Big banks failed us at Games, says Peter Beattie

Banks need to do more to support grassroot and high-performance sports, according sport chiefs.

ARL Commission chairman Peter Beattie says the corporate sector ‘really needs to have a bit of a reality check’ and back sport at a grassroots level. Picture: AAP

Australian Rugby League commissioner Peter Beattie has urged big business to do more to support grassroots and high-performance sports, lashing the major banks for refusing to contribute any sponsorship for the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast.

The former Queensland premier, who ran last year’s Commonweath Games, said the corporate sector “really needs to have a bit of a reality check” and back sport at a grassroots level, as well as supporting Australia’s ­future Olympic champions.

Mr Beattie, Australian Olympic Committee chief executive Matt Carroll and rugby great Phil Kearns yesterday backed the ­nation’s peak sports body, Sport Australia, which warned Australian sport would continue to go backwards unless funding levels increased.

“It did annoy me that you have got Australia’s best athletes that are competing at the Commonwealth Games and not one of the big banks, none of the banks, would actually support Australian athletes,” Mr Beattie told The Weekend Australian.

“And what a lot of people forget is, OK, it is not the Olympics, but for us it is building blocks for our future stars, and Cathy Freeman was a really good example for that because she made her first real dent in the Commonwealth Games in Canada.

“I think Australian banking customers should actually be saying to banks, ‘Well, what are you doing about developing junior sport?’. Because we all know if they are investing in sport we have a healthier society.”

Mr Beattie said it was part of the social responsibility of the big banks — including the Commonwealth Bank, Westpac, NAB and ANZ — to invest heavily in sport.

“If banks just see their role, or even companies, just see their role as greed and profit then, frankly, I think they will lose a lot of their consumers,” he said.

“Consumers these days are ­really smart. They want to have a look and say ‘What are you doing with your profits?’.”

Sport Australia chairman John Wylie earlier told The Australian the nation would fall behind emerging countries over the next decade unless there was a “material increase” in funding.

Mr Carroll told The Weekend Australian the government should increase its funding by at least $60 million a year, which is the amount that had been cut from Olympic sports in the past eight years. He said Australia would struggle to regain its top-five place on the Olympic medal tally unless there was more investment from government.

“It is not just about gold medals but it is also about providing inspiration to the youth of Australia which then grows the participation base,” Mr Carroll said.

“Grow your participation base and you save a lot on your health budget. The current sports budget is about 0.1 per cent of the federal budget. Cricket, AFL and rugby league collectively spend more on their participation and community programs than the federal government spends on sports.”

A spokesman for Sports Minister Bridget McKenzie said the government had announced an extra $50m for high-performance sport in the lead-up to the Tokyo Olympics. “This is in addition to the $100m provided each year for our elite athletes and adds to the $230m investment to boost grassroots participation in sport,” he said.