ELLIS WANTS KIWI EXAMPLE TO HELP AUSSIE WOMEN

Sydney, June 16 NZPA - Liz Ellis is one of those sporting warriors who hates to lose.

She is one of Australia's netball greats -- notably at her best when the competition is toughest, as New Zealand's netballers would attest.

The Silver Ferns' gold medal win over the Australians at the Commonwealth Games in March was made easier by the indomitable one's absence due to a torn knee ligament.

"It was miserable, it was awful, I expected it to be awful to watch and it proved to be that way," Ellis said, of watching the netball at the Games.

"I think the hardest part was walking into the stadium the first time and seeing them play."

Ellis has since bounced back and is co-captain of the national to play the New Zealanders in Brisbane and Sydney next month.

But while she is one of Australia's best sportswomen and articulate and opinionated enough to often appear on television panel shows, her profile is low compared with the likes of Andrew Johns, George Gregan and Ricky Ponting.

That is because the football codes and cricket dominate media coverage in Australia, while women's sports pale in comparison.

Swimmers Libby Lenton, Liesel Jones and Jodie Henry do well, but when it's the footy season they disappear off the radar.

As focused as she is on refusing to give New Zealand an inch on the court, Ellis is refreshingly unblinkered off it and displayed that this week when she commended the media and public attitude towards netball across the ditch compared with that in Australia.

The following quote was full of trans-Tasman love: "I hate admitting that New Zealand is better than Australia at anything, but in this case I have to admit defeat. Here is an enlightened country. Not only does it have a woman as prime minister, but netball regularly appears among the country's most watched television programmes."

While netball is a ratings winner in New Zealand, the commercial and pay-TV networks in Australia won't touch it. It screens on the ABC, but not in prime-time.

Ellis, in a column in the Sydney Morning Herald, summed up the situation neatly.

"While our long-suffering male colleagues, of all codes, strain under the weight of hours of live coverage, delayed coverage, replays, analysis and media speculation -- and that's just about their telephone conversations -- sportswomen are out running, passing, catching, kicking and throwing, while the rest of the Australia doesn't watch."

Now could this be because Australia is such an entrenched chauvinistic country, where television viewers are dominated by beer-swilling blokes on couches who have no time at all for sheilas' sports?

Ellis didn't want to say this was the answer, though the number of television ads that screen showing groups of blokes drinking and eyeing up young blondes might persuade one otherwise.

"Surely Australian sports fans can't all be characterised as sexist pigs who just want to watch grown men in tight shorts beat the daylights out of each other over a piece of leather?" she wrote.

"Surely the Kiwis aren't simply a bunch of enlightened SNAGs who not only watch netball, but idolise a footballer who beat the living daylights out of his teammate with a handbag."

While that is part of the answer, Ellis understands why the media outlets are not giving netball a fair go.

"They are running businesses, making decisions based on how much advertising dollars are going to flow in," she told NZPA this week.

Australian netball doesn't generate those dollars and will have to do far more than it currently does in marketing to go anywhere like matching New Zealand for coverage.

Ellis says the lack of coverage means that young women don't see sports-based role models on the telly and that a drop-off in organised sport by girls aged 13 to 16 is no coincidence.

She hopes a parliamentary inquiry by the senate into women's sports will give a lead to a change in attitude.

"It is a bipartisan inquiry and will form the basis of policy for years to come ... so we are hoping it will redress some of the imbalances.

"There probably needs to be a whole shift in culture."

Ellis is likely to give evidence to the senate inquiry and said she and fellow netballers had been compiling evidence from New Zealand, "which has best practice" when it comes to netball.

"It's no coincidence they are current world champions," says Ellis.

The corporate dollars and money from television rights that netball receives in New Zealand also translates into better pay for the top netballers than Australians receive.

Ellis has a more pressing assignment -- the upcoming trans-Tasman netball test.

She won't say the Australians will turn the tables over the Ferns, but one thing is for certain.

"I'll be doing my best."