Tokyo Olympics 2020: Cash-strapped Aussie athletes shocked by government funding revelations
Facing financial ruin and the real threat of depression just for the chance of representing their country, Australia’s greatest Olympians thought their sports-mad Prime Minister would step up to the table. Shocking funding revelations reveal just how wrong they were.
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When he’s having the Test cricket team over for dinner at Kirribilli House or running the water bottles for the national rugby league side or sitting in the stands at Shark Park with his jersey on, Scott Morrison looks every inch the cheerleading captain that the Australian sporting public expects from a Prime Minister.
That’s what Australia’s cash-strapped Olympians thought, too, before they finally got to meet him behind closed doors when the cameras weren’t rolling.
Facing financial ruin and the real threat of depression just for the chance of representing their country, around 300 of Australia’s greatest Olympians and Paralympians signed a petition asking the Prime Minister to reverse the funding cuts that are strangling high-performance sport.
With the Federal Election looming, the two athlete representatives – former Wallabies captain Phil Kearns and Olympic gold medallist Kim Brennan – were both genuinely hopeful, but they left the meeting disappointed.
Morrison listened to the harrowing tales they told him about the day-to-day struggles Australia’s athletes face but he told them there just wasn’t enough spare cash around to help them and high-performance sport just wasn’t a high priority.
This week Australians found out exactly what those priorities were with the release of a damning report by the auditor-general.
It revealed the former federal sports minister Bridget McKenzie had splashed out millions of dollars on sports grants in targeted marginal seats after rejecting hundreds of recommendations from Sport Australia on other programs that needed funding.
As shocking as the revelations were, no one in Australian sport was the least bit shocked because they’d seen this coming a long time ago and have been shouted down as overpaid, pampered puppies every time they’ve dared to stick their hand out.
“A lot of athletes out there should feel really disappointed in what this Government’s done,” Kearns told The Saturday Telegraph.
“It’s not surprising because it was clear when we first started this campaign that the Morrison Government didn’t give two hoots, really, about sport unless it was going to be advantageous to them politically,” he claimed. “This is another slap in the face to all genuine athletes who have the potential to go to the Olympics and be future Olympians.”
The Government’s done a slick job ignoring pleas from athletes for help and showing bias when it comes to where sports funding needs to go.
But ordinary Australians know the problems struggling athletes face are real and crippling for them and their families.
Sport is part of Australia’s DNA yet a special investigation by The Daily Telegraph revealed our best athletes are battling serious mental health issues, uncertain futures and major financial problems because they’ve been left to pick up the bill because of the Government’s funding cuts.
The Daily Telegraph has spoken to dozens of Australian athletes who hardly have enough money left over to feed themselves or are sleeping on lounges and having to walk to training because they can’t afford to pay for transport.
Many are missing out on sleep because they’re working part-time jobs around the clock while shooter James Willett’s parents sold their family farm in the midst of one of the worst droughts in years to fund their son’s sporting dreams.
“There are a lot of stories out there,” Kearns said.
“I know families who have had to sell their car to be able to send their kids off to sporting events. I know the girls in the boxing team who are selling T-shirts on Facebook to try and get enough funding to try and get to the Olympics.
“These athletes are not wealthy. Most of them are living hand to mouth and it’s not fair that we don’t treat our athletes with the respect that we deserve. So many people give up a whole lot of money to ensure their kids can achieve their dreams, and the Government just putting (funding) into where it doesn’t really need to go is just a slap in the face for people who are really struggling.”
The Australian Olympic Committee says funding has been slashed by 20 per cent in real terms over the past eight years, which has resulted in a sharp decline in Australia’s performance at the Olympics.
After finishing fourth on the medals table at Athens in 2004, Australia plummeted to 10th at Rio in 2016 while other nations are laughing in our faces and increasing their funding levels because of the community benefits sport provides.
The AOC asked the Government for a comparatively modest $60 million extra per year to get back to previous levels — not just for elite athletes but also to increase community participation and reduce obesity levels. It was told there just wasn’t any extra dough to go around.
Then they had their noses publicly rubbed in when the Government unveiled a $385 million sports package in the pre-election budget.
That included around $100 million to feather the nests of the most popular professional sports already backed by billion dollar broadcast deals and $100 million for “grassroots” sports, which the Opposition now claims was used for cynical “pork-barrelling”.
A two-time Rugby World Cup winner who has experienced first-hand the positive impact sporting success has on Australians, Kearns said he fears the Government won’t loosen the purse strings unless there’s a political advantage to be gained.
That will come just before the next election — with Southeast Queensland bidding to host the 2032 Olympics — but Kearns said it could backfire much sooner if Australia bombs out at this year’s Tokyo Olympics and the Government once again did not act after being warned in advance.
“Maybe at the next Olympics if we see the results and they’re disappointing, Scott Morrison might wake up then to how important sport is to this country,” Kearns said.