Basketball Australia's Kristina Keneally slams funding for school sport attendance program

Basketball Australia (BA) Chief Executive Kristina Keneally has criticised Federal Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth Peter Garrett's decision to fund the Queensland Former Origin Greats (FOGS) program to encourage children to attend school - while at the same time cutting funding for the highly successful No School No Play program.

Keneally stated "it defies belief that Peter Garrett says he wants 'to fund programs that work' when he's slashing money from a proven and effective program that uses sport to get kids to school.

"For weeks, we've been calling on the Commonwealth to restore its small contribution - just $380,000 - to Basketball Australia's No School No Play program. Last year basketball's program saw 90% of participants improve school attendance and 80% improve their school engagement.

"Our program alone takes in 750 students in more than 30 schools across Western Sydney, Northern New South Wales, Tasmania and South Australia. 40% of those students were Indigenous.

"On top of that, No School No Play was run by seven other national sporting organisations all of which have had their funding suddenly cut by the Commonwealth.

"Yet today, the Gillard Government has decided to pour more than $4 million into a program that runs exclusively in Queensland by just one sporting code without putting forward any numbers to back it up.

"To do this at the expense of an Australia-wide program with proven results is just not a sound policy decision.

"While I welcome any investment in sport and indigenous education, it is clear the Gillard Government is yet again filtering money through to select sporting codes at the expense of all others."

To have a senior executive of a sporting code criticise funding for another code is unusual for Australia, but this is not the first time that Keneally has criticised funding of other sports by her former colleagues in the Australian Labor Party.

In April, when Chair of BA, she criticised the Federal Government's $8 million election commitment to support football in Western Sydney.

Bringing her skills from the floor of the NSW Parliament, Keneally served as the first female Premier of NSW from 2009 to 2011, the BA Chair was critical of the allocation of Government funds to professional sports organisations.

Questioning the fuding of the FOGS program, Keneally said the latest sports participation data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics in October 2012 was proof the Federal Government should put further funding behind proven participation programs.

She added "basketball has bucked the national trend and grown its already strong participation base among children even further shooting up 7.9% over the last three years, and 25% over the last six years.

"Yet between 2009 and 2012, nearly all other major participation sports including cricket, swimming, netball, tennis and Australian Rules Football suffered a decline in participation levels.

"That's testament to the strength and effectiveness of Basketball Australia's grassroots children's participation programs such as No School No Play and Aussie Hoops.

"We know that keeping children in school means giving them the best possible start in life and No School No Play has proven that sport is a powerful motivator in keeping students in class.

"Overwhelmingly, we see children across Australia continue to engage with basketball. That's reason enough for the Government to put funding behind our proven participation programs so we can continue to encourage even more students to lead healthy and active lifestyles."

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