This week Sport Australia - as it is now known - launched its plan to get the nation active and increase sports participation and success. For those who have followed the recent DCMS and Sport England strategy process this final document will look very familiar! Indeed the 5 Outcomes are directly lifted from the DCMS strategy.

The balance of the strategy looks and feel right when you understand that despite the external image of an active Australian population - thanks to all those soaps of the Aussie BBQ on the beach images - as the report admits 70% of Australians are sedentary or not doing enough physical activity. There has always been a mis-match between the image of Australia because of its ability to over achieve at international sporting competitions and the reality for many individuals.

What must be comforting for those involved in developing the DCMS #sportingfutures strategy is just how similar the Sport Australia plan for 2030 is. There are of course many structural differences in the way sport is delivered through different political systems - like the Federal level in Australia having a bigger influence on policy delivery. However, what is interesting about the Plan is how similar the issues are for developing societies - squeezing physical activity and movement out of our daily lives and clearly the weather in Australia is not enough alone to make up for this!

We love studying international partners approaches to sport policy - there is always more that can be learned by sharing common experiences. The recent launch of the Irish Government Sport plan showed a similar understanding of the changing nature of sport policy drifting into a more dynamic sport and Physical activity policy agenda. This is increasingly difficult for a generation of those who have worked in sports development and love their sport. We need to change to a more dynamic and changing workforce that can meet these challenges. If we do we can get our nations active again.