The Sports Factor

A recent ABC forum in Darwin looked at new ideas for northern Australia, so where does sport fit into the future of one of the nation's most diverse and challenging regions?

Transcript

This transcript was typed from a recording of the program. The ABC cannot guarantee its complete accuracy because of the possibility of mishearing and occasional difficulty in identifying speakers.

Mick O'Regan: Hello, and welcome to the program.

This week we're pushing through the hibiscus hedge and heading for the Top End.

That's because earlier this week the ABC's Northern Territory branch hosted an important forum on Northern Australia, bringing together a broad range of people to discuss ideas for the future of what is one of the country's most dynamic regions.

And for me personally, as an infrequent visitor to Darwin, I have to say it was amazing to see the big changes under way there.

Now here at The Sports Factor, our interest was in the relationship between sport, recreation and community development. And on this week's show we'll hear from three people with specific expertise in that area.

First, Charlie King. Now Charlie King is the voice of ABC sports broadcasting in the Territory.

Second, John Ah Kit, a former Minister for Sport and Recreation in the N.T. government, and that government's first Aboriginal minister.

And then Mary Beneforti, a researcher into the impact of sports funding in remote indigenous communities.

So let's start with the man who, for Territorians, is just synonymous with sport.

Charlie first of all, welcome to The Sports Factor on Radio National.

Charlie King: Nice to be on the program.

Mick O'Regan: Nice to have you on the program.

If we're talking about the Top End and you had to sort of tell Martians about the key sporting interest of the Top End, where would you start?

Charlie King: Oh look, Territorians love their sport. All of the Territory love their sport but the Top End, more than anywhere else, because of the wonderful weather we have, and because we get Australian Rules Football 12 months of the year, and because we get cricket 12 months of the year, you just can't escape sport in the Territory. It is football, it is cricket, it is Rugby league, it is Rugby union, and the one thing that is unique I think about the Top End of the Northern Territory, is that people will actually play all of those sports, and they're able to play all of those sports. So that good footballers actually play Rugby league, they play Rugby union, the good baseballers play baseball and cricket; the good basketballers play basketball and a whole range of other sports. So it's a meltdown of all of those sports to a community that just absolutely loves getting involved in sport.

Mick O'Regan: Is there a sport drain? Is anyone with real talent sucked away into the NRL in Sydney or the AFL in Melbourne?

Charlie King: Oh yes, the good ones go, there's no doubt about that, and talent scouts find this a very rich hunting ground, as they've shown. Some of the AFL clubs have recruited some of the best footballers you've ever seen and footballers that show very little to us, I must say this, I always feel a little bit cheated here where you see these young Territory footballers playing week in and week out, and you think, 'Mmm, they're not so bad, they're OK, they're not any better than the other kids'. Then they get drafted. Then they go off and play in the AFL and all of a sudden they become overnight sensations and super stars, and you say, What was going on there? How come I didn't know about that?'

Mick O'Regan: So do you think that there's a constant lookout for the next Michael Long, the next Maurice Rioli, the next Andrew McLeod?

Charlie King: Yes, and these kids themselves feel the pressure of that. They have the Territory Thunder program here, which actually gives those 15 and younger and 16 and over players the opportunity to develop their skills at an elite level, but they know, those youngsters, that they have some big names that went before them, and that they have to play a particular brand of football. They know that's got to be exciting, they've got to have wonderful skills and they work very, very hard at being able to play football at 100 miles an hour, and have that ability, and I know you've seen it, where they can run at the ball so very, very quickly over-run it and turn on a sixpence, (you remember a sixpence) turn on it so quickly and get back and pick the thing up and kick it to a team-mate, and almost beat the ball in the air and get there to get the handball.

I mean they know that, and they're able to do it and they feel the - I think they feel the pressure sometimes about having to do that, so some of them, maybe just some of them drop away and think, 'Look, I can't do that', but the good ones who think 'I can do it', generally are able to.

