the things that I've committed to doing is having a look at the way that the Australian Sports Foundation operates, and have a look at ways we can increase the funding base to Australian sport. So hopefully it's not just Australian Taxpayer dollars but if we can find ways that we can get more corporate dollars or more individuals donating to our sport system then that would obviously be a very good thing for Australian efforts going forward.

Journalist: Is there anything you can do in terms of tax incentives to encourage even greater corporate sponsorship  there appears to be a lot already?

Kate Ellis: Well we are already looking at that, and the Australian Sports Foundation is in place as a means to achieving this end but I think that we look at the way that it operates and if there is a more effective way that we can get more dollars into the Australian Sporting system.

Journalist: How are sports prioritised? Is it on Olympic performance and medals, or is it at World championships, or is it overall participation?

Kate Ellis: It varies a lot. The Australian Sports Commission has been put in charge of determining how to allocate the overall pool of funds amongst the different sports. Once the Sports Commission was set up it was deemed that that was the most appropriate way for that to happen  at arms length from government, in a completely independent process. So they look at a number of things. They look at the number of people participating in the sport, they look at the number of elite athletes participating in world championships and Olympic games, and the level of success that Australia is having in that area as well to determine the funding going forward. And at the end of this year, it will be up to the Australian Sports Commission to determine the funding for each of the different sporting organisations for the next 4 years going towards 2012.

Journalist: How much funding is the Australian Government putting forward to Sports and the Sports Foundation?

Kate Ellis: At the moment, the budget for the Australian Sports Commission is over $220 million dollars. Of that, over $131 million dollars goes to high performance sport. So when you look at the comparisons between, and a lot of comparisons have been made in recent days about the amount that different nations are putting towards their sporting systems, on a per capita basis, Australian taxpayers are amongst the most generous in the world in contributing funds towards the sporting system. And we think that they do get a good return on that investment. It's something that Australia has become well known for and something that we would certainly like to see continue.

Journalist: Alan Thompson of the Australian Sporting Team &.. has said that he has had to pull funds from youth development and put them into senior swimming and he says that those results will show at the London games. What do you have to say to Alan Thompson's remarks that he is not getting enough funding so he had to strip them away from youth?

Kate Ellis: Well, as I said earlier, I think that we all need to recognise that on a dollar for dollar basis, Australian Sport has never been funded at the same level as some of the much larger nations and economies we compete against, and frankly, it can't be into the future. Now, swimming is amongst those that receive the most government funds out of Australian Sport and of course we have seen that have had great success with that money, but I would certainly be concerned if we were moving our focus away from participation and youth and community development to focus all at an elite level. And I think that something that we need to constantly strive to do within the Australian sporting system is to get the balance right. Of course if we focus on increasing our participation rates that means that eventually we are going to have a greater pool to choose our Olympians from and I think that we always need to remain a focus at both ends of the spectrum.

Journalist: Will more funding be directed towards coaches? Sometimes it's not perhaps out athletes themselves but the people who are training them. We've seen a lot of Australian coaches go overseas recently and that's now coming back to bite us perhaps in Olympic events?

Kate Ellis: Well, certainly I believe that coaching is one of the areas that the Government really does need to focus going forward, and that's not just on funding but it's also on recognition of Australian coaches. Sometimes they really are the true champions behind a lot of athlete's great success. We have some fantastic coaches in Australia that we would desperately like to hang on to, and the other thing that we can be looking at is the training of coaches, because we know how important they are to the sports overall success. So that's something that I am very passionate about looking to in the future.

In regards to coaches going overseas, we need to recognise that it's a global marketplace. It's always been the case, and will remain the case that while some Australians choose to stay here and put their efforts into seeing the green and gold succeed on the world stage, others view it as a profession where they are going to pursue the top dollar. That's really an individual choice that they have made in the past and will continue to make in the future.

Journalist: I'm just wondering, in terms of the funding, one of the other really strongly funded sports is cycling and the AIS allocation is $1.6 million last financial year but they haven't come up really with medal success by any measure, do you think some of those things need to be considered as well?

