June 2018
Sport and active recreation will receive a major boost in NSW Budget 2018 with almost $537 million invested in local facilities and initiatives across the State.
Minister for Sport Stuart Ayres said a key priority for the NSW Government is reducing the cost of sport for families, creating more open green spaces and upgrading sports fields and facilities.
“Since the launch of the Active Kids voucher program in last year’s budget, more than 550,000 vouchers have been downloaded - saving parents across the State millions in sport and active recreation registration fees,” Mr Ayres said.
“The popularity of Active Kids has been so impressive that we have increased funding by $130 million. From next month we will invest more than $304 million helping families pay for their kids sport over the next four years.”
In addition to Active Kids, more than $200 million is being invested in upgrading and improving community sport facilities through the Regional Sport Infrastructure Fund and the Greater Sydney Sports Fund.
“We know that the main barriers to participation in sport are time and money. By providing easy access to good local facilities and helping the family budget by reducing kids registration fees we hope that everyone in NSW will enjoy the benefits of local sport,” Mr Ayres said.
“With investment across both grassroots and major infrastructure, this is the biggest sport and recreation budget on record helping us to tackle childhood obesity, encourage active lifestyles and draw our communities together.”
The 2018-19 NSW Budget includes:
- $130 million in additional spending for the Active Kids Program;
- $100 million commencing in 2017-18 for the Regional Sport Infrastructure Fund to increase the number and quality of regional sporting facilities;
- $100 million over three years for the Greater Sydney Sport Facility Fund to increase the number and quality of sporting facilities in population dense areas;
- $50 million to complete the National Rugby League Centres of Excellence program to support investment in elite training and community facilities;
- An additional $9 million over three years for the NSW Institute of Sport to contribute to the achievement of better national high performance outcomes at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games and Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games;
- $729 million for a new Sydney Football Stadium; and
- $183.7 million for the completion of Western Sydney Stadium.