‘We need support’
The Wimmera’s absence in regional hosting duties for the 2026 Commonwealth Games has prompted Horsham’s mayor to lament a lack of infrastructure funding opportunities.
Robyn Gulline said the announcement of the Games’ regional hubs reflected the discrepancy of funding opportunities between major provincial centres and outlying regions.
Cr Gulline said Horsham lacked significant facilities of a ‘regional’ or ‘sub-regional’ quality required to host Games competition. She called for the federal and state governments to support a quest to raise the standard of Horsham’s sporting infrastructure.
“The State Government’s decision to push the Games further into the regions backs council’s strategy to upgrade Horsham’s facilities,” she said.
“The only ‘regional’ standard facilities we have are Horsham Town Hall and the aquatic centre. We just don’t have the quality of facilities that others do. This fact supports our call for state and federal governments to deliver higher-quality infrastructure in our region.”
The State Government announced last week that Ballarat, Bendigo, Geelong and Gippsland would be the 2026 Games’ four regional ‘hubs’. Ballarat will host athletics and boxing; Bendigo, lawn bowls, netball, squash and weightlifting; Geelong, swimming, diving, gymnastics, hockey, table tennis, triathlons and beach volleyball; and Gippsland, badminton and cycling. Shepparton will also host events. “Our facilities in Horsham are not up to standard to host internationally competitive events. It is hard for us to be viable this far from Melbourne – most of the regional hubs are Melbourne district areas, really,” Cr Gulline said.
However, she said improved sporting infrastructure was about more than a capacity to host international or domestic sporting competitions.
“A raised standard of facility will also raise the standard of regional sporting competition and allow people to achieve their sporting career aspirations without having to head down the highway. We make do with so many facilities here, but they are not at a ‘regional’ quality level — to the detriment of all our talented sportspeople,” she said.
Robyn Gulline criticised the manner in which state funding was tied to state-approved grants and said untied federal grant money needed to increase to reflect a more appropriate one-percent share of gross domestic product, shared across all councils.
“Local councils have the capacity to decide where to spend the money,” she said. “The more untied grants, the better we are to deliver what community needs — without having to spend all our time and resources writing grants and applications that might not be successful.”
She said a ‘renewal gap’ also existed — whereby councils required government money to build and maintain facilities.
She highlighted Horsham City Oval as an example of her frustrations.
“Council has a Build Better Regions fund application for upgrades at the city oval. In order to take the facility to a ‘sub-regional’ standard, it would then take a further round of upgrades and applications to then make the ground bigger,” she said.
“But standards for facilities tied to government grants continue to change.
“Because the city oval facility is two-storey without an elevator — and has white-ants, too, for good measure — it doesn’t meet expectations of government-tied grant legislation.”
She said the council wanted to demolish the facility and put a singlestory building in its place — with regional-standard sporting facilities at one end, and multipurpose community facilities at the other.
“There are significant funding gaps here and council needs government help to improve the standard of facilities,” she said. “We are reliant on state and federal money to renew, build and upgrade all our facilities and the majority of our council money goes to maintaining and upgrading our facilities to remain compliant for further government grants.”