Abstract:
This paper puts forward the proposition that the purpose of official national surveys of
leisure participation is: l. to track changes in overall leisure participation over time in
order to evaluate policy aimed at promoting participation; and 2. to monitor variation in
participation across social groups in order to evaluate policies directed at achieving
equitable access to leisure opportunity. The chequered history of the various national
leisure participation surveys conducted in Australia over the period 1985-2002 is
examined to assess the extent to which they have achieved these goals. It is concluded that
the fragmentation of government responsibility for leisure, the consequent failure to adopt
a coherent approach to leisure as an area of public policy and particularly continual
changes in survey design have prevented the first objective on overall participation from
being achieved in any meaningful, consistent manner. Consequently, despite the
expenditure of considerable public resources on numerous surveys, information on general
trends in leisure participation in Australia over time does not exist. Further, limited
collection and publication of data on socio-economic characteristics of participants have
prevented the second goal from being achieved. The paper concludes by calling for a
consistent and comprehensive approach to the monitoring of leisure participation at the
national level, as a basis for accountable policy and academic research.
