CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT
The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, has come out against Anthony Albanese’s proposal for a public holiday if the Matildas win the FIFA Women’s World Cup.
In his position as the leader of a party that is not in power, Dutton announced $250 million in funding to be allocated to community sporting grounds across Australia over four years.
He said this would “capitalise on the national attention female sports are receiving” and would encourage state governments to match the Commonwealth.
Taking a break from his non-stop photoshoots with marginalised pharmacists and Aboriginal people who don’t know who he is, Dutton slammed the idea of giving Australians a public holiday to celebrate the World Cup and described it as an “ego trip” for the Prime Minister.
Instead, he would rather keep the economy chugging and spend a couple hundred million of building ‘womens sporting facilities’ which are exactly the same as mens sporting facilities, and will likely be prioritised for mens sides in literally every town and suburb in Australia.
It is an interesting proposal that the Opposition leader has put forward, considering his own party’s track record with spending hundreds of millions of dollars on ‘womens sporting facilities’
In fact, it could be argued that one of the most fatal blows to the Morrison government was the revelations that they had spent up millions of tax payer dollars on buying votes with over-quoted grandstands and football ovals in places that didn’t need them.
Throughout the led up to the 2019 election, the Coalition almost began spending money like drunken sailors through a pork-barreling exercise known as the Community Sport Infrastructure Grant Program – which almost entirely ignoring Sport Australia’s merit-based rankings of viable projects and instead funnelling $100m into marginal electorates and safe seats.
However, with a Matildas side stacked with players from under-resourced regions like the Illawarra and Western Sydney, Dutton feels that that maybe it’s time to tip a couple hundred million into the towns that missed out on his bribes last time.
Aside from a netball court, that also doubles as a basketball court in many towns, it is not known what constitutes as a ‘women’s sporting facility’ – and whether Dutton has any intention of funding any grassroots programmes that don’t directly benefit mens sport as well.
Either way, Australia’s womens soccer side have proven that they can reach the semi-finals without the support of fairweather politicians, after a nail-biting penalty shootout with France sent them straight through to a showdown with England in Sydney tonight!
LET’S GO TILLIES
