Monday 23 June 2008
Estimates Committee B

SPORT & RECREATION FORWARD BUDGETS

Mr FINCH - Minister, in budget paper 2, page 2.6, Sport and Recreation, there is the forward estimate for 2009-10, which is $11 000 085.  It drops down in 2011-12 to $10 000 026.  I know that point 9 explains some of the structures that you are funding and programs that you are funding and that they will drop off the radar, but I am just curious about how the process works in respect of when you have got your budget, you need to set everything to fit into that figure and also for your forward estimates, you are not given a general sum.  Do you mean you have done forward estimates to 2011-12 to actually give you that figure?

Ms O'BYRNE - In terms of the programs that we have as an ongoing opportunity, they are things such as the state grants, the community recreation grants, the trainee subsidy program, the major grants program and the minor grants program.  A lot of these are driven by communities coming together and leveraging off their own opportunities for funding.  Where we see different projects being supported at any given time, I do not know what projects we are going to have in 2011-12.  They really are going to be identified by communities saying - I do not even want to say one in case I then create it for them.

Mr FINCH - It would create some excitement.

Ms O'BYRNE - If we look at the Waratah-Wynyard sports precincts plan - that was not in the Budget a couple of years ago because they had not decided that that was something they were going to do - these things tend to be driven by our capacity to assist communities leverage off other projects that they may have.  It would be very rare for Sport and Recreation or the Government to completely fund a project.  Even if you look at the hockey development that we have done here, I think $1.5 million was raised by the organisations themselves through our private loans let alone the fund raising that they did and the assistance they got from their national bodies.  So these sort of things tend to be based on the projects that come up at any given time.  I am sure that there will be a host more projects coming up.  I would not be surprised if football clubs in the electorate that you are representing, Mr Finch, might not come to us with a major project at some stage.

Mr FINCH - You might be right.  What I am really curious about is that here you are with a forward estimate for 2011-12 that is so specific, $10 000 026, with these things dropping off the radar and others coming on board, you might get submissions that might take that figure to $14 million or $15 million.

Ms O'BYRNE - I will be banging on the Treasurer's door if that is the case.

Mr FINCH - That is right.  That is why it seems you have got yourself limited there with that figure in 2011-12.

Ms O'BYRNE - I do not think that it does limit it.  It would limit us if there was no opportunity to leverage other government funds for opportunities that arise.  What these are around are the projects that we know we have a commitment to, when we think the peak of these fundings will be and when they will ease out.  The reality is that there will be more projects that come to us, and Government will assess them as well, but they are not coming from a defined Sport and Recreation budget, the money that we would seek to get from the Treasurer in order to support those projects.  This does not necessarily say that there would be never be another dollar for another project.