Unusual collaboration explores the potential power of sport

The Australian Olympic Committee and Commonwealth Games Australia are completely autonomous of one another - very obviously so in terms of governance and finances.

Both organisations are also independent of government - largely the result of careful investment of bidding fees from hosting Games in Australia and successful commercial activities.

While over time key personalities in Australian sport like Arthur Tunstall and Sam Coffa played roles in both, the two bodies have tended to do their own thing - mostly in peaceful co-existence.

Yet recently the two collaborated to produce a very classy submission to government about the immediate future direction of Australian sport. And it is far from your standard garden variety proposal seeking more cash to ensure Games success next time around.

But what is way more extraordinary than the two bodies coming together is how little attention this significant work seems to have attracted.

What is different about this plan or proposal or plea - whichever way it is best described - is that it is couched in terms of a helping hand for the federal government's five-yearly assessment of how the country is tracking generally.

Its 2021 Intergenerational Report involves an in-depth look at all manner of things in Australian society and the AOC/CGA submission - Sport: Powering Australia's Future (10+10) takes a detailed look at a whole bunch of those.

In the AOC/CGA's own words, the submission is "a strategy to reframe the relationship between sport and government for the benefit of the country".

Key among the areas addressed are the country's obesity crisis, mental health, education, nation-building infrastructure and the recovery from COVID-19.

Built around four key recommendations, the submission is well-researched, responsive to existing reports like the federal government's own paper - Sport 2030 and cuts right to the quick of an extensive range of both barriers and opportunities.

First it makes a call to develop an appropriately funded Implementation Plan for Sport 2030 to enable the sports industry to deliver the plan's objectives and contribute to intergenerational challenges.

Then there is a call to redefine the Sport Investment Framework so that it recognises sports' highly integrated operations of Participate, Perform, Promote and Provide.

Thirdly, developing and funding a national strategic initiative, in collaboration with AOC and CGA, for major sporting events would place the federal government, at least, back in the space of supporting major events.

While state and local government has done much heavy lifting in this regard for decades, the Feds have tended to pick and choose when to opt in since the early 1990s.

Finally, the inclusion of the AOC and CGA, as a representative of the sport industry, as part of current and future formal policy development activities it is suggested would reflect the broader value of sport in delivering government objectives.

In summary the two bodies contend that "the alignment of the forward thinking and transformational outlook required in formulating the 2021 IGR together with the international 2032 10+10 sport runway, presents a unique opportunity to deliver generational change.

"To achieve this change sport requires an entirely new blueprint for government investment that reflects the role of the sport industry in shaping the future of our nation and driving long term economic and social prosperity."

It is time for such a change in approach for sure. Australians have enjoyed an acceptable level of success at the top, but the nation's health is haemorrhaging. Attention to physical literacy and sports participation in schools has become a lost artform.

Still-willing volunteers struggle to deliver grass-roots activities under a mountain of compliance and governance requirements imposed by bureaucrats whose time could be better spent funding programs.

Some of those at the top should perhaps give (10+10) a decent thumb-through.