Senator LUNDY (6:20 PM) —The Prime Minister's record on women is a stinker! This bold statement does not in fact come from me or from my Labor colleagues; it comes from an opinion piece in the Australian dated 6 October by Sarah Maddison of the Women's Electoral Lobby. This comment raises all sorts of aspects and appropriate reflections on events in this place over the last couple of days where we saw an amazing outburst by the Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Status of Women say that she felt WEL was a Labor front. The truth is that I think the Prime Minister's record on women is a stinker and it is especially apparent in his treatment of women in sport. That is what I would like to focus on during my contribution to this adjournment debate.

When the coalition was elected, one of the first things Mr Howard did was scrap the prime ministerial Women in Sport award. This award was very important in raising the profile of Australia's female athletes and creating role models for girls and young women. In fact, retaining rewards like the prime ministerial Women in Sport award is one of the specific recommendations in a report entitled An Illusory Image which traversed issues relating to the lack of coverage of women's sport. It was requested by the Australian Sports Commission and launched by the coalition back in 1996.

Despite the importance of this report—at least former Liberal sports minister Warwick Smith thought it was important—the government, unfortunately, has ignored virtually every one of its recommendations since. Now, after 3½ years of coalition government, we have sports minister No. 3 saying that something should be done about the lack of coverage of women's sport and the lack of public recognition of women and girls in sport. It is a bit hard to take, isn't it? Minister Kelly's record on women's sport is as uninspiring as the Prime Minister's.

The sports minister recently launched the coalition's policy on women and girls in sport called Active Women. Yes, the minister says, women are underrepresented in all aspects of sport and recreation and yes, they do face barriers to their participation in physical activities. The minister's sports policy clearly states that one of the government's principal objectives is improving the status, and greater public recognition, of women and girls in sport. I can only observe that they have an absolutely bizarre way of achieving this objective.

To help improve public recognition of women's sport, the government scrapped the prime ministerial Women in Sport awards, as I have mentioned, and to help assess the level of female participation in sport they allowed the Sports Commission to downgrade the Women in Sport Unit—not exactly positive steps towards improving the status of women in sport in this country. During the Senate estimates hearings the minister's department seemed unaware of the importance of the Sydney Olympics for women. Sydney 2000 marks the centenary of women's participation in the Olympic Games. It was only after repeated demands by the Labor Party that the government belatedly decided to commemorate this very important component of the Olympic Games.

The government has also failed to provide sufficient funding for Womensport Australia. This important and highly creditable organisation asked for $200,000 over three years but were given a mere $50,000 for one year, with no future commitment. The sum of $50,000 is not enough to run a national sporting organisation, considering that Australia is hosting the Olympics and the demand for their resources and services will be increased, particularly in the environment of this report being handed down. A range of very serious and specific agenda items are in the public arena for consideration by the government.

Another bizarre message emanating from the minister for sport is that female athletes should pose or play in revealing costumes in order to gain sponsorship. Whilst this is often debated with some triviality, at the launch of her policy on women's sport the minister told journalists that female athletes should emulate Russian tennis player Anna Kournikova, who, according to the minister, is able to attract enormous crowds because she is willing to push minimal attire and use her sex appeal. So the minister does not think it matters whether you are actually any good at sport as long as you are willing to do whatever it takes to get sponsorship dollars. This is ridiculous and short-sighted. There is so much more to women's sport. If a male minister for sport said these things, I would be outraged. For a female sports minister to express these thoughts, I am outraged and I am also profoundly disappointed.

As a result of the government's inability or unwillingness to address the structural imbalances in sport, sportswomen remain second-class citizens in the Australian sporting community. Australia's magnificent achievement in winning the netball world championship against New Zealand was an incredible event in our sports history. It was not tainted in any way—because nothing can take away that achievement—but how tacky it is when politicians who buy into the process of celebrating sport get it wrong. How awful it is. The letter of congratulations, which has been widely reported now in the press, made a mistake about the type of sport that was being played. How can the Prime Minister's office send out letters without checking them first for accuracy?

One of the most astounding things about this whole issue was that this wasn't the first time it had happened. I am convinced now that there is some glorious computer form letter constructed for the purposes of congratulating people on their sporting achievements, but somehow people keep forgetting to change the critical word in the last paragraph relating to the actual sport being played. As we know, cricket is very dear to Mr Howard. Perhaps cricket sits at the bottom of the default system of that particular computer program. Those who follow these events in the media will know that the letter congratulating the Hockeyroos congratulated them on their cricketing success.

After discovering this botch, no doubt there was a high degree of embarrassment within the Prime Minister's office. I look forward to letters emanating from that place that are not only accurate but absolutely resplendent in their attention to detail from here on in. The point here is very much one of understanding how important our role is as parliamentarians, as leaders in this country, to acknowledge and respect those achievements. We have all had a bit of fun ridiculing the Prime Minister's mistake in this respect and I think it has reflected very badly on his office, despite the effort, no doubt, being perceived by some as of good intent. But the issue is this: we must take seriously any opportunity we have to support and promote women's sport. The leaders of this country, the government and the Prime Minister, should reflect on the incredibly positive result that was derived from using a parliamentary function to focus on the achievement of women in sport. That is part of the role we have to play in raising that profile and supporting those people.

As a result of the government's Fawlty Towers approach to sport, the media has been in a bit of a frenzy in lampooning these letters of congratulation. This needs to be reflected upon very seriously within all offices of the government. They need to rectify that problem. The minister should be acting on the numerous recommendations about raising the profile of female athletes and providing detailed, concrete policies instead of his wishy-washy rhetoric, platitudes and just getting it plain wrong.

The Labor Party put in place a raft of measures and funded programs to assist women's sport. We created an environment based on equity of access. We created sporting institutions and infrastructure that allowed women's sport to flourish and overcome the historical barriers and obstacles that characterised our sporting past. But the coalition is not a forward looking party. Mr Howard's fondness for the fifties is reflected in his policies towards women in general and women's sport in particular. (Time expired)