Ursula Stephens (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Prime Minister for Social Inclusion) Share this | Hansard source

This evening can I reflect on the success of the World Youth Day celebrations in Sydney, which occurred from 15 to 21 July. As someone who participated actively in all of the formal events, I want to place on record some of the extraordinary achievements of that week but also thank those who were involved from both the New South Wales government agencies and the Commonwealth government agencies for the extraordinary effort they put in to ensuring that World Youth Day was a phenomenal success.

Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims and visitors came to Sydney. Over 170 nations were represented at the World Youth Day events. The Holy Father’s first visit to Sydney attracted extraordinary interest from the media, from pilgrims, from Sydneysiders and from other visitors who were drawn to Sydney for the event. In excess of 500,000 people gathered to greet the Holy Father at Barangaroo—which was a spectacular event in itself—and in excess of 400,000 participated in the final mass at Randwick racecourse. I am very pleased to say that Randwick racecourse was handed back to the AJC last week, well within time and in a great state of repair.

Two hundred and twenty three thousand pilgrims were registered for services, and access to the venues included 110,000 pilgrims from overseas. Before the official World Youth Day celebrations, 70,000 pilgrims arrived and participated in Days in the Dioceses around Australia. That was an extraordinary result and provided enormous pastoral opportunities but also very significant economic benefits to the local communities that participated.

Four thousand priests and deacons, 420 bishops and 26 cardinals were registered. The Marjorie Birds—the beautiful embroidered chasubles—were distributed to each of the bishops and cardinals, and 1.1 million communion hosts were prepared for the events of World Youth Day week. Four hundred and fifty youth events took place at over 100 venues and 30 large national gatherings occurred during World Youth Day.

One of the things that we saw was the extraordinary extent to which Sydneysiders opened their hearts and their homes to the pilgrims. Over 100,000 pilgrims slept in 400 schools and parishes, and 12,000 pilgrims were accommodated at Sydney Olympic Park throughout the week. As part of the World Youth Day homestay program, 25,000 pilgrims were billeted. Twenty-five million food items were prepared. During the week, 3.6 million meals were distributed across approximately 400 venues, and in those 3.6 million meals 360,000 lamingtons and 100,000 litres of Dairy Farmers milk were consumed by the pilgrims.