Mick O'Regan: Now a lot of Anglo Australians talk about an indigenous style, particularly of AFL, but I think it also extends in to the rugby codes, where there is a - it's more of a looseness of style, it's an understanding, it's an intuition that comes in. Do you think that's true? Do you think that indigenous players bring particular skills to fast collision ball games?

Charlie King: I do. I think one of the things that indigenous players do, they play without fear, they play without feeling the responsibility of failing, of not getting it right; they play with gay abandon. They will just attack the ball at 100 miles an hour. I've seen this first-hand. I've played - and I've never been a great footballer myself, but I have played some football here, and I have stood against some of the great indigenous players that played football here -

Mick O'Regan: Tell me a name.

Charlie King: - and one, Benny Vigona, Maurice Rioli, but Benny Vigona in particular who went and played in the Western Australian Football League, he played for South Fremantle, the most gifted, talented footballer you've ever see. I played against him a couple of times; in the wink of an eye, in the blink of an eye, he's vanished from your sight, he's just gone. He looks as though he's not interested in the game, he'll stand there and drop his head, you'll do the same and then you look up and he's gone. And he never made a mistake.

He would run at the ball and you would chase him, and he would look as though he was going to over-run the ball, you would try and anticipate where he's going, he wouldn't go there at all, he'd come back the other way and there'd be this gap always between - I can never understand why it was that he looked to be travelling so slowly, and yet he was travelling so quickly. And I think there is the trick. I don't know how you do that, it's almost like doing that moonwalk thing, you know, you look at it and you think, I don't understand why this is. You try and catch him, and you just can't, and yet he looks like he's moving slowly. It's a great skill.

Mick O'Regan: Now beyond skill, what about the broader thing of where sport fits in. Obviously it's just gone past the first anniversary of the Federal government's intervention into remote communities in the Northern Territory; is sport a feature, to your knowledge, of those more remote indigenous communities?

Charlie King: It has to be, and there's one thing we need to look at very clearly here for those indigenous communities. They have their own role models. What we don't need to be giving those communities is role models from elsewhere, and as much as we love those great footballers that have gone before, and we mentioned Michael Long, there's Andrew McLeod that's playing football already for the Crows, there's a whole number of great AFL footballers. But on those communities, what they do need is their own role models.

What we need to do is elevate those role models so that the people on those communities, particularly the young men, can have someone to look up to that they know that they can emulate, not someone who they only may be able to emulate, who will be just a little too far from them. So that's the challenge here, is to help identify who is it on those communities that can become role models, how do we elevate them, and how do we then get the young people on those communities to actually look up to those young role models.

Mick O'Regan: Now Charlie, beyond indigenous issues specifically, the other strong feeling I get whenever I come back to Darwin is just how close to Asia we are. There's a strong Asian influence in this community. Is that reflected at all in sport?

Charlie King: Well there's certainly a lot of Asian people in Darwin as you will have noticed, and certainly a lot of Asian people play sport. The way we play sport, I don't think's been influenced by the way people in Asia play sport. Incidentally, I've just flown in today a few hours ago, from Bali, I've spent just a week there, and I watched some of the young kids there playing sport, playing football and a whole different range of sports. But they don't play it, and they don't do it the way the Top Enders do, but there is a real interest in what happens in Asia. Territorians look more and more to Asia than they do to other parts of Australia, but of course television and other parts of the media, bring us the bigger picture of Australia.

But there's an interest and a fascination on what actually happens in Asia. Many Territorians go to Asia for their holidays, so they are building some sort of relationship there; I know sporting teams want to go and play there. At the end of the year football teams, Aussie Rules teams leave here, go on holidays up into Asia, cricket teams go and play there, Rugby league teams, we've heard Rugby union, Singapore want to join the local Rugby competition in Darwin. All of that as it starts to happen, basketball the same, as it starts to happen I think we'll see a whole different way of playing sport in the Top End that will be influenced by the way in which they actually play those sports in Asia.

