"Stronger Communities"?

I must be living somewhere else. I had this rather odd idea that the grants given under the "Stronger Communities" fund were supposed to benefit local communities and everyone in it who participated in, or wanted to participate in, an activity run in that community.

These grants were limited to $150,000 for each of the one hundred and fifty one federal electorates in the country. They were used to buy things like air conditioning for club buildings, kitchen upgrades for the same places, for bike paths and skate parks, for storage spaces for equipment and more.

They were never intended to be for cultural signs, for social media sites, for turning facilities into gender neutral spaces or activities across a number of electorates for non-citizens. They were never intended to fund overtly political activities even if they did fund activities which favoured the incumbent party. They were intended to benefit everyone in the community. They were not intended to benefit culturally specific groups. That skate park the adults loathe can be loved by all skateboarding kids regardless of religion or race.

Now it seems that all this has changed. It has changed without consultation. 

"Payback for not voting yes to that Voice to Parliament Cat!" I was told yesterday. One of the regular library users who runs a small community sports club program for kids at risk told me. It looks like his request for a small grant to cover some essential costs will not be met. 

His cynicism may be justified. I do not know but I am well aware that there never seem to be funds for some very worthwhile activities. Recently I had a conversation with the secretary to one of the senators in our federal parliament.  I pointed out to this person that, while money is spent on sport for young people, money for other activities is much harder to come by. Sport is seen as being "good" for you. It is seen as making you "fit" and "healthy" and "a team player" and many other things. We keep hearing how important it is for children to "do a sport" or even more than one sport. 

While we also hear that reading is important much more time is devoted to sport. Then try adding something like woodwork or art, pottery, origami, embroidery, paper architecture or knitting to the mix and a majority of people seem to shrug. "Kids don't want to do that sort of thing any more." 

Really? Have they really been given the chance to do any of these things - really do them? They all take time to learn but they can be crafts for life. They can be done when the sports field is not in use and when there is no sport to be watched on television.  They are activities that can again be done without reference to race or religion. But it seems that those "Stronger Communities" grants are now looking at race and religion - and that is not the way to build stronger communities.