Sports Minister Anika Wells hits back at Olympic sport funding critics; ‘we can’t give unlimited money’

The Minister spent a week in Paris, watching Australian Olympians win gold. But she says the federal government can’t fund ‘every good idea’ in sport during a cost of living crisis.

Federal Minister for Sport Anika Well has hit baack at the government’s Olympics sports funding strategy. Picture: Brendon Thorne/Getty Images

Federal sports minister Anika Wells has hit back at critics of the government’s Olympics sports funding strategy, saying “we can’t give unlimited money to all the good ideas in sport”.

Ms Wells, who spent almost a week in Paris before flying back to Australia on Sunday France-time, also called on sports like swimming to hire more female coaches and claimed the government was correcting an “injustice” by doubling its Paralympic funding.

The Minister, who also has a vice president role on the Brisbane 2032 Olympics board, said she “felt like an expectant mother” eight years out from the Queensland Games, and Brisbane needs to capitalise on its “once in a century opportunity”.

“We will have the eyes of the world on us, and having been here in Paris and seen the opening ceremony in person, set pieces like that give us the chance to show how we can be a world class city and people can come and have a great time.”

The Minister also wants to introduce quotas for the number of women on national sports organisation (NSO) boards.

Federal sports minister Anika Wells (back) at the Paris Olympics.

When asked if she was disappointed sports like swimming have few female coaches (there are no women in Paris for the pool events), Ms Wells said: “Absolutely. Full credit to them for delivering on day one (when they won two gold medals) but there are no female coaches and everyone will tell you that from the Chirnside under 9s swimming up to the Dolphins, coaches make a difference.

“And we need more female coaches.”

Ms Wells has been criticised by Olympic sports executives for not finding enough funding, particularly with the Albanese government putting up $240m to help build an AFL stadium in Hobart and the prospect of $600m funding for a future NRL team in Papua New Guinea.

One NSO president recently described the financial situation for sports as the worst in 30 years and the Australian Olympic Committee has said sport was in danger of failing the nation’s expectations unless it received $2bn in funding over 10 years.

“Everybody in sport has very good ideas on what to spend money on, but we are trying to be thoughtful and strategic about it,” Ms Wells said.

The government recently announced a new $283m funding package for high-performance sport, is putting $250m into the AIS, and doubling the amount spent on Paralympics.