It’s time for a unity ticket to support Tokyo Olympics campaign

The Olympic rings outside the New National Stadium in Tokyo. Picture: Getty Images

In less than six months’ time, over 600 remarkable young Australians will don the green and gold in Tokyo to represent our country in the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Our athletes will no doubt rise to the occasion and do themselves and our country proud, as they have done so many times in the past.

On display will be the talent and indomitable spirit of the Australian athlete and their underdog, never-say-die mindset that’s enabled our success on the sporting field down the generations, imbued by our country’s profound love of sport.

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Over the past four years, the Australian Sports Commission has invested more than $500m on behalf of Australian taxpayers in preparing our athletes and teams for these Games. We do so proudly because we know it’s important to our country, and we believe in our athletes.

It’s truly a national team effort getting our athletes to the start line in Tokyo, one that includes the Australian Government, seven state and territory sports institutes and their governments, the Australian Olympic Committee, Paralympics Australia, more than 40 national sporting organisations, their state members, our Olympic champions and elite soldiers who are contributing, and the AIS’s many experts. And, most importantly of all, the families and communities that provide the grassroots support where the dreams begin.

The ASC and the AOC are natural lead partners in an Olympic campaign. Apart from our funding role, the ASC oversees athlete preparation through the AIS and its partners. The AOC’s key role is to represent the team at Games time and pay the costs of the team’s presence in the event. As the AOC says, it neither seeks nor receives taxpayer funding directly, but given that most of the costs of a four-year Olympic campaign are incurred in the years preceding a Games, the AOC and athletes benefit indirectly from taxpayer funding in a very substantial way. Without a partnership between the ASC, taxpayer funding and the AOC, there would be no Australian Olympic team, it’s that simple.

The spirit of operational partnership between our organisations, national sporting organisations and state institutes has been excellent in this campaign. While it’s natural and healthy that we don’t agree on everything, the AIS and state institutes have agreed a new national high-performance strategy and we’ve secured more funding for Tokyo preparations and for longer term pathways programs. We all agree on the urgent need for a renewal of the 40-year-old AIS campus and the need for increased program funding after many years of reduced ASC base appropriation.

It’s crucial for our athletes to keep this spirit of partnership going as the clock ticks down to the Games. Our athletes deserve the support of a genuine unity ticket for Team Australia to enable them to achieve their very best in Tokyo after all their hard work.

Recent negative articles in The Australian (a publication owned by News Corp, the AOC’s print media and digital partner for the Tokyo Games) criticising the ASC’s Olympic preparations and expenditures, under a heading “Games Over”, are hardly conducive to a positive environment for athletes so close to Tokyo. Frankly, they look like a pre-emptive admission of defeat before even a single starter’s gun has been fired, that does not sit well with our national ethos. Comments in a negative vein preceded the Rio Games, and it didn’t help that campaign.

It’s natural in the lead-up to a Games for there to be a focus on Games preparations, but the ASC does a lot more than that. Under our Act, we have a broad mission and mandate to promote and invest in sport and physical activity across Australia, including grassroots sports participation, physical fitness and skills for Australian children and teens, and improved opportunities for women and girls in sport.

These are investments in national long-term health and wellbeing. They’re also the foundation of success for tomorrow’s Olympians and Paralympians, not just today’s.

The ASC of course agrees there is a legitimate and important public interest in the value-for-money of our high-performance programs and expenditures, and we are committed to transparency and accountability as a public organisation.

We believe the right time to review high-performance programs will be after the Tokyo Games, when results and facts will be on the table.

With regard to recent questions, much is covered in our accounts which are a matter of public record. Further information will be provided on our website. We are conscious that our funding is public money and endeavour to be prudent with it. In the past seven years the average staffing level at the ASC has been reduced from 790 to 444 — a 44 per cent reduction. At the same time, high-performance grants to sports have increased from $106 million to $147 million. We make no apology for hiring quality talent, wherever they reside, to provide the best possible support for athletes and our goals. I am proud to chair an organisation full of talented and committed people who are passionate about Australian sport and physical activity.

A unity ticket is plain common sense in an Olympic and Paralympic year. It’s also essential longer term for these sports’ continued relevance and appeal. Young people with choices are naturally attracted to positive environments.

Olympic sports would be wise to look around at what’s happening in professional sports — good news stories abound: the rise of AFLW, the success of our women cricketers, pay parity for the Matildas.

Talent and money are ultimately like water flowing downhill — they’ll find their natural path. In the case of sport, that’s one of partnership, positivity and progress. So, let’s get on a Unity Ticket for Team Australia for Tokyo, and come on the Green and Gold.