Ms Sarah Carney:

I thank the Senator for the question. It is slowly changing. My colleagues have touched on this already. There is a growing recognition that this is unacceptable and has been going on for decades now, with women's sport being deprioritised. The pace of change is where questions arise. Several things need to be tackled. There is an overall culture which sees men's sport as more valuable, more competitive and better than women's sports. That needs to be tackled. Colleagues mentioned having women's soccer on television and prioritising sports. There is a growing audience for this. There are steps that can be taken to address the visibility of women's sport and give it the same media attention and television run-time. This shows it is an equally valuable sport.

It has to trickle down to local levels as well. One will not get the same level of players or have the same number of coaches if women and girls are not encouraged from the very start to participate at an equal level, even at school level. It still happens with girls sitting on the sidelines and watching while the boys do physical education. If it still happens at that level, who will go on to be coaches? How girls are treated and viewed in sport needs to be tackled right from the beginning.