Mick O'Regan: Do you think the Top End should have its own AFL team?

Charlie King: Well I think they'd like to, but I just don't think they'd be competitive. They have a number of terrific players, but they're just not going to be strong enough.

Mick O'Regan: Is it about the sort of commercial depth here too? I mean as they say, to have a town that hosts an AFL team you've got to have a few people with very deep pockets. Is that one of the problems do you think?

Charlie King: Oh yes. I just don't know if there's enough big money available, it needs government all the time, to be throwing in the big money here to make those sporting events happen so they become events of exhibition, if you like, rather than competition for the Territory. We find it difficult, the Northern Territory find it very, very difficult to compete at the national level in any sport. I mean you have a look around at Territorians when you're here; they're not big people, we don't have a lot of big people to play sport in those body contact sports.

So we would find it really difficult unless we started to recruit more and more bigger people to play for us, and then what are we left with? We start to lose the way in which we play our sport. So it works pretty well at the moment. A sprinkling of very good fast fleet-footed, skilful Territory running Australian Rules footballers can make the difference between winning and losing a game for AFL clubs, and they know that, that's why they look here.

Mick O'Regan: Indeed, the Kevin Sheedy legacy. Charlie King, thank you very much for being on The Sports Factor on Radio National.

Charlie King: It's a great pleasure.

Mick O'Regan: Darwin ABC broadcaster, Charlie King, and look, what he doesn't know about Territory sport - well it simply isn't worth knowing.

This week our compass is pointed firmly north, and our focus is sport, culture and community in the Top End.

One of the keynote speakers at the ABC's North Australia Forum was John Ah Kit, the former Minister for Sport and Recreation in the Northern Territory government.

1995 saw John Ah Kit begin his ten years in parliament when he successfully contested the seat of Arnhem. And as I said, he soon became the Territory's first Aboriginal Minister.

John Ah Kit, first of all welcome to The Sports Factor on ABC Radio National.

John Ah Kit: Yes, lovely to be with you.

Mick O'Regan: As a former Minister for Sport and Rec. where do you think sport sits generally with indigenous Australians?

John Ah Kit: Sport sits high up there as one of the most important things that our children have to participate in. It's healthy, it keeps them fit, it keeps them occupied, and they show a real raw talent to be involved in sports.

Mick O'Regan: How were the sport programs aimed at indigenous communities, devised by your department when you were the Minister. What were the key criteria you were seeking to achieve?

John Ah Kit: Well we were ensuring that we worked with the Education Department to make sure that sports in school was important, and that they received a level of funding that should allow for sports to be played in the school communities, but we also on top of that, continued to outreach sports into remote communities b y putting on more sport and rec. officers. Either putting them on with the Department in the key major townships, like Darwin, Katherine, Tenant Creek, Alice Springs and Nhulumbuy, and Groote Eylandt, but we also funded sport and rec. officers positions. So there was a mix of sport going into the communities, and communities participated as much as they possible could.

In the real world, you're not able to get all the money you would like to for sports and rec., but one thing I have to say, and I still think it continues today, under my ministerial position, the amount of funding that we give sports in general in the Northern Territory, that is then to government, the current government, is something like 70% to sporting peak bodies and promoting sports in the schools and throughout the education system. Thirty percent is money that they have to raise themselves to meet their budgets.

If you look at Western Australia for example, it's the reverse. 70% has to be found by the peak sporting bodies. Now you know, we need to look at that and say Well, is that fair? Well obviously it is in a big State like Western Australia because they have more opportunities to receive sponsorship. There are more taxpayers that can contribute to the taxation regime that's in that particular bigger States.

In the Territory we don't have that luxury. But I don't think the Territory government has changed off that formula, and it would be a sad day if they did. Mind you, sporting bodies have to work hard to obtain sponsorship to meet their budgets, but they also can't rely on government most of the time. So it's a mix. And I think it's a good mix, and I think that we see the results in the sporting achievements. If you look at the Territory's population, if you look at the indigenous population, if you look at the Territory representatives across the sporting areas, you see that we punch above our weight, and we do quite well and we're proud of that.

