New ASC Board Chairman and commissioners

Warwick Smith has been appointed as the new Chairman. Warwick is a former Australian Minister for Sport and brings enormous experience from that role and the numerous corporate appointments he currently holds, including as the Chair of ANZ New South Wales and the Advisory Board of the Australian Equity Group.

Mike Turtur and Ann Sherry AO have also been appointed to the Board and the new Deputy Chairman is David Gallop. Mike, an Olympic gold medallist, is the Race Director of the Tour Down Under, President of the Oceania Cycling Federation and on the management committee of the International Cycling Union. Ann joins the Board as a former Australian representative to the United Nations forums on Human Rights and Women's Rights and is currently the CEO of the global cruise company, Carnival Australia.

These appointments will not only add invaluable expertise and diversity to the Board, they will also generate renewed momentum to the ASC as we move into implementation of the Commission's new strategic direction.

I am sure you will join with me in welcoming the new Board members and wishing them well in their deliberations on behalf of Australian sport.

New funding allocations

Many of you will be aware that the ASC Board decided to delay announcing any new high performance funding allocations to sports because of the requirements of the caretaker conventions.

While I understand the public reaction and frustration from some sports at the Board's decision, it's important to understand the impact of an election campaign on government departments and agencies. The caretaker conventions require that significant or contentious decisions are not made during the caretaker period.

Thus, in line with these guidelines, the choice made by the ASC Board to delay this funding decision is the right one and will allow the incoming Government's priorities to be considered in such decisions. I expect that this will happen very soon following the election and I have prepared to brief the incoming Government on sport funding recommendations and announce decisions once that occurs.

We also need to remember that all sports were given certainty of their existing 'base' funding levels and the process for allocation of the new funding only ever envisaged those funds flowing to the sports around the end of September when the successful sports had revised their high performance plans to take account of the Board allocations.

It is expected the election delay will mean that sports will be advised of both new high performance and new participation funding allocations at the same time.

The ASC is also working to have the new increased direct athlete support grants delivered in a timely way. We appreciate the importance of getting both the new sports and athlete support funds distributed as soon as possible to maximise their impact for London 2012 in the short term.

ASC system leadership

While much of the early focus of the 2010-11 budget implementation has been on the new funding allocations, the ASC has also commenced a number of other core activities including building capacity to undertake its new system leadership role.

I am pleased to advise that Judy Flanagan has been appointed as Director of System Leadership and Jenny Holliday as Assistant Director, Planning and Coordination within the System Leadership division. Other recruitment is progressing and I expect you will soon see evidence of our critical system-focused work in coming months.

Until next time

Matt Miller
Chief Executive Officer
Australian Sports Commission