Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Ageing and Seniors) Share this | Hansard source

I am really pleased to speak on this motion. I want to thank the member for Lalor for moving this motion in the House today.

It is important that we celebrate women's sport, and it's important, particularly, that we celebrate the achievements which women undertake in sport, given some of the barriers they face. We all know the barriers that women face when it comes to pay equity in sport. We all know, as the other two members have pointed out, that a lot of women who play elite sport in this country take on a second job to pay the bills. They cannot focus just on their sport, unlike some of the men in this country who get very well paid for participating in elite sport at the highest level. We need to do much, much more in this country when it comes to pay equity for Australian sporting champions, particularly female sporting champions.

But we do have a lot to celebrate. As we heard from the previous member, the Diamonds are doing very well on the world stage. We have, though, so many other achievements that have occurred just in the last few weeks. I want to give an example of one week in June where we had, of course, Ash Barty winning her third tournament of the year and becoming No. 1. I understand that she is only the second Australian woman to ever achieve world No. 1, after Evonne Goolagong-Cawley.

We had the Oi Rio Pro surf event, with Sally Fitzgibbons securing the No. 1 ranking. We had golfer Hannah Green winning the women's PGA championship in Minnesota. And at the World Rowing Cup, the Australian women's eight crew won gold. That was all just in one week of Australian women overseas participating in sport at the very highest level.

But, of course, what it does, as we've heard, is to inspire other women and girls to participate in sport, and we're seeing increasing participation in sport at the grassroots level. We talk in this country about being active and preventive health a lot, but nothing is better for preventive health than getting people involved in local sport, particularly some of the team sports.

I was disappointed as to the federal election. During the campaign, I made a commitment on behalf of this side of the House to invest in local women's sport—this time, in round-ball football, soccer, or however people want to call it, at one of the largest football clubs in Tasmania. They have had an increasing number of female participants, and they need new clubrooms for women and for girls to continue their participation in the sport. It's becoming a problem right across the board. What we need to see from the government is strategic investments in local sporting organisations at the grassroots level, to allow these women and girls to actually participate in their chosen sport. So we need to do a lot, both at the grassroots level and at the elite level.

There is so much more to do to encourage women and girls to participate in sport, but it really seems to be working. As we heard from the member from Newcastle, we're starting to get a bit more television airtime. The media are starting to take notice. The public are voting with their feet. They're turning up at stadiums to watch AFL champions. They're turning up at tennis to watch our champions. They're turning up all over the country to watch women participate in sport. They are turning up in droves. But we need to make sure that we encourage women at all levels of sport to participate, and there is so much more that needs to be done.

I want to mention a few other wonderful Australians. The Diamonds have been mentioned, but I also want to mention, as a cricket fan and as co-chair of the Parliamentary Friends of Cricket, the Australian women's Ashes team and to congratulate them on retaining the Ashes. I hope the men do just as well and get the Ashes for us in the men's Ashes. But the women have been particularly good, and they've set the standard over in England. We of course have had Samantha Kerr, Captain of the Matildas, and her hat-trick at the FIFA World Cup. And it would be remiss of me not to mention a young Tasmanian, Ariarne Titmus, who out-swum the world champion, Katie Ledecky, in the 400 metres in the World Swimming Championships, and she comes home with a couple of gold medals but also, importantly, a world record.

The last few weeks have been an incredible time in women's sport. It shows that women can achieve at every level, right across this country. But they need our support. They need it at the grassroots community level. They need it at the elite level. They need encouragement to participate. And they need to know that, when they get there, we'll support them in access to training, in access to physiotherapists—in access to all of the things that their male counterparts get, including equal pay.

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