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Transcript: interview with the Minister for Sport, Kate Ellis, about funding for sport in Australia

ABC 774 Melbourne

ALI MOORE: If you had to be a Federal Government Minister wouldn't you want to be the Sports Minister right now? The Federal Sports Minister is Kate Ellis; she's just come back from a week in Beijing. Kate Ellis, good morning.

KATE ELLIS: Good morning, Ali. Great to be with you.

ALI MOORE: First of all did you watch the race last night and did you hear what Sally McLellan just had to say? That sounded to me like a very heartfelt plea for more money.

KATE ELLIS: Certainly and I have to absolutely congratulate Sally. What a remarkable effort that was last night. And I'm in a situation where I don't want to disagree with anything that she says after her performance, but I do just have to say that funding for athletics is not decreasing at all, in fact it's increased pretty massively over the last Olympic cycle...

ALI MOORE: Even though we haven't had the medals?

KATE ELLIS: Yeah, that's right. During the Olympic cycle in the lead up to the 2004 Olympics athletics received about $14.5 million from the Federal Government and that's increased up to $22.5 million for this Olympic cycle. So there has certainly been funding going there.

And I guess the argument that I've been making over the last few days is that the Australian taxpayers are enormously generous supporters of sport and particularly of elite sport and our Olympic teams, and we think we get a really good investment on that, but frankly when we look at some of the amounts of funding that other countries are putting in we need to accept that we are a country with a much smaller population and a smaller economy than some of the countries that we're competing against and we've never been able to match them dollar for dollar, and we shouldn't expect to do so in the future.

ALI MOORE: Is it also the case now though that because of the increased competition that you have to increase funding just to stay still?

KATE ELLIS: It's certainly the case that we're seeing the United Kingdom for example becoming much much more competitive because they are investing a lot more money into sport, but I think that that means that we also have to go back to analyse why it is that Australia has perhaps over-performed for so long, that we've been punching above our weight. And that is because we've had a smarter system and we've been really innovative in our approach to sport and that's why I argue that we have to keep looking to reform and move our system forward so that we can stay ahead of the pack.

ALI MOORE; But when you talk about that, you talk about restructuring sports funding, in essence what does that mean? Does it mean no more money but putting what you have got changing the mix, perhaps putting more into the bottom but the overall pool doesn't increase?

KATE ELLIS: I think it means removing the duplication from our system to begin with, that anybody within the Australian sports system would say that if they had a chance to start from scratch and they were building a system then they probably wouldn't' create the one that we've got with the different regional institutes, the different State Governments focusing on different areas and then the Federal Government, and they're not necessarily all being streamlined and working together. And I think we've got a great opportunity to do that, to say that this is in the national interest, Australian taxpayers are funding sport through their state taxes and through their federal taxes and they want to see that those efforts are working in coordination. The State Governments have come forward and said they're willing to work with us. So we think this is a really good opportunity to perhaps correct some of the areas of duplication or just some of the inconsistencies that exist within the system. And then we're happy, I mean the Prime Minister's made very clear that he wants us to remain strong supporters of Australia's athletes into the future. But I think before we even look at levels of increased funding we need to analyse whether we're using every dollar of taxpayer funding to its maximum benefit at the moment. And I suspect that we're not.

ALI MOORE: You're listening to Kate Ellis, the Federal Sports Minister. Kate Ellis why are you so against a lottery fund, a UK style lottery fund to help athletes, elite athletes?

KATE ELLIS: I wouldn't ever say that I was against it, in fact I think that it would make my job even more fabulous if that was the case, but it's a situation that it's been looked at in the past and the way that our federal and state jurisdictions work in Australia it would be very difficult for that to ever come about at a national level. Also I think we need to look at whether we want to be promoting gambling as a way of funding sport and healthy lifestyles, so I would never say that I was absolutely opposed to it, all I'm saying is it's been looked at previously, it's been seen to not be the solution for Australia, and I think we need to keep looking at other potential solutions.

ALI MOORE: We're talking about British systems, are you starting to regret that you had a bet with the Brits about finishing higher on the medal tally.

KATE ELLIS: [Laughs] Well I have been a little nervous I'll admit to you, Ali but my point of view is if anyone is doing tough talking, and particularly putting down Australian athletes and doubting their efforts then I'm going to come out and back the Aussie athletes every time, and that's what I did.

ALI MOORE: But getting back to the bet, was it for gold or was it overall medal tally?

KATE ELLIS: I'm glad you asked. We are well and truly looking at the fine print. It certainly wasn't for gold, and I'm not one to shirk on a bet, if it happens that I lose this bet then as much as it may pain me I'll be parading around in the Union Jack, but...

ALI MOORE: [Laughs] You will. Look you've got to say, I mean even on John Coates count it's starting to look like that's what you're going to be wearing.

KATE ELLIS: We're not entirely sure whether the bet - we're going to have to go back to the quotes of what was said at the time, whether the bet was who was going to win the most medals, which I suspect is what it was, which should be quite close and Australia is still in front, or of course whether it was who was going to finish on top in the medal tally. And...

ALI MOORE: In gold, and we're fourth.

KATE ELLIS: And that might get me in a bit more trouble, yes.

ALI MOORE: So where do you have to wear the Union Jack, which sporting event?

KATE ELLIS: We just said that we would wear the other team's colours the next time our two countries met, so whether that's in cricket, whether that's in rugby, whether that's in netball I'm not sure, I haven't looked at the fixtures as yet, but I'm trying not to focus on that, Ali I'm just cheering on those Aussies extra hard for these last few days.

ALI MOORE: Sounds like an optimist to me. Kate Ellis, thank you for joining us.

KATE ELLIS: [Laughs] Great to be with you.

ALI MOORE: Kate Ellis there the Federal Sports Minister who may well be heading towards wearing a Union Jack at the next sports competition between Australia and the UK.

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