New policy aims to break down barriers for women in sports

THE Borough of Queenscliffe council unanimously adopted a new Fair Access Policy at its meeting last week, paving a pathway for greater equality in community sports.

The policy seeks to address the barriers commonly experienced by women and girls in accessing and using community sport and recreational facilities, with the borough committing to work with local sporting clubs to ensure the sporting opportunities available to men and boys are also available to women and girls.

The policy has been initiated by the state government, with all Victorian councils required to develop and endorse a Fair Access Policy by July 1 to remain eligible for community sport infrastructure funding.

A draft of the Fair Access Policy was provided to the 13 sporting clubs operating on crown land within the borough, with feedback received from three.

“The high-level feedback has been that they understand it and they understand the intent and are happy to work with us on the next stages,” borough chief executive officer Martin Gill said.

Under the policy, the borough will prioritise community sports infrastructure access for women and girls in all current and future planning, policy, service delivery decisions, and support its sporting clubs to improve access by undergoing equality training, undertaking gender impact assessments and gender audits and/or developing an Equality Action Plan.

Mr Gill said the policy was not designed to “make the clubs feel bad”, but rather to “promote and support women and girls” in the community.

Cr Isabelle Tolhurst celebrated the move.

“I think it’s a great to see that this Fair Access Policy, albeit coming with a state directive, does speak [to]…how it links to our adopted Gender Equality Access Plan, providing more opportunities for women and girls in our community,” she said.

An action plan has been developed to assist in the introduction of the Fair Access Policy, which Mr Gill confirmed the borough would begin implementing across all sporting clubs.

“We’ll now start to speak with them about what the obligations on council are, but also what the expectations are on those sporting clubs from the state government.”