Recreation and sport strategy for SA

About

This consultation has concluded

You are invited to contribute your thoughts and ideas to help us support recreation and sport to thrive in South Australia.

What is being decided?

Having a vibrant recreation and sport sector is fundamental to the quality of life of all South Australians. It contributes to the wellbeing, happiness and lifestyles of our communities.

Most recreation and sport is provided by the community for the community. The Office for Recreation and Sport is a government agency that works alongside the sport and recreation community to help them provide opportunities for all South Australians to get involved.

The Office for Recreation and Sport is drafting a new strategic plan. The plan will identify our key priorities and guide our work for the next 3 years. To inform our plan we want to hear your aspirations for the future of recreation and sport in South Australia.

How can your input influence the decision?

Your comments will help us understand the support we can offer the recreation and sport community so all South Australians can enjoy the benefits of being involved. There are no right or wrong answers!

We want to understand why recreation and sport is important to you.

We want an insight into your vision for the future of recreation and sport.

And we want to capture some of the great ideas and practice already going on out in the community.

Provide your feedback:

• Post in the online YourSAy discussion board.
• Email your submission to the Office for Recreation and Sport.
• Mail your submission to: Office for Recreation and Sport, Strategic Plan project, PO Box 219 Brooklyn Park SA 5032.

Written submissions received may be made available to the public. If you do not wish your submission to be made public, please make this clear in your submission by writing ‘confidential’ on your submission. However, please note that confidentiality of submissions cannot be guaranteed. This is because submissions may be accessed by the public under the Freedom of Information Act 1991.

As well as listening to the community we are also inviting sport and recreation organisations, local government, members of parliament and other players in the industry to contribute their feedback.

Background

Sport and recreation is integral to the lives of many South Australians.

Approximately one million South Australians are involved as participants and almost one-quarter of a million South Australians volunteer for sport and recreation in some capacity. This includes 134,000 trained coaches and officials.

It is estimated that sport and recreation activities injected more than $615 million to the South Australian economy through profits and wages. The business of sport and recreation supports the employment of more than 13,000 South Australians (plus many more on a part-time basis). And South Australian households spent an estimated half a billion dollars on sport and recreation goods and services in 2009/10.

Sport and recreation was directly responsible for generating 300,000 visitor nights in 2013 through events that attracted either participants or spectators from interstate and overseas. Sport and recreation events also appeal to a lot of South Australians; an ABS survey in 2010 estimated 620,000 attended a sport event as a spectator, with many of these people attending multiple events.

Sport and Recreation provides many benefits beyond the simple joy of participating

Whilst it’s not the panacea for all of society’s problems, the benefits of recreation and sport are well recognised and supported by rigorous research. The benefits accrue to individuals, local communities and to society and can be categorised under the following broad headings:

• Economic
• Physical health
• Mental health
• Well being
• Supporting education
• Preventing at-risk behaviour
• Social inclusion
• Productivity
• Community safely

According to Canadian academics Donnelly and Coakly, “The reported benefits of participation in sport and physical recreation have been exhaustively catalogued. A review of literature indicates the consistency of findings, across cultures, of benefits… For example, in physical recreation activities children can learn valuable skills related to quality of life: intra-personal and inter-personal communications, determination, perseverance, confidence, leadership, citizenship, goal-orientation, motivation, and personal satisfaction. Participation has also been given an economic rationale in recent years as failure to provide physical education was significantly more costly, for society and governments, than providing it. In fact, Health Canada estimates that for each $1 invested in physical activity there is long term saving of $11 in health care costs.”

Conversely, the cost of physical inactivity in Australia is estimated to be $13.8 billion pa (KPMG-Econotech, 2008), which translates to approx. $1.035b for South Australia.

The benefits of recreation and sport summary paper can be downloaded here (PDF 335KB).

Trends impacting on recreation and sport sector

In 2012, the Australian Sports Commission commissioned the CSIRO to investigate the trends that will impact on the recreation and sport sector. The CSIRO identified six mega trends that are changing the way recreation and sport is both delivered and consumed:

• From extreme to mainstream – the rise of adventure activities and their transition into sport e.g. BMX is now an Olympic sport.
• New wealth, new talent – economic growth and sport development in Asia creates new markets, new opportunities and new challenges.
• Everybody’s game – demographic, generational and cultural change creates a need for more diverse opportunities.
• More than sport – sport is being asked to contribute to health, community and diplomatic objectives.
• A perfect fit – personalised sport and tailored training systems is on the rise.
• Tracksuits to business suits – market pressures, commercialisation and new business models.

What the Office for Recreation and Sport does

A short summary of the structure, history and role of the ORS will be added soon.