Peta Murphy (Dunkley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

For many Australians, sport is an ingrained part of our national and personal identity. I think that's for two reasons. One is that, as a country, we see our sporting individuals' and sporting teams' success as our entire country's success. We are proud to cheer on Australian teams, and there's probably nothing that sport-loving Australians like more than cheering on Australians at the Olympic Games. I'm conscious that I'm speaking in this debate after a former Olympian—who I did cheer on, for the record. We see the success of Australian athletes and teams as Australian success and also, as part of that, we understand that the large sporting moments in our history are political moments sometimes and culture-changing moments.

You don't have to look any further than Cathy Freeman's magnificent victory at the 2000 Olympics as evidence of that. That was not only an amazingly successful win for an athlete that perhaps we will never see the like of again for her natural ability; it was also an incredibly strong statement about the history and the possibility for the future of the relationship between those of us who have come to Australia in the last 200 or so years and the longest living civilisation in the world, in our First Nations people. In her quiet and unassuming but incredibly determined and powerful way, Cathy Freeman paved the next 20 years in Australia of that walk to reconciliation that we are still on. But we are so much further down the road because of her and her amazing athletic ability.

I think the second reason so many Australians have sport intrinsically embedded in their personal and national identity is that those of us who are involved in grassroots local sport understand that, yes, it's about playing the game and sometimes it's about being able to win and get a trophy, but most of the time it's about the community that forms around your club or the sport you play and the support that local clubs and sporting associations give to people in the community not just when they're playing their sport but in their time of need. They are two big reasons why Australians, on the whole, are so passionate about integrity in sport, a fair playing field and everyone getting the same go and having the same opportunity to have that successful outcome.

We see examples everywhere of how local sporting clubs and associations are so much more than just the game that they play. And today I want to take this opportunity to congratulate Game Changer's Reuniting the Peninsula relay run, which was run two weekends ago. Twenty-two MPNFL clubs—all of them—participated in a 174-kilometre relay, visiting the grounds of each of those clubs in one day, to reunite the clubs on the peninsula after this horrid year of 2020 and to look forward to season 2021. Just as importantly, they raised money for mental health education programs which will be delivered to the MPNFL in 2021 and beyond.

Game Changer provides the link between those who need help and those who can provide it. Every single club in that league stepped up and participated in the peninsula relay run. I want to thank all of the clubs and all of the people who participated, but, of course, I want to particularly thank the Pines, YCW, Seaford, Langwarrin, Mount Eliza, the Bombers and Karingal for doing what everyone in our community knows you do all the time—fostering bonds, fostering connectedness, fostering community and making sure you contribute to helping people in our community who need help, at the time they need it, as well as competing fiercely against each other to try to win that trophy.

Integrity in sport is also, as I said, about fairness. Australians are very keen to be able to see decisions being made in a way that is transparent and based on some obvious criteria. It might seem that I'm about to launch into the government over the sports rorts—before I do that, I want to echo the sentiment of Michelle Martin, one of Australia's finest female athletes and a former world No. 1 squash player, on behalf of everyone around the world who loves the sport that I love, and say that it is extraordinary that breakdancing is in the 2024 Olympics and squash isn't. Before any breakdancers get upset with me—I think you're amazing. I don't know how you do what you do. You're incredible athletes, plus you've got great rhythm. Don't get me wrong—sport dancing is terrific but, I'm sorry, it doesn't belong in the Olympics before squash.

Squash, around the world, ran an amazing campaign—headed by Nicol David, who is the second-best female squash player ever, after Australia's magnificent Heather McKay, and Ramy Ashour, who is absolutely the most freakishly talented man ever to play squash—to get squash into the Tokyo Olympics. We were all beside ourselves with amazement and dismay when we didn't get in. Basketball, which is already in, was allowed to have another division, of three-by-three; there are all sorts of different categories for BMX; but squash didn't make the Tokyo Olympics.

Now, we are absolutely flabbergasted and dismayed. I just want to quote what Michelle Martin said. She was almost at the point of thinking that perhaps the Olympic Games might become a 'mockery', because squash can't make the Olympic Games but these apparently modern sports that appeal to young people can. The Olympics mean something; Olympic medals mean something. I call on the Australian Olympic Committee and the International Olympic Committee to take a long, hard look at yourselves and put squash in the Olympic Games. While you're at it, have a look at softball and baseball and cricket and netball and these sports that can't make the Olympic Games, when sports like basketball get to have a three-by-three competition.

I want to finish my contribution by speaking to the second reading amendment briefly and saying that the sports rorts scandal that this government engaged in, in order to try to bribe their way to an election victory, diminishes this government. The way they've handled it since it was uncovered diminishes this government, but, just as importantly, it is just another dagger to the heart of integrity and trust in the political system and it was done using people who volunteer hundreds of hours of their time in order to have their local club that they love have a chance to get a grant so that their facilities are much better. That's a slap in the face. We have so many sporting facilities that should be upgraded. There are more in my electorate that should be upgraded, and I'll continue to put submissions in to the government and fight for them. Everyone who plays sport knows that you follow the rules, because, if you don't follow the rules and you win, you can never really be proud of your victory.

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