Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

It is a pleasure to join the Prime Minister in congratulating all 422 of our Australian Olympians on their efforts in Rio. Before we go any further, we send the goodwill and best wishes of this House and the Australian people to the 178 members of our Paralympic Team who are preparing for their games which will begin on 7 September. Every four years, Australians from all walks of life are consumed by the performance, by the athleticism, by the opportunity to watch the best in the world perform at the Olympic Games. We sacrifice sleep to follow the fortunes of people who have given up years of their lives in pursuit of excellence.

At these Olympics, we had so much to be proud of and so much to cheer about. Mack Horton reclaimed the 400-metre freestyle title for Australia. We had the remarkable comeback of Kyle Chalmers, who was seventh at the turn and first to the wall in the 100-metre freestyle. In that same race we saw the extraordinary sportsmanship of Cam McEvoy, who was overjoyed for his friend rather than disappointed for himself. Our sailors, as we have heard, raked in the medals yet again. And, as is so often the case, the women of the Australian team carried the torch for us at the Olympics, claiming five of our eight gold medals. We had the trailblazing success of our rugby sevens and Kim Brennan's stunning victory in the singles sculls. Catherine Skinner is the new hero of Mansfield in Australia, winning gold in the trap shooting. Our women's 4 x 100 metre relay team defended their London title. Chloe Esposito became the first Australian to win a gold medal in the modern pentathlon. Rather than basking in her well-deserved glory, she rushed back to the stands to watch her brother compete.

In winter, we honour the achievements of our football codes. But, when it comes to the Olympics, our women athletes always deliver. The tradition we saw in Rio was the same tradition of the 1956 Melbourne golden girls—Marlene Mathews, Marjorie Jackson and Dawn Fraser—and Susie O'Neil and so many other Australian women champions. In Rio our women were led by the remarkable Anna Mears. Perhaps this might prompt us to redouble our efforts in supporting women's sport and the coverage of women's sport in this country. In Rio the Boomers, the Opals, the Stingers, the Sharks, the Kookaburras, the Matildas and the Hockeyroos gave their all against the best in the world.

When I think about Australia's performance, I am a little disappointed by the lack of generous comment in some parts of our media about the accomplishments of our young athletes. When you look at any medal tally in the world, we do very well. And there is not an Australian who does not feel more proud of Australia at the end of an Olympics than at the start. Sure, we would always like to have more medals. But, when you think about how Australian athletes performed at the Olympics, they have everything to hold their heads up about.

The Prime Minister and I had the opportunity to meet the Olympic athletes on their return from Rio. There, we also saw other people who deserve to be mentioned—the parents who drove their kids to practice before first light; the coaches inspiring, motivating, driving, timing and demanding every inch of effort and absolute self-discipline with early starts and late finishes; and the physios, the medicos and the support staff at Rio who kept these high-performing people healthy and well.

And now so many of our heroes we honour today have spent the past week visiting their former schools and their junior sporting clubs, showing a new generation that the track marked on their school oval, the little lasers at their local beach and the humble community pool were the training grounds of athletes and dreams. If the efforts of our athletes inspire more Aussie kids to try something new, to step away from the screen, to go for a ride or a run, to join a team and to be active and healthy, then it is a very good thing that they do. And for all those young Australians who watched these games, who witnessed the toughest of athletes shed tears of both joy and pain, who could see athletes from small and developing nations struck by the vivid delight of wearing their country's name in the highest global stage, it is not too much to hope that the Olympic ideal will live in their memory too—not just the pursuit of individual excellence to be the strongest, to jump the highest and to run the fastest, but to draw satisfaction from beating your personal best and from the thrill of simply taking part.

In the 'modern spectators pentathlon', complaining about the broadcast coverage comes right after pretending you knew about judo! My particular favourite is 'the diver's splash was too big'! And, of course, there is the perennial event 'I reckon I could do that if I trained'—it is a great event and many of us enter it! I think we can agree that Channel Seven did an outstanding job of bringing the Rio games into our lounge rooms and onto our phones. The deeds of the Australian Olympic team deserve the widest possible audience and Seven did a great job in making it happen.

In the weeks to come, some our team will already be turning their minds to the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games in 2018. I am sure all Australians, including our top sports administrators, will be backing our team for the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games and for the Tokyo Olympic Games in 2020. Others from Rio will be moving on to a new phase of their lives. But wherever our Olympians go, whatever the do, no-one can take away from them the fact that they were Australian Olympians and the rest of us are very proud of them.

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