Sport is a core part of our lives in Victoria. Everyone has the right to fully participate and reach their full potential. Without this change, women and girls will continue to face unfair circumstances and experience more barriers to sport than men and boys. This creates an unequal playing field.

No. The Fair Access Project is being rolled out across the state of Victoria.

The project is in response to the Victorian Government – Office for Women and Girls in Sport 2022 Fair Access Policy Roadmap. This Roadmap was developed following the 2015 ‘Inquiry into Women and Girls in Sport and Active Recreation..’

Amazing, so you’ve already started on your journey to creating an inclusive environment for women and girls! The Fair Access Policy helps you extend upon this by ensuring that grounds and facilities are accessible for all genders.

Unfortunately, it is still common for men and boys to be given the best and most popular training times as well as being allocated to the best and newest facilities. The Fair Access Policy will support clubs to give everyone an equal opportunity to use the best facilities at the best times.

This project has been initiated in response to the Victorian Government Office of Women and Girls - 2022, Fair Access Policy Roadmap. 

Fair, inclusive and safe places to connect, participate and exercise are a basic human right.

We will use the following Victorian Government’s Fair Access Principles to guide the development of our Fair Access Policy and Action Plan:

1 Community sports infrastructure and environments are genuinely welcome, safe and inclusive

2 Women and girls can fully participate in all aspects of community sport and active recreation, including as a player, coach, administrator, official, volunteer and spectator

3 Women and girls will have equitable access to and use of community sport infrastructure:

a) Of the highest quality available and most convenient

b) At the best and most popular competition and training times and locations

c) To support existing and new participation opportunities, and a variety of sport and recreation activities

4 Women and girls should be equitably represented in leadership and governance roles

5 Encourage and support all user groups who access and use community sport and recreation infrastructure to understand, adopt and implement gender equitable access and use policies

6 Prioritise use and support to all user groups who demonstrate an ongoing commitment to gender equitable access and use of community sport and recreation infrastructure

The development of a Fair Access Policy and Action Plan is not legally mandatory but will be required to be in place for Council to secure funding from the Victorian Government for sport and recreation infrastructure.

To ensure that our sport and recreation infrastructure is maintained and developed to an appropriate standard, securing external funding is critical and as such we are developing the Fair Access Policy and Action Plan to comply with this requirement.

Yes and no. The Fair Access Policy is about considering the needs of women and girls in addition to the men and boys at your club. The policy does not ask you to take away time from the men or boys, it just asks that consideration is given to women and girls when scheduling games or training sessions. Remember, you are one club – so the success of all teams is what you’re striving for and you need to fairly equip everyone for this!

Men have a vital role to play in building a world that is gender equal – and there are many men who are already working towards this. Being open to change and shifting away from tradition is a simple way that men can help. Afterall, if we all left things ‘the way they’ve always been’ then the world would be stuck in the past.

The Gender Equality Act 2020 requires Victorian organisations, including local councils, to take positive action towards achieving gender equality and consider and promote gender equality in their policies, programs, and services.

Policies, programs and services that relate to community sport and recreation are considered to have a direct and significant impact on the public. As such, local governments are required under the Act to complete Gender Impact Assessments and to consider and promote gender equality in these community sport policies, programs and services.

This is where the Fair Access Policy Roadmap comes in. The roadmap outlines the key steps on this journey and provide guidance to fulfil these requirements.

For more information about the Fair Access Policy Roadmap please visit: Change Our Game | Fair Access Policy Roadmap