I suppose what we've been also good at doing in the past was to encourage professionalism amongst the peak bodies. So we have the situation where the peak body supports the bush, but we also have officers on the ground in the bush and funding available to employ youth and sport and recreational officers so that kids are firstly getting good education, and secondly, enjoying the sports that they're participating in.

Mick O'Regan: Just back to the formula John, the 70/30 formula; is it more difficult for remote indigenous communities to make up that 30%? I would wonder how they would go about fund-raising for themselves.

John Ah Kit: They have their ways of fund-raising, and if you look at Aussie Rules for an example, you have the Tiwi Islands have their own local league. You have Maningrida, Galiwinku, they have their own local league. There is indigenous sides in the Nhulunbuy-Gove competition. They raise their own monies, they seek sponsorship, they get their own football guernseys and they get themselves organised. And the AFL-NT, which is the Australian Football League Northern Territory sends umpires out for finals and to help them and to coach other umpires that are local to better themselves in umpiring football matches etc.

So there is a lot of community support and sponsorship, and people know that they just can't sit back and wait for somebody to come up to them and offer a set of guernseys, shorts, socks, and footy boots. So they have their ways of fund-raising amongst themselves so that they can get the equipment they need to participate in a competition that is enjoyable for them.

Mick O'Regan: Tell me about your own sporting background. People have said to me that when I mentioned John Ah Kit, they said that you were a very big sports fan; do you have particular favourites?

John Ah Kit: Well I grew up in Darwin, born in Alice, grew up in Darwin, and Darwin was about 4,000, 5,000 people when I was a young fellow. We got taught Aussie Rules when we were kids, we played barefeet, and we really enjoyed it, especially in the Wet Season, sliding around all over the oval with a bit of mud and water. Then we were later on introduced to Rugby League, because that started to grow, and then as kids we just were sports fantatics. If there was soccer on, we'd have a go at soccer; we'd have a go at cricket, we'd have a go at hockey, so we played all these sports, but mainly the kids my age back then really participated in Aussie Rules and Rugby league, and enjoyed it, you know, there was a bit of basketball, there was a bit of everything. And most of our kids did well at a lot of those sports, but as you grew older you really had to concentrate on a couple and leave it at that.

Mick O'Regan: Did you have local heroes when you were a boy?

John Ah Kit: Well yes, we had Michael Ahmat, who was an indigenous basketballer who represented Australia at the Olympics in Tokyo in '64 and Mexico in '68. We had Bill Dempsey who went off and was awarded an MBE, played in many, many games, I think over 300 for West Perth, and he's a legend with our football club and with the Territory. They all did us proud and still continue to do a lot of work in fostering and encouraging participation in sports today, and I think what Michael Long's been able to do with the Clontarf College success stories that Gerard Neesham had worked on and developed through Perth, is now taking off in the Territory.

Mick O'Regan: But just on the Clontarf College situation, that's an academy that the Clontarf Club helped set up here in the Territory, but it comes with certain conditions, doesn't it, that the participants have to also get their studies under control before they can then play through the Academy?

John Ah Kit: Yes, that's what I understand to be the case, and I think that's working really well. You have lots of participation, you have lots of kids who are wanting to do well in Aussie Rules who see that it's a golden opportunity, but also understand that they have to also do well with their studies. You can't just turn up at school and do badly in your studies and expect to do well in your footballing ambitions, so it's a funny kind of income management system in place, you know, or a system that's being introduced shortly in the Territory where income management is going to be tied to school attendance of kids. That's something I'll keep an eye on.

I don't have a view on it at this stage, but certainly as Minister for Local Government I was prominent in getting funding for communities to apply for swimming pools so that we could tie swimming pools to school attendance, you know, where kids have to go to school before they're allowed to have a swim after school in the town swimming pool or the community swimming pool.

