Pat Conroy (Shortland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This morning, I saw the most important sporting fixture on the parliamentary calendar: the parliamentary state-of-origin touch game! New South Wales faced huge odds—we faced a Queensland team captained by a New South Wales MP, the member for New England. We were severely understrength, missing key stalwarts such as the members for Mitchell, Riverina and Grayndler.

The game had everything. First off, I wish the member for Forde a speedy recovery from his trip to the hospital. We had our first ever sin binning in the history of the comp, and I apologise to the refs: I thoroughly deserved it! Most importantly, we had a mighty New South Wales victory, 3-2, with the final try scored in the last minute. I applaud the try scorers: Ben Leeson from the member for Kingsford Smith's office and Josh Lloyd from the Leader of the Opposition's office—and I was lucky enough to grab the third in the final minute.

Thanks to the referees for doing a great job and thanks to the National Rugby League for putting this game on. It's a really important way of bringing parliamentarians together and emphasising how important sport is to the broader community. I hope this bodes well for Sunday night, where the Blues will be fighting hard to win the series 2-0. All I can say is go the Blues!