Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Action, Environment and Heritage) Share this | Hansard source

Many fine words have rightly been said about the London Olympic Games at the general level and in particular terms about the performance of the Australian team. I want to focus exclusively on the Paralympians. I want to do so by beginning with the way my seven-year-old looked at the Paralympics. My seven-year-old, Poppy, really got the Olympics for the first time. She was captivated by the general Olympics but then was completely engaged by the Paralympics. It worked in two ways. Firstly, it was a recognition that disability was a challenge, not an impediment. For her to see people with differing degrees of disability—it could well have been Down syndrome or it could have been a condition such as cerebral palsy or the loss of limbs for the swimmers and the runners—was quite an eye-opener. We talked about it a lot. That same conversation would have gone on in families right around Australia and around the world where it was televised. So the impact on people from outside the disabilities community, in my judgement, was more profound on a quantum scale than from any other Paralympic Games. It was just a moment where the Paralympics graduated to mainstream appreciation. I think that was an extraordinary step forward for disability communities right around the world.

I am particularly delighted that China won the medal tally. You might wonder why. It is because what it says is that, in a developing country, extraordinary resources are being put into the care, the maintenance, the development and the fulfilment of those with disabilities. I think that that is a very important message and an extremely important development. So that was a very heartening thing.

I want to acknowledge two people from my own community, from my own electorate of Flinders, one of whom competed at this games and one of whom had competed at a previous games. Luke Cain of Boneo is 32. As a 19-year-old he had a tragic football accident which gave him a form of quadriplegia. He was playing AFL football for Rosebud against Hastings when he was sandwiched between two other players and developed quadriplegia, which was a completely life-changing event. It could have been a life destroying event, but he chose for it not to be. What an act of courage. He is a cousin of Travis Cloke, so he could well have had a great football career ahead of him. Instead, he picked himself up in the best way possible. He of course has had hard times—no question. He competed in the shooting. This is a young guy who has overcome the most profound of personal hardships and tragedies and has remade his life. To see him competing in the shooting at the Paralympics is a testimony to the human spirit at its absolute finest. In that respect, it acknowledges for me what these Paralympic Games were all about.

One of the people in the electorate to whom I have become very close is Mandy Drennan. Mandy is a young woman who was born without her right leg. She held an AIS Paralympic swimming scholarship in 2003-04. While she was not at these games, she was at the 2004 Athens Games and won a bronze medal as part of the 4 x 100-metre freestyle. She is an absolutely delightful young woman, completely positive in nature, who last year did a 66-kilometre swim around Phillip Island—there are some very rough waters to the south of the island—to raise money for Warley Hospital. I was invited to join her for part of that swim. I swam for a kilometre on the north side of the island. My only complaint is that she had a shark cage and everyone decided that I should swim behind the shark cage. I am not sure what the message was, but that was the fastest I can remember swimming in a long while. She claims that it was primarily so that I could get the benefit of the drag which would reduce the pressure on me whilst I was swimming. I am not so sure. She has a great sense of humour. She is a fantastic human being. She is a marathon swimmer and she is also the embodiment of what the Paralympics are about.

When you look at our performance, what a national performance: 161 athletes, 85 medals, 32 gold. Jacqui Freney won eight gold—the most gold medals of any individual at the games—and she is my seven-year-old daughter's hero. What an outcome; what a great thing! Similarly, Matthew Cowdrey, the swimmer, won five gold, two silver and a bronze. He is now our greatest ever Paralympian, with 13 gold medals.

These games were about the graduation of disability sports into the mainstream. They made a huge difference in how these people with disabilities and challenges are perceived worldwide and are a point of incredible inspiration for anybody who suffers these challenges. At the end of the day, the message to the broader community and to those who have disabilities is: these are challenges, not impediments. For that we should be thankful.

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