That's worked well in many places. In fact where communities didn't have a swimming pool, say at Mutitjulu, they actually told kids and implemented a policy where if you don't go to school, you can't come to the recreation hall and play the pinball machines, and the pool table. You can't be allowed to do that. Different sort of policies, which people and communities have been implementing themselves, and they've shown the initiative, and I think they need to be congratulated for that.

Mick O'Regan: Just on that community development, because I know there is a debate around how practical or how measurable the results are; if a government puts money into sporting facilities, people then want to know Well what's that done for the community? As the former Minister, how did you see that process? What did you look for to think Well that's money well spent, that's money from which we're going to get direct benefits for the community?

John Ah Kit: Well it was initially sitting down with the communities and especially with their community government councils, ensuring that they were genuine and getting good outcomes on the project they were about to embark on. And then this particular situation with regards to community development, many of those councils, those community government councils, showed a real commitment, and therefore it was workable. As long as the council's strong and the commitment is never-ending, then they will continue to do well in terms of getting good results with the education and getting their communities organised in a way to tackle the challenges that they face as they move forward.

Mick O'Regan: John Ah Kit, thank you very much for being on The Sports Factor on ABC Radio National.

John Ah Kit: My pleasure.

Mick O'Regan: The former Northern Territory Minister for Sport and Recreation, John Ah Kit. John retired from politics in 2005 to assist with the management of the Jawoyn Association. And he's currently Chairman of both Nitmiluk National Park Board of Management and Nitmiluk Tours.

Just on the issue of the impact of government funding on sport and recreation initiatives, research on the topic is somewhat thin on the ground. Which is surprising, given that one of the perennial concerns of both governments and community organisations is how to maximise the benefits that arise from taxpayer funded projects.

These days funding bodies want to know exactly what sort of 'bang' they get for their publicly-funded buck.

Of course one of the issues is how do you actually measure the anticipated benefits.

Well back in 2002 the Australian Sports Commission funded a research project to do just that. Mary Beneforti was the co-author of the report and I asked her what led to the report being commissioned.

Mary Beneforti: Essentially the Australian Sports Commission was interested in funding sport and recreation programs in indigenous communities, and they were particularly interested in seeing if there was a way of measuring health and social outcomes from those programs. And as there hadn't been a lot of work done in that area, they asked us to look into it.

Mick O'Regan: Right. And we should be clear, these are remote communities that you looked at?

Mary Beneforti: That's right, remote indigenous communities in the Northern Territory, yes, often referred to as Discrete Indigenous Communities.

Mick O'Regan: To use the language of the street, this is measuring bang for buck in a way. The Sports Commission was interested in what was measurable in terms of positive outcomes from the funding they supplied towards Sport and Recreation.

Mary Beneforti: Yes, that's correct. They were particularly interested in not just sort of physical activity or participation in the programs, but taking it a step further than that, so could we measure reductions in crime, or increased school attendance, or reductions in violence for example, in a community as a result of the implementation of a Sport and Recreation program.

Mick O'Regan: The idea that you can come up with a set of reliable indicators, that there are measurable variables in relation to this; is that a presumption that shouldn't be made?

Mary Beneforti: I think so in this area. Because it's certainly quite a complex area. I mean indicators are never perfect, they're always just summary measures. You know, you can't get the full picture. But I think this being a new and very complex area, you couldn't really go in with the presumption that you could do it.

Mick O'Regan: What was the methodology that you employed?

Mary Beneforti: First we did a bit of a literature review, national and international literature, to see if this sort of work had been done before and whether it had been applied in indigenous contexts, and we found that very little had been done. You could look at physical activity, and exercise and health outcomes, but you couldn't really look at the sorts of things that the Sports Commission wanted us to look at. So we did the literature review, then we visited a few communities, some in the north and one in Central Australia, and we also had key stakeholders, a reference group that we consulted with. So they were sort of the three major areas of the project, yes.

