The NSW Government is considering scrapping the Active Kids program

Clubs such as Dubbo Basketball and St John's Junior Rugby League are just two of the organisations which welcome several kids to their respective sports thanks to the $100 vouchers.

Currently, the vouchers can be used for registration, participation and membership costs for sports, fitness and other recreation activities.

NSW Premier Chris Minns recently announced the new government would need a budget review before deciding whether or not to keep funding the project in the future.

Dubbo Basketball's Claire Bynon is confident the number of kids registered to their teams and programs would drop should the vouchers go.

"Especially with our younger ones we get them a lot because we charge $50 per term," she said.

"We get parents using them multiple times, I don't think we'd have as many kids involved if those vouchers weren't there.

"I think we'd lose a few kids because everything is so expensive at the moment so it's a bit of relief for parents."

Member for Dubbo Dugald Saunders recently received and posted to his Facebook a letter from the St John's JRL, the biggest sporting club of its kind in town.

At the moment, more than 70 per cent of the club's registered players use vouchers to lower the costs associated with playing.

"As one of the largest sporting clubs in Western NSW, St John's JRL provide sport and recreation for 572 young boys and girls," the statement said.

"Registration numbers have grown exponentially in the last few years. In addition to providing an excellent environment for kids to learn rugby league and league tag, and develop physically and socially we work hard and invest money in kids' health and well-being."

READ ALSO:

Saunders was a member of parliament when the vouchers first were launched and he is one of the now opposition party members fighting to keep the program running.

"The main issue is that we have consistently 2018 rolled over the Active Kids year after year," he said.

"We've improved it year after year and we have been asking questions to Labor 'will you guarantee that you will fund it', they are saying 'the former government cut the funding'.

"We always over the last five years found ways to improve it, in fact, the way we were looking at changing it this time was making it interchangeable between active kids and creative kids.

"If you wanted to use one for the other you could and vice versa, we were just looking at making them more flexible."

Having spoken to a number of clubs around his electorate, Saunders echoed the thoughts of Dubbo Basketball and St John's JRL, that the number of active kids would indeed drop if financial help were to be removed.

"We've funded this now since 2018 and were absolutely going to continue to fund it," he said.

"It was going to give people an opportunity to do whatever they want with those vouchers, we've heard from so many people now who are really worried about the impacts this will have on their base.

"We are talking about community sport, whether it's cricket or swimming in summer or winter with netball, soccer, rugby league, AFL or rugby union.

"All of those are worried now as clubs about whether their registration is going to drop because this covers almost all registrations."

A decision on the future of the Active Kids vouchers will be made over the next few months.

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content: