Gavan O'Connor (Corio, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Eden-Monaro has entered the chamber. I know what a diehard supporter of Geelong he is. As he would appreciate, in the current team are ‘Bomber’ Wojcinski, Kane Tenace and Travis Varcoe—an Indigenous player of great skill and potential. Past players with ethnic backgrounds include Peter Riccardi and Brent Grgic. Of course, we can go back in history to the great Peter Pianto and Paul Vinar and in doing so we are getting back to the era of the honourable member for Corangamite. If we go to soccer, Josip Skoko, Steve Horvat and Joey Didulica are great current or immediate past contributors to Australian national and international soccer. And, while I am on my feet talking about the importance of sport for the region of Geelong—and I note that the Prime Minister has entered the chamber—we will be approaching the government for a $26 million contribution to Skilled Stadium. I hope the Prime Minister will look quite favourably on that request, because Geelong is an important, iconic foundation member of the Australian Football League and Kardinia Park is a community complex. We want to secure it long term for the total population of Geelong and improve its capacity to serve those great ethnic communities that have made important contributions to the Geelong Football Club and the AFL and to soccer in Australia.

In respect of the substance of the bill, I note that the Geelong Ethnic Communities Council, through the Ethnic Communities Council of Victoria, the ECCV, has expressed its opposition to the new proposals in the bill on the basis of their judgement that the discussion paper Australian citizenship: much more than a ceremony, which underpins what the government is doing in a policy sense, fails to demonstrate a convincing case for the need to overhaul Australia’s citizenship requirements. I have read the ECCV’s submission and I must say to the House that the views expressed are logical, coherent, substantial, well articulated and deserving—

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