Bulletin

Issue: March 2006

Commonwealth Games

‘Summit’on sport policy

La Trobe University held a ‘Sport Policy Summit’ on the even of the Commonwealth Games. The conference involved a top-level sport delegation from the Dutch government, who were in Melbourne for the Games.

It also celebrated 400 years of relations between the Netherlands and Australia: 1606 was the year Dirk Hartog landed on the West Australian Coast on board the Duyfken, a trading vessel of the Dutch East India Company.

Head of La Trobe Sport, Tourism and Hospitality Management, Dr Hans Westerbeek, said topics covered included the Australian sporting system, sports policy development and governance, and corporate social responsibility through sport. There was also a session on sport and the media ‘Public representation and propaganda?’ by La Trobe University’s Dr Matthew Nicholson.

The conference was opened by La Trobe Vice-Chancellor, Professor Brian Stoddart, an internationally acknowledged sports historian and sociologist and author of Saturday Afternoon Fever: Sport in the Australian Culture.

It concluded with a case study of sporting policy development in the Netherlands by Mr Roel Bekker, Secretary General of that country’s Ministry for Health, Welfare and Sport.