Govt to study sports promotion role

Press, 15 August 1984, Page 3

Govt to study sports promotion role

By

OLIVER RIDDELL

in Wellington

The Government is launching an inquiry into sports development to chart its future role in promoting sport in New Zealand. Funds available needed to be used rationally and fairly, the Minister of Recreation and Sport, Mr Moore, told the Sports Foundation yesterday.

He was considering draft terms of reference for the inquiry and expected very soon to approach prominent sports administrators who might do the job. The inquiry would be conducted for six months and provide a blueprint. The inquiry would not be an unwarrantable intrusion by the Government into sports organisations, Mr Moore said. There would be full consultation by the inquiry with all interested

organisations. The first report would be a draft document for discussion before the Government committed itself to any recommendations that the inquiry made.

A review of the recreation component of the recreation and sport programme would be done by a working party set up from staff from the Council for Recreation and Sport and his own Ministry, Mr Moore said.

There had been no significant examination of what

the recreation and sports programme had achieved, or should have achieved, since its inception in 1973.

Mr Moore said these reviews would not mean that all propositions put to the Government during the next 12 months or so would be delayed. However, the previous ad hoc approach needed to be discarded, anda framework for developing sport and recreation put in its place. “I will be pursuing actively a role to be played by

sports people in the promotion of trade and tourism,” Mr Moore said.

“It has been lamentable in the past that the accomplishments of sports people have not been used imaginatively to promote New Zealand’s interests.” Mr Moore called for suggestions on how this situation might be improved.