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Olympic Results and Sports Training in Australia 2UE Mike Carlton and Sandy Aloisi 21 August 2008

MEDIA: 2UE

DATE: 21 August 2008

TRANSCRIPT: Interview , Minister for Sport, Kate Ellis is interviewed about Olympic results and sports training

Sandy Aloisi: Good morning and as far as the Olympic Games go, Australia now fifth on the medals table. We have 11 gold, 12 silver, 13 bronze, a total of 36 medals and I suppose the fact that Britain's now two spots ahead of us, Great Britain third and Russia fourth, it brings to mind all the controversy and debate that we've had over the past 10 days or so of the games, over sports funding. And despite our gold medals, Australia's head swimming coach Alan Thompson says...

Mike Carlton: More Money...

Sandy Aloisi: ...we will...

Mike Carlton: ...let's have more money.

Sandy Aloisi: ...need more money, if we want continued...

Mike Carlton: Oh, yes.

Sandy Aloisi: ...success in the pool. And I suppose that goes across all sports and the issue, of course, brought to a head as the British continued to pour money into all their athletes and, as a result, they're taking home lots of medals and look like doing just as much for the London Olympics in four years time.

The Minister for Sport Kate Ellis has had a bit of a bet going on with her counterpart in England and she joins us on the line.

Good morning Minister.

Kate Ellis: Good morning. Great to be with you.

Sandy Aloisi: Thank you. It looks like you might be loosing that bet at this point.

Kate Ellis: I wish people would stop reminding me of this first thing in the morning. But I understand I might not have been the only one to make perhaps a bit of a silly bet with the UK and...

Mike Carlton: [Interrupts] What was the bet....

Kate Ellis: ....Mike - Mike might be in a spot in a spot of trouble as well, is that right?

Mike Carlton: Me?

Kate Ellis: Yeah.

Mike Carlton: Did I make, oh, quite possibly did.

Sandy Aloisi: I think he might have been doing a bit of bragging Minister, shall we say.

Kate Ellis: Yes. Well, I guess it's my job. I will always back the Australian Aussies, but at times like this I guess I wish that I wasn't so [indistinct] by that.

Mike Carlton: What was the bet? What are you going to have do, where the Union Jack or something?

Kate Ellis: Yeah. The deal was that the loosing Minister would have to wear the other team's colours the next time our two country's met. So I'm not sure whether I'm going to get out of the sporting ground alive on Australian soil. But, there you go. I'm not one to shirk on a bet.

Mike Carlton: Could be tricky. Could be tricky.

Sandy Aloisi: But what about the issue of sports funding? Do our athletes get enough? I mean do Australians really want to put more money into sports? What do you think?

Kate Ellis: Look, I think that the Australian Government and indeed the Australian taxpayers are incredibly generous supporters of sport in this country and I honestly believe that we over simplify things when we say that it's just about funding. Australia has punched above our weight for a long time and the reason we've done that is not because we've poured more money in than these larger populations and larger economies, it's because we've been smarter in the way that we do spend the dollars we put in. And that's where, I think, we need to focus on reforming our system and staying ahead of the pack and focusing on sports science and technology and ensuring that we still have the most innovative system. I think that that's the first step.

Mike Carlton: The one they're all yelling about at the moment though is keeping the coaches in Australia. A number of very good Australian coaches have headed off overseas, simply because they're paid better. How can you stop that?

Kate Ellis: Well simply I don't know that we can stop that...

Mike Carlton: Yeah, exactly.

Kate Ellis: ...and that's actually not a new phenomenon. It's a global marketplace and each individual coach has a decision to make and I mean I spoke to many when I was at the Olympics who said that they coach and they coach Australia because they want to do something for the country and they like seeing the green and gold succeed. Where as others, of course, will chase the highest dollar and this is a profession to them and that's really an individual choice for them. I don't think that we can get in a bidding war with economies which are four or five times the size of ours. That's, frankly, just not a viable solution.

But what we can do is make sure that we recognise the enormous efforts of our coaches and I think we can do a better job of that. And we can train and support them better.

Sandy Aloisi: You said something about changing funding and the way it's done at the moment. Are you talking about at the elite sports level? Or are you looking at amateur sports as well?

Kate Ellis: I think they're looking across the board. I announced and put out a directive over a few months ago, saying that I thought that this was a really opportune time for us to have a look at the sports system as a whole and how we can streamline it, how we can create real pathways right from junior and grass root sport, right through to elite. And how we can remove areas of duplication, because at the moment we have a system that has been set up with obviously the Federal structures, but then the State Government structures and State institutes and then some regional academies as well, and I think it's time that we had a look at how we can get all of those levels working together, to a better - to a better degree. And that might mean that it actually frees up some money that can go towards, for example, supporting coaches, or other areas where there is a great need. And I think...

