Federal Budget targets growing obesity crisis through sport with $154.3 million pledge

TACKLING our growing obesity crisis through sport is a key centrepoint of this year’s budget with $154.3 million pledged to get Australians, particularly kids, more physically active.

TACKLING our growing obesity crisis through sport is a key centrepoint of this year’s federal budget with $154.3 million being pledged over five years to get Australians, particularly kids, more physically active.

A total of $41.7 million of that cash will be directly for the Sporting Schools Program to expand to a total of 5200 primary schools and 500 secondary schools to provide free sport based activities for students.

The Coalition will also provide $4 million to Football Federation Australia (FFA) to assist in preparing a bid for the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup.

A measure that is set to outrage some in the sport sector due to FIFA’s well-documented corruption allegations in the bidding process.

Moves to keep our athletes clean will also see $10.1 million in 2018-19 for improved anti-doping and testing.

A total of $28.9 million will be provided over four years from 2018-19 in the federal budget to assist national sporting organisations to increase participation in sport.

MORE: Budget winners and losers

MORE: What Budget means for you

MORE: Your five-minute Budget guide

MORE: Everything you need to know about the Budget

$4 million has been provided to FFA to bid for the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup. Picture: AAP

Another $11.8 million has been flagged to expand the existing Local Sporting Champions program to support young Australians to participate in state, national and international sporting championships and $3.4 million is slated for a continuation of the AusPlay participation survey to improve understanding of the activity habits of Australians.

A further $6.3 million is also being rolled out to develop the Safe Sports Australia program and a national sports injury database to improve the safety of sports participation by young people.

Almost $30 million will be spent in 2018-19 to deliver up to 500 local community sporting infrastructure development grants of up to $500,000 to improve community sporting facilities.

News Corp Australia last week revealed reveal the latest data on kids participation in sport which showed in 2017, 3.5 million children aged 15 and under (74 per cent) participated in some organised sport or physical activity outside school hours, compared with 3.2 million (70 per cent) in 2016.

But while there was a jump in participation, 55 per cent of kids aged 12-14 still either don’t like physical activity or see it as a priority, this falls to 25 per cent of 9-11-year-olds and 18 per cent of 5-8-year-olds.

And although participation increased in 2017, kid’s waistlines are continuing to grow, with one in three children expected to be obese by 2028, according to Obesity Australia.

In 2017 Australian parents spent $2.1 billion on organised children’s sport and physical activity outside school hours last year.

The most expensive sports nationally were dancing, taekwondo and gymnastics.

Meanwhile, cricket lovers have won the toss in the budget with the government gifting a massive tax break to a subsidiary of the International Cricket Council to help it stage the ICC World Twenty20 in Australia in 2020.

The company will get a five-year income tax exemption.

It will also get an exemption from interest, dividend and royalty withholding tax liabilities for five years.

The tax break won’t cost the government anything but the tax revenue would have been a tidy windfall.

[e-mail]

@pollietracker