Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This year, the fibre has been put back into football! Thanks to the efforts of Australian Wool Innovation, AFL teams have begun to sell jumpers and other merchandise made from Australian Merino wool. The campaign started with Bill Bailey, a sheep farmer in my own electorate, who fondly remembers playing in woollen jumpers in the sixties and seventies. His old club of Coleraine was the first to test these new jumpers in 2014, to great success.

This restored connection between our native game and the sheep farms of Australia is only natural: AFL was invented on a sheep station in Victoria. In fact, John Harms of The Footy Almanac has begun to collate teams of current and former AFL stars who were born or bred on sheep farms. The list currently includes Geelong great Tom Hawkins, Adelaide champion Shaun Rehn and Fremantle star Nat Fyfe. Tellingly, the same Riverina farming town that gave us that great pastoral painting Shearing the Rams also gave St Kilda Justin Koschitzke. Australian wool belongs with Australia's game, and I congratulate all involved in helping put fibre back into football.

I also note that this weekend is the annual Dreamtime round, recognising the enormous Indigenous contribution to Australian Rules, with Essendon and Richmond playing the signature game of the round. I encourage all members to celebrate these games, whilst respectfully saying, with my woollen jumper on: go, Tiges!