Mick O'Regan: So Mary, does it make sense to talk about specific findings of this report. Is it as if you came up with concrete outcomes that you could measure and evaluate?

Mary Beneforti: We did actually come up with a set of potential indicators, but we stress that you couldn't try and measure the health and social outcomes without trying to measure a few other things; things such as program functioning, had there been a Sport and Recreation officer in the community? Had that been a regular thing, or had it been a stop-start thing? Had there been regular funding? You had to have certain things in place first before you could even possibly imagine that you could get health and social outcomes out of those things. So first you had to have a stable program running in a community for a period of time.

If you had that, then yes, perhaps it would be worthwhile trying to measure some of these health and social outcomes. And if you could see across a range of different indicators that something was happening, that something was changing, then maybe together you could use these indicators to say that it suggested there were good outcomes from the program. But certainly there's a danger in just implementing a program and then finding that perhaps juvenile crime hadn't dropped, or school attendance hadn't improved, and therefore concluding that the program wasn't a success, there's certainly a danger in that.

Mick O'Regan: Mary, just on the specificity of this report, is it typical that funding is tied to specific social and health outcomes?

Mary Beneforti: No, I think it's very unusual. I wouldn't think that mainstream programs would be expected to perform on health and social outcomes. Having said that, it was definitely a worthwhile area to explore and I think as long as it's used in conjunction with other things, then perhaps you could see some very positive outcomes. But I just think you do have to be a bit careful.

Mick O'Regan: Right. Because earlier in the program we spoke to the former Minister for Sport and Recreation in the Northern Territory, John Ah Kit. He was equivocal in some ways but he did identify some concrete policy such as the no school, no pool policy where a child wasn't able to use the community pool unless that child had attended school that day. Are they the sorts of things that were relevant to your study?

Mary Beneforti: Yes, we did look at those, and they are very relevant, and I do think that is a good example of where you can measure something, because it's a fairly short turnaround, so if the kid doesn't go to school, they don't get to use the pool. So you can actually measure that, and I do think that's a worthwhile thing to do. There have been studies that have shown that with children using the pool in a community that there's a lower incidence of skin infections and things. I think you can also measure that. So there are a few things that are measurable, yes. But there has to be a clear link, a fairly clear and direct link between the two things. When you've got a lot of other things happening in between, it's much more complex.

Mick O'Regan: What was the ultimate outcome of the research that you did?

Mary Beneforti: Well to be honest, it hasn't gone very far that I'm aware of. I'm not working in that area any longer. Basically we proposed a set of indicators and a framework around those, but we also said that they would need a lot of testing, and as far as I'm aware, that hasn't actually happened.

Mick O'Regan: So there hasn't been a specific follow-up to evaluate I suppose the conclusions that you drew with Joan Cunningham.

Mary Beneforti: That's correct, not that I'm aware of, yes. Though I do believe that in communities for example where they've put a pool in or something like that, that perhaps there's some work going on by other people just looking at those no-school no-pool things, and whether there's been specific outcomes there.

Mick O'Regan: So it's an area that may need more research?

Mary Beneforti: I think it definitely needs more research, yes.

Mick O'Regan: Economic researcher, Mary Beneforti in Darwin.

And that's our show for this week.

My thanks to the ABC team in the Northern Territory, especially Mark Bowling and Charlie King for their generous help with this show.

For details on the North Australian Forum head to the ABC Local Radio website, and go to Darwin/features/naf and we'll put a link our website as well.

Thanks to Andrew Davies for producing the program to Costa Zouliou for technical production.

Guests

Charlie King
ABC sports broadcaster, Northern Territory.

John Ah Kit
Former Northern Territory Minister for Sport and Recreation.

Mary Beneforti
Darwin based economic researcher.

Further Information

North Australia Forum

Presenter

Mick O'Regan

Producer

Andrew Davies