Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to join in congratulating those Australian athletes who brought great honour to our country by their success at the Olympics and the Paralympics. To win an Olympic gold medal or for that matter any medal is a crowning achievement of a sporting life. All of the athletes who succeed at international level have worked for decades to develop their talent and have reached the pinnacle of their sport. The Paralympics results were an extraordinary success for our country. Our fifth place in the Paralympics erased some of the disappointment that was around about Australia achieving only tenth place on the medal tally at the Olympics. However, it needs to be acknowledged that in most sports Australia achieved around expectations.

Our tenth was certainly a credible result, but it was not up to Australia's previous achievements and there has been some criticism and soul-searching about why Australia's performances were below our expectation. Of course, there should be. It is appropriate that after a major event of this nature we look at how we can do better. There has been criticism of coaches and funding—that there was not enough funding, that there were too many officials there, there was too much hype and perhaps even unjustified expectations. One constituent wrote to me, drawing attention to the fact that we do not provide substantial financial rewards to our successful athletes. This person drew attention to Singapore, where apparently there is a $1 million reward offered to anyone who can win a gold medal. To be fair, Singapore has never won a gold medal in Olympic history and so I guess for them it would be a special prize, but it also demonstrates that money is not what delivers sporting success—it is dedication and commitment.

It is appropriate that there be a thorough examination of how our team was prepared, what our reasonable expectations for the future are, if the level of funding is appropriate and what we need to do to make sure we do as well as we can at the next Olympics. We have a tradition of excellence in sport and our achievements on the sporting field very much inspire our country. Those results are just as important to us as succeeding in business or economics—if we do well on the sports field we feel proud of ourselves as a nation.

Perhaps we need to look more fundamentally at why there was some disappointment with our Olympic results. I would like to read an extract from a letter to the editor in my local newspaper from a Mr Phil Enright from River Heads. He said:

The sad fact is that for decades, our nation has been losing its work ethic and intensity, instead placing the weight of expectation on our athletes to produce gold at the Olympics so we may continue to delude ourselves we are a nation of hard-working, high achievers—the opposite of whom we have become.

I suggest our athletes' achievements reflect our own more than we might like to admit.

If we want our athletes to commit intensely to a work ethic of excellence and high achievement, we must commit to those values as a nation. We must stop championing mediocrity, rewarding any 'achievement', and the view of entitlement that we can be guaranteed the things we want, just because we are fortunate to be born in the lucky country.

The Olympic Games is a great leveller, and a reminder that spin is no substitute for serious commitment.

The answer is not more money but the right values and the leadership to commit to them as a nation …

Mr Enright has made a very powerful point. If we want to be critical of our athletes, perhaps we also ought to look at ourselves. Our lifestyle has changed in quite dramatic ways over the years. Perhaps the major Olympic disappointment was our results in the swimming pool. Swimming is a sport which requires an enormous commitment, and not just from the athletes who participate; many of them begin their swimming careers at a very young age and they depend on their parents to take them to the pool to train before dawn every day. It is a huge commitment, not just from teenagers and children but also from their parents. In this day and age, many families are two-income families, and there are fly-in fly-out parents. Children spend a lot of time in childcare centres and after-school care and do not have parents available to drive them to the pool or who have time to take them to competitions. Then there are the costs to be met in the early years before they might qualify for sponsorship. It is a fact that our lifestyle is changing our commitment to sport, and if we want to criticise our athletes I think we need also to look at ourselves and our lifestyle.

There are real issues confronting our sporting community. We can be very proud of our athletes, who have represented us with great distinction. In reviewing our athletes' performance we need to remember the enormous personal commitment that they have made in a changing world, when it is a lot harder to make that commitment than it might have been in previous times. I congratulate those whose success brought honour to our country at the Olympics and the Paralympics, and we wish them well for the future.

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