Our vision is for Australia to be the world’s most active sporting nation, known for its integrity, sporting success and world leading sports industry.

Our mission is to enable more Australians to move more often, to build the capability of sport to create a robust, connected industry, and to engender national pride and inspiration through achieving international sporting success.

We are driven by our shared purpose to contribute to improving the health and wellbeing of Australians and making communities stronger through sport and physical activity.

We believe unquestionably in the power of sport to reflect the very best in our culture and to be a strong vehicle for change.

From grassroots through to the pinnacle of elite international competition, we work together with the sporting industry and the wider community to champion the role sport can play in embodying everything Australian, and inspiring and activating people regardless of age, race, gender, cultural background and physical ability. Because sport matters.

The past year has been challenging and exciting as the organisation landed a new strategy and restructured to execute it. This change has positioned Sport Australia for a successful future and to deliver on industry first outcomes. We have identified seven strategic priorities:

• Embedding physical activity through greater engagement and involvement of children and youth in sport
• Increasing awareness and reach in areas which have a direct impact on physical activity and physical literacy levels
• Building workforce capability across the sector
• Improving the digital capability of the Australian sports sector
• Leading and enabling a united and collaborative high performance system which supports Australian athletes to achieve podium success
• Evolving a system-wide approach to athlete wellbeing for athletes to engage with and inspire the community
• Driving a leaner and more efficient organisation and building a strong workforce culture.

This is a critical time in Australian sport. A national sport plan, Sport 2030, was launched by the Australian Government in August 2018, providing a long term roadmap for Australian sport. Sport Australia will play a leading role in implementing this plan.

We have three key areas critical to reigniting Australian sport: the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS), Participation and Sport Capability.

The AIS has been transformed in collaboration with system partners, including the National Institute Network and national sporting organisations. The newly restructured AIS is positioned to deliver stronger high performance outcomes that are better connected to communities and provide meaningful value back to government.

Partnerships with the Elite Athlete Friendly Universities are helping the higher education sector better support high performance athletes. The AIS Athlete Wellbeing and Engagement team will set new benchmarks for athlete care.

Through the AIS Applied Technology and Innovation area we are able to translate our learnings about high performance athlete availability into the population. The AIS medical team continues to focus on those issues at the forefront of sport including genetics, gender and sophisticated rehabilitation practices.

Sport Australia has launched a national campaign, Move It Aus, to increase awareness of the value of physical activity as part of everyday life. This campaign complements a suite of grants programs that will make genuine impact on participation, contributing to happier, healthier communities.

Sport Australia is working successfully in the education sector to embed physical activity into children’s daily lives through schools. Our Sporting Schools program reaches 80 per cent of Australian primary schools and we are developing resources for teachers to ensure more time allocated to sport in the curriculum is spent being active. We will continue to advocate for the integral role sport and physical activity plays in the holistic development of children. Physical literacy remains a priority.

Sport Australia will deliver industry first capability building initiatives. We will have world class resources, toolkits and frameworks that the industry can access to accelerate their workforce from Chair to the community volunteer. We will have genuine partnerships with clearly defined roles for physical activity partners to reach more Australians.

We will continue to strengthen Australia’s position on integrity in sport. We have established a Sport Integrity branch that will work together with the implementation of the Wood Review to advance Safe Sport Australia and the redress scheme.

We will continue to strengthen relationships with the corporate sector.Further, we will explore new ways to ensure sport is integrated into relevant Commonwealth Government policy.

Thank you to Chair John Wylie and all Commissioners who provide outstanding leadership to the organisation and set a strong governance example. The support of all Board members is critical to the organisation achieving our very ambitious plans.

To be the world’s most active sporting nation we will need to take a systems approach which implies that enduring success is bigger than just sport and physical activity. Together we need to work with health, education and infrastructure among other portfolios to deliver outcomes for impact. Sport Australia is excited to have a seat at the table of ‘collective impact’ as we aspire for a healthier and happier Australia and more vibrant and successful sport and physical activity industry.

Together we will help Australians move through life.

Kate Palmer
Chief Executive Officer