John Alexander (Bennelong, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The London Olympic Games of 2012 will live for a long time in our collective memories. At a time of conflict, and with economies in peril, Great Britain set aside these trials and was heroically triumphant in the face of doubters. It showed the world that there is much to celebrate.

For the first time in Olympic history women were included in every team, with three nations including female athletes for the very first time. Women competed more widely than ever before. Countries that have endured conflict in recent times found teams and joined the rest of the world to play games and to engage with each other. At the height of its conflict and all of the misery that battle delivers so cruelly and indiscriminately, Syria found 10 athletes from seven disciplines and transported them from war to participate in the enduring goal of the Olympic movement of building friendship and understanding through sporting engagement.

London, which has so often been the beacon of light in world leadership in dark times, shed its burdens and lifted the British spirit. The British people, reinvigorated, can now face adversity with new energy and optimism to triumph. And there we were, Australia, a small country whose national character is so defined by our love of sports. This is born from playing and competing, and the recognition of those who excel from our midst—those greats who we uphold as an ideal reflection of us. It is our sporting heroes who we hold up the highest: the Don, Evonne, Phar Lap, Rosewall, Elliott, Murray Rose and so many more maintain that special place in Australia's heart. How is it possible for leaders like Menzies, Chifley, Hollows or Howard to compare?

How do other countries define their greatness or national character? Where do Winston Churchill or Francis Drake sit with their great footballer, Stanley Matthews, or their three-time Wimbledon winner, Fred Perry, or Roger Bannister, the first man to break four minutes? The US is defined more by Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, John Kennedy and Martin Luther King than Mickey Mantle, Jesse Owens or Babe Ruth. Yes, more than anything else we hold our sporting greats in the highest esteem.

However, just as the official creed extols participation, the most important thing in the Olympic Games has been the underlying benefits to our society that most justify our fascination with sport. We have learned that nothing comes without hard work. The messages of sportsmanship: playing the rules, health, mateship, teamwork, responsibility for your actions and the flow-on of benefits from social interaction have been the values that serve as the bedrock from where our greats have come. Through endless competitions we have learnt that victory is a fleeting thing, and that when you lose there will always be another day.

This is the school that produces our best sports people, our nation's most esteemed representatives. During the two weeks of the Olympic Games we saw a man with no legs run, women compete in their hijabs and small island nations triumph over superpowers. The world took time out to marvel at athletes who could transform into an art form a sport that is so difficult just to play. In these two weeks that happen every four years the world becomes a better place. Our athletes who have participated with us and excelled at local levels, then state level, and now as national representatives have been worthy and a true reflection of us. They have trained hard, completed with their all, and displayed the full range of emotions that is normal when so much effort has been invested and the final result must be accepted. Win or lose, modest in victory or not, graceful in defeat or not, they have been our chosen representatives—a reflection of us and of our society. We should be proud of our representatives and the role they have played in making our world a better place through this sporting engagement.

Anyone who judges our participation in these Olympics by the medal count does not understand the true value of sport or the great Olympic movement. In these statements we celebrate 410 Australian athletes who went to London, from 16-year-old Brittany Broben to the slightly less young Mary Hanna, and from those who faltered at the first heat to those who sang our anthem on the dais. We applaud and thank every parent, carer and friend who has been an orange cutter, weekend taxi driver, amateur referee or coach, or just provided a clean pair of socks—you are all part of the Olympic team that we celebrate today.

The energy gained from those athletes and those great two weeks in London reinvigorated all of us for the Paralympic Games that started two weeks later. It is with some amusement that I note Channel 4's billboard advertisement placed next to London Olympic Stadium after the closing ceremony, which simply read, 'Thanks for the warm-up.' The world's Paralympic athletes certainly delivered, displaying superhuman abilities as they inspired all with the manner in which they have successfully overcome life's toughest challenges. There is no more powerful symbol of the importance of participation than the sight of Paralympic athletes achieving such incredible feats of strength, fitness, skill and endurance. For these athletes, their journey to London is surely the greatest achievement, and the rest is, more or less, just a game.

Over 300 Australians represented us and made us proud, just as those 410 Olympians did in the prior games. As policymakers, we can only hope that the achievements of all of our Olympic and Paralympic heroes can drive us all, across all generations, towards the enduring benefits of participation and to those core values that have made our sportspeople most esteemed of all Australians. More than any gold, silver or bronze, this is the goal of our nation's representatives and is, in fact, our greatest sporting achievement.

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