Deborah O'Neill (Robertson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I have the honour today of commending our Australian athletes and celebrating their great achievements at the London Olympics—and what a great set of achievements they are. There is no greater unifying force, it would seem—as we talked about it so much over the last few weeks—than that of the Australian participation in the Olympic Games. It lifts our spirit. We know that it did that in 2000 at the Sydney Olympics, and we know how fantastically it has lifted the spirit of this nation in recent times. It has been a celebration of strength, speed, endurance and human spirit—10,800 of the world's greatest athletes at the peak of physical and mental fitness, with years of training, hard work and sacrifice, and all of these fine attributes culminating in one final show of skill for the ultimate reward in this, the Olympic year.

Something often foreshadowed by the sporting prowess but important in its own right is the activities of the Cultural Olympiad that take place in concert with the major games. Under the Olympic Charter, host cities are required to run a series of cultural events as a celebration of the soul of the host city by recognising their artistic and literary backgrounds. More than 500 events made up this year's Cultural Olympiad, the largest ever, with 16 million Britons and tourists taking part in the exhibitions, performances and workshops. No wonder, elevated by such cultural enhancement, they attended the games with incredible spirit. We can only imagine what the atmosphere must have been like there in London this year as they cheered their own team home to such incredible feats. I look forward to the day when people flock to the Cultural Olympiad as they do to the Olympics and the Paralympics. I am sure it is not too far away.

I also want to put on the record today that I am very proud of the support that this government has provided to our elite athletes and Olympians, committing over $382 million in funding over the four years leading to the games. I want to take this opportunity to congratulate in particular our Coastie gold medallist, sailor Tom Slingsby. Getting that first gold seemed to open up the floodgates of incredible success at the gold level by our athletes. But I in no way want to diminish the incredible achievements of every single member of that Olympic team, who competed at the highest level to get themselves a place on that team and represent us so ably and with such honour and dignity in the London Olympiad.

Tom Slingsby, who grew up on the Central Coast, went to St Edward's Christian Brothers' College, a school at which I was formerly a teacher and a school which my own son now attends. I was not fortunate enough to teach Tom, but I heard from a few of his former teachers that he had a lot of energy in the classroom and that he decided to spend that on sailing at, I think, about the time he was still at school. So his journey commenced while he was a young school student in our local area. Tom now lives in Point Frederick; my understanding is that he lives with his family. He is the reigning world champion in the Laser class of boat, known for their speedy performance and their simplicity. I am not surprised that, living at Point Frederick, sailing is the thing that engaged him most, because just down the road is the Gosford Sailing Club, which is a great social hub for the community. We have our sparkling Brisbane Water, and it is very hard to drive by there every day and not see the invitation to get on one of those yachts or, indeed, to get on a Laser and get out there and enjoy the beauty of the nature that surrounds us in my seat. I report to my constituents regularly that in this place I claim that I represent the most beautiful seat in the whole country. I know that other people might want to contest that, but I invite you to come and see it, and I am sure that you will want to return again and again and again, because it is an incredibly beautiful place.

Access to the water is something that is amazingly common for many of my constituents, and for somebody like Tom obviously that provided the watery playing field for him to explore his gifts and talents. I am sure that Tom, just like many before him, was inspired by the athletes that he grew up watching at previous Olympics. The 2000 Olympics proved to be just the beginning of his love of sailing, and now, just 12 years later, Tom himself is inspiring a new generation of young Australians to get up from the television and get involved.

Tom showed us that the Central Coast is absolutely a great place to grow up. It is a place to dream big and then to work like crazy to achieve your dreams. You made us all so proud, Tom Slingsby.

I used the inspiration of Tom's success to try and engage with and encourage some local young people who were attending a preparation for trade training day up at Youth Central in Somersby in my electorate. I expressed to those young men and women that, just like them, Tom lived and breathed the air on the Central Coast. I said to my son when I dropped him off on the morning after Tom had won: 'Today you could be sitting in a seat that Tom Slingsby sat in.' These amazing heroes are not extraordinary people who live outside of our society. They are with us, they are a part of our society and they genuinely inspire us to dare to dream and then to work to achieve those dreams, wherever we might be.

I also extend my congratulations to Iain Jensen, Nathan Outteridge, Mathew Belcher and Malcolm Page for their gold in sailing; to Cate Campbell, Alicia Coutts, Brittany Elmslie and Melanie Schlanger for their swimming achievements; to Jacob Clear, Dave Smith, Tate Smith and Murray Stewart for their win in the one-kilometre kayak; to Anna Meares for cycling; and to Sally Pearson for athletics.

While medals are the goals to aspire to when competing, all our athletes should be heartened to know that their work was shared by all of us and delighted in by all of us over the last fortnight. They have indeed inspired young Australians across the nation to develop a passion for sport and to be the best that they can be. The Australian team should be very proud of all they have accomplished and the Australian people should be very proud of the athletes that represented our great country on the world stage. We have much to look forward to with the Paralympics on the horizon, and I offer my very best wishes to that team as well. I congratulate our Olympic team on their success.

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