Rick Wilson (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to add some brief comments to pay tribute to the life of Les Murray and the impact he has had on our nation. I would also like to relate a personal story about football. Les Murray was a larger-than-life figure. I come from a state that is not a football state, it is an AFL state. I grew up in a small country town in the 1970s where soccer, as it was known then, was very rarely played and not particularly well-regarded. Of course, through the SBS TV network and other mediums the game of football as we now call it was becoming better known.

What had a large impact in my life was the arrival in the early 1970s in my home town of Katanning of a migrant community of Malay people who had come to work in the local abattoir. When I was a year 2 schoolboy we had a predominantly Anglo community, with some Aboriginal kids, and all of a sudden we had two Malay boys turn up, Duka Ebin and Halid Taela. They are still friends of mine today. During school lunch hours, we used to play football—Australian football, as we knew it. But these two new guys brought a soccer ball along, and within days the entire year group were playing soccer with these kids and having a wonderful time. And, as I say, those boys are still friends of mine today, and it just shows the power of sport to break down cultural barriers. We are all equal on the sporting field—we are all equal everywhere, but I guess it's most demonstrated on the sporting field.

The contribution that Les Murray made to this great nation of ours revolves around his contribution to the sport of football and its promotion to where it is now probably the most played sport in the country, certainly in my now home town of Albany. In a community of 37,000 people, on a Saturday morning nearly 800 kids are playing junior soccer. I guess that's testament to Les Murray's life, that so many Australians now see football as a game that is their first choice, and it's certainly given those migrants who have come from communities and countries where football is their main game an opportunity to move straight into mainstream Australian society and be accepted as equal with all the rest of us. So, vale Les Murray. My condolences go to his family. It was certainly a wonderful life and a wonderful contribution.

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