00:00Australia's wheelchair basketball champions for three years running, the Darwin Salties,
00:09are still reeling from the news they've been dropped from this year's national comp.
00:14We saw a small little press release from Basketball Northern Territory
00:17and it just said that it was financial reasons which we're very confused by
00:21because our team's always had the support from the community and from business and from the government.
00:26The team's been a huge success since joining the national competition in 2022.
00:33In 2023 we had four players go to the world championships from Darwin
00:37and then in 2024 we had four players go to the Paris Paralympic Games.
00:41We're trying to help break down those social barriers in the wider community,
00:44not just in Darwin but around the country by playing a sport that we all love
00:48and to have that taken away it's almost like a step back or a few steps back.
00:53After the Darwin Basketball Association went into administration,
00:58Basketball NT says it decided taking on the national team would be too financially risky
01:04and that its focus would be a new Darwin competition and rebuilding governance,
01:09leaving the national comp without its reigning premiers.
01:13Why should disability miss out? Why should, you know, particularly wheelchair sports miss out?
01:20That team's been also a massive source of role modelling,
01:23there's huge community engagement that comes with the Salty's whenever they play as well.
01:28With the Salty's season over before it could begin, players want some quick scrambling for a solution.
01:34It's about those next players coming through and if this program goes away then a lot of these players
01:39coming through lose the opportunity to be able to play, you know, sport with not even an elite level,
01:44just at any level. So, you know, the message that you're kind of sending is that, you know,
01:47Paralympic sport isn't valued.
01:50I'd just like to pretty much, you know, ask them, like, do you not support a Paralympic sport?
01:55You know, we've been the national champions for the last three years in the country,
02:01so I don't know what more we could have done.
02:04A question for anyone with power to step in.
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