{"id":944224,"date":"2026-10-28T18:12:14","date_gmt":"2026-10-28T18:12:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/944224\/"},"modified":"2026-10-28T18:12:14","modified_gmt":"2026-10-28T18:12:14","slug":"minister-jo-palmer-rejects-school-cricket-pitch-ban-claim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/944224\/","title":{"rendered":"Minister Jo Palmer rejects school cricket pitch ban claim"},"content":{"rendered":"

Education Minister Jo Palmer says cricket will still be played on Tasmanian public school pitches, after a directive closing concrete wickets for recreational use prompted reports of a ban.<\/p>\n

Responding on Facebook on Wednesday night to reports that cricket had been banned on public school pitches, Palmer said \u201cthat isn\u2019t quite right\u201d.<\/p>\n

She said cricket would be played on school pitches by students, community groups and cricket clubs.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter a tragic death in Victoria recently, we\u2019re reviewing our concrete pitches to ensure they have the right level of protection when they\u2019re not being used for cricket,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\"\"Students, community groups and cricket clubs will still use school pitches, Palmer said. Image \/ Stock<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we can all agree that the last thing we want is for one of our students to fall over playing football during lunch, hit their heads and not be as protected as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

The minister said the department had clarified its advice to principals.<\/p>\n

\"\"Education Minister Jo Palmer said cricket would still be played on public school pitches. Image \/ Pulse (File)<\/p>\n

It is understood the Department of Education, Children and Young People issued the directive on Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a precautionary measure, schools are directed to make all concrete cricket pitches out of bounds for recreational use effective immediately, unless advised otherwise,\u201d the directive said.<\/p>\n

It cited \u201cemerging evidence relating to pitch impact safety\u201d. <\/p>\n

The directive described the closure as an interim measure while the department worked to understand the extent of the issue across school sites and considered any longer-term management or remediation.<\/p>\n

\"\"Students, community groups and cricket clubs will still use school pitches, Palmer said. Image \/ Stock<\/p>\n

Schools were told to put reasonable measures in place to prevent recreational access, including notifying community users.<\/p>\n

The directive followed an incident in Victoria in July, when a 27-year-old man died while playing football at a ground with a hard wicket.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Education Minister Jo Palmer says cricket will still be played on Tasmanian public school pitches, after a directive…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":944225,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-944224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=944224"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944224\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/944225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=944224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=944224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=944224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}