David Pocock calls for ACT government long-term planning on sport infrastructure

A lack of sporting facilities has reached crisis point and Pocock said the lack of a plan was hurting the community.

It comes after The Canberra Times revealed Pocock will push for a Civic Stadium, rather than the government's preference to redevelop the 45-year-old Canberra Stadium.

It's believed Andrew Barr's government wants to rebuild the existing stadium at Bruce in two parts, rather than invest in a Civic Stadium that would revamp the city and provide a big boost to the Canberra economy.

There's increasing pressure on Canberra's community sports facilities, especially in the areas where's there's rapid population growth.

Basketball ACT blasted the Barr government for not having any funding for community sport in last year's budget.

They're constantly turning players away because of a lack of indoor facilities, with the fact WNBL powerhouse Canberra Capitals had nowhere to play finals last summer the posterchild for basketball's struggles to find places to play.

The ACT government has relied on new schools to build new indoor facilities, but Basketball ACT said that was just a band-aid solution with hiring from schools both expensive and unreliable.

Pocock said the government needed to come up with a long-term plan to address the issue Canberra-wide.

The Canberra Times did a study into the problem back in 2018, which highlighted all sports were struggling back then, and there still wasn't a plan in place.

"It was really clear during the campaign that there was a real need around community sport," Pocock said.

"We saw with the census just how fast Canberra is growing and the underestimate of our population, and sports are seeing that.

"We've got some of the highest participation rates in the country and unfortunately we currently don't have a long-term plan for infrastructure development to ensure that kids and people in our communities can get active, stay active and play a range of sports they want to play.

"There's some really valid concerns raised around the lack of focus on infrastructure in some of the new suburbs, but then also down south in Woden and Tuggeranong - people down there feeling like they've been missing out."

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Pocock said basketball was a prime example, but said all sports were suffering.

He also pointed to soccer's Home of Football at Throsby, which has seen costs balloon - due to a problematic creek running through the centre of the site - and Capital Football struggle to make up the shortfall.

Pocock felt it was an area where Anthony Albanese's federal government could step in.

The ACT's suffered years of neglect under Coalition government's, with their infamous "Sports Rorts" funding model - which blatantly targeted marginal seats to buy votes - never saw Canberra as a priority.

Pocock wants that to change.

He holds the balance of power in the Senate and Albanese has pledged to do more for Canberra during his term in office.

"It seems to cut across most sports," Pocock said.

"Basketball were one of the ones that were turning the highest numbers [of players] away.

"Last year I think they turned away 500 players just because their courts are booked out all the time and they've got underage games going late into the night.

"A lot of that has to do with the territory government, but we've seen across the country the federal government playing a role in that."

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