Kate Ellis: Well just in terms of cycling, in the 2007-2008 Budget, it was actually just under $6 million dollars that was allocated towards cycling so certainly we are seeing some great success in cycling at a junior level, whilst obviously we haven't got all of the results that we would have hoped for at the Olympics, we are seeing that there are some programs that are very effective in Australian cycling and hopefully point to a very bright future. But there is no doubt that at the end of these Olympics we are going to have to review some programs that are in place and how well they are operating, and whether there is a better way that that could be structured. I am not one for threatening to pull funds from sports that aren't performing at an elite level. I know that is something that the UK Ministers did say at the beginning of the Olympics that they'd be looking at doing. My job is to support Australian athletes not to place even greater pressure on their shoulders.

Journalist: But isn't that, looking at the ones who have underperformed for the funds, is that something that you are going to look at?

Kate Ellis: No, what we will look at is Australia's performance as a whole, Australia's Olympic performance but also our sporting structure as a whole, even the sports where we are doing very well. We mentioned earlier that Alan Thompson has been raising concerns about swimming, where of course, we won more medals in the pool  our swimmers did  than they ever have at a previous Olympics. That doesn't mean that just because we are succeeding, that we can get complacent and not look at better ways that we can do things and that's what we intend to do across the board.

Journalist: Talking about looking at things in a better and different way, just over 25 years since the AIS was established, do you we as a country and communities in a sense have not moved with the times and now so many countries are doing similar things and we are just getting a bit out of date?

Kate Ellis: I don't think we are out of date. One of the things that we have done remarkably well is invest in new technologies and look at sports science. And there have been some really exciting developments recently and certainly I think that the AIS is the Harvard of sports academies. It is leading the world. But I guess we've seen that other nations have had a good look at the AIS and are replicating the structure in their own countries, and that's why it is significant that we always remain focussed on future reform and on ways that we can continue to make our system even better. And that does mean having a look at the way the AIS operates, but particularly I think having a look at the way the AIS interacts with the state institutes and regional programs and making sure that they are streamlined and effective pathways for athletes.

Journalist: With regard to your trip to Beijing, is there anything that you leant with regard to the actual Chinese method of training that you can apply here?

Kate Ellis: Well there is certainly a lot of things that I would like to learn from the Chinese method of training  we're of course seeing that their return across a number of sports is just phenomenal and I think that is something that we are going to have to put a bit of emphasis on is having a look at what the Chinese are doing. Whilst I am sure that part of it is massive amounts of funding, they are also clearly structuring their programs very effectively and we'll always be on the look out for what we can learn from nations who are succeeding and how we can replicate that success back in Australia.

Journalist: Do you have any examples of anything that you saw there?

Kate Ellis: I don't have any examples of what the Chinese are actually doing. I think that what we've seen is that they are doing something right and now we have to put the time into examining what that is. I'm actually heading to China in a few weeks time and will be sitting down with the Chinese Sports Minister, so I look forward to asking a lot of questions on how their programs have been structured and what lessons we can learn for Australian sport from China's success.

Journalist: Will facilities be a big part of the reform as well, particularly in South Australia where it has been a concern that facilities aren't there to encourage people to get involved?

Kate Ellis: Well I think, particularly when you are looking at participation rates, facilities are a huge part of the question. We see facilities as predominantly a state and local government responsibility but there is no doubt that going forward we need to find an effective way of working with the other tiers of government to make sure that facilities are in place and that they are covered, but that's going to be part of a bigger conversation.

Journalist: And will money be split up by state or allocated to a sport &.

Kate Ellis: What we are doing, following on from the Olympics, we'll be announcing the team of independent experts that will be having a look at the Australian sports system and making recommendations on the way forward and that will be largely to them to  they'll of course be consulting with each of the different state governments as well as the different state institutes and then they'll come back and make recommendations on whether there are state specific that we can be doing going forward. So you'll have to wait for next week on that one&

ENDS

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