It has not yet seen the light of day and I now call on the Sports Minister to release the Crawford Review into sport.  I cannot think of another review into sport which has gone as long as this.  I cannot think of another Government review which has gone as long as this and this has been a substitute for leadership.

There are now signs- the latest being the Australian Olympic Committee coming out and saying that all of the gains Australia has made over the last 20 years are now being undone by a lack of leadership and a lack of direction.  No sports have had their funding guaranteed past June next year. 

And it looks like if the Olympic Games were held this year we would be at our worst level of performance in the last 12 years.  So the Sports Minister needs to release the Crawford Review- she needs to release it without any further delay and needs to also commit to responding to the Review by the end of the year.

Now just on employment as well. There is a story in The Age based on information out of Estimates which confirms that there are now a quarter of a million job seekers who are now languishing in the Government’s new employment services system . 

These are Stream 1 job seekers but they are receiving the lowest level of service- they are receiving almost no service at all.  And most of these job seekers- many of these job seekers are either school leavers, young Australians, or parents returning to work.  And it is absolutely critical that the Government looks at this lack of early intervention in their own employment services system.

Reporter- (inaudible)

Andrew Southcott: We want to see first of all the Crawford Review.  We want to see the Crawford Review.  I’m not in a position to be announcing our policy with regard to sport or Olympic funding.  But there has been no sports policy from the Government since they came in.  They went to the election without a sports policy.  They still do not have a sports policy.   We have just seen drift for 14 months in the Olympic area and it is now critical for the Government to release the Crawford Review.  They have deferred taking any major decisions until this review is out.  And all Australians and all in the sporting world need to see this Review- need to see David Crawford’s recommendations and then we’ll be in a much better position going forward.

Ends