Mike Carlton: And will...

Kate Ellis: ...it's time we keep moving forward.

Mike Carlton: What about a HECS system? You know, if you go to the Australian Institute of Sport, and you become very successful and you win a lot of gold medals, and then you become a multi-millionaire with lots of sponsorship deals and you're advertising everything from, you know, undies to mobile phones, why shouldn't you pay a bit of that back?

Kate Ellis: Well, I mean there's no reason you shouldn't pay it back in that particular case...

Mike Carlton: Yep.

Kate Ellis: ...except that what we've seen is that this is something that's been thrown up time and time again and it's been looked at by government and we've actually seen that the number of athletes that go on and actually make livings and get...

Mike Carlton: Yep.

Kate Ellis: ...good salaries is very low. And, in fact, it would probably cost more to set up the system and to have the bureaucrats monitoring it, than it would get in return...

Mike Carlton: You can see the logic.

Kate Ellis: ...[indistinct]of those athletes.

Mike Carlton: I can see the logic, but some of those multi-millionaires, and there are a few, you know, I mean and not just - I'm not just talking through them, there are others as well, wouldn't be, wouldn't be a bad thing if they wrote a cheque would it, for the cost of their training?

Kate Ellis: Well I know that if there are one or two of the people in that category, the issue is the costs involved in setting up the system for the amount of money we'd get back.

Mike Carlton: Mmm. All right.

Sandy Aloisi: Minister, can I just ask you something that's a little related, but it's slightly out of left field. This story...

Kate Ellis: Sure.

Sandy Aloisi: ...of compulsory student union fees and the Government possibly reintroducing them, because I understand that sport at uni's has really gone down hill since that was abolished.

Kate Ellis: Look, we've seen some devastating consequences of the VSE legislation. And as the Sports Minister I'm particularly concerned about some of the impacts we've seen on sport, because I think there could be long-term consequences of that.

I did a tour around the nation of - visiting the different universities and talking to the different groups about what the impacts were and it was quite devastating in the sporting area that - some examples were we saw that they'd had to increase the costs of fees to participate, in some cases up to 80 per cent. And they'd seen their participation rates drop. Now I'm really concerned about what happens if we have less people participating in sport and physical activity, not just from an Olympic level, but obviously from a health level as well. So [indistinct]...

Mike Carlton: [Interrupts] There are some reports...

Kate Ellis: ...that the Government...

Mike Carlton: ...yeah, reports this morning, that the Government may reintroduce student union fees, possibly on a slightly different basis to the way they had them. Is that going to happen or not?

Kate Ellis: Well what we have said is that there's three options. If we want to fix this then we either have to look at government stepping in and funding these services. We have to look at universities stepping in and funding these services, or we have to look at students making a contribution to these services. Those were the three options we put out before we did the consultation. And we had some mixed responses come back about what the best way forward was and, indeed, the fourth option is a combination of those three. So that's something that the Government will be considering as the transition funding runs out [indistinct]...

Mike Carlton: [Interrupts] All right, is it, is it...

Kate Ellis: [indistinct]

Mike Carlton: ...up before Cabinet?

Kate Ellis: ...at the end of next year.

Mike Carlton: Oh, okay. All right. So there's not going to be a...

Kate Ellis: Oh sorry, at the end of this financial year, that funding runs out. So it's something that the Government will have to consider and make some decisions on going forward.

Mike Carlton: All right.

Sandy Aloisi: Okay, Minister. Thanks for your time this morning.

Kate Ellis: Lovely to speak to you.

Mike Carlton: Thank you. Kate Ellis, the Minister for Youth and Sport. I think she's the youngest minister in the cabinet, if not the youngest MP in Parliament, or very similar anyway.

Sandy Aloisi: Whose going to have to wear British colours when she next meets her counterpart for talks.

Mike Carlton: The [indistinct].

Sandy Aloisi: Yeah.

Mike Carlton: Interesting about that student unionism thing. I mean cancelling student union fees or cutting them out, you know, the Howard Government's decision, was a piece of stupid blind ideology, basically by people like Howard and Abbott and so on, and absolutely shattered a lot of activities at universities. Sport chief among them. Just disastrous.

Sandy Aloisi: Yeah, and a lot of other services as well.

Mike Carlton: Just disastrous.

Sandy Aloisi: I understand the Rudd Government is considering paying a fee, making that compulsory, but not necessarily making it compulsory to join the student union, that's the fine line that makes it different.

[END]

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