Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Earlier today my colleague and friend the member for Melbourne Ports spoke about his beloved St Kilda. That certainly reminded me of the importance of Aussie Rules football to our great nation. It is a sport that has endured for over a hundred years and I believe it would be fair to say that no matter which part of Australia you travel to you will find some one-eyed supporters of the local side getting totally caught up and involved in football being played in their community. So today I want to pay tribute to the local football clubs of my community. Football clubs ensure that football that begins at the grassroots in local communities in turn provides opportunities to youngsters to go on and play at the highest levels of football in this country. I have seen a number of young footballers do just that, and I will refer to them in a moment. In recent weeks I have been able to get to numerous local football games in the electorate of Makin and watch footballers from the Golden Grove, Tea Tree Gully, Pooraka, Para Hills, Ingle Farm and Modbury football clubs playing in the local league.

Fortunately for most of those clubs—and perhaps ‘fortunate’ is not the right choice of word—they have been able, through their efforts, to get into the finals in the last few weeks. Again, I have been able to go and watch some of those finals games, from the juniors right through to the seniors. What strikes me as I go to each and every one of them is undoubtedly the parochialism and the passion that you see from the followers and the supporters of football even at that very local level.

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