Andrew Nikolic (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I welcome this opportunity to rise and talk about my enthusiastic support for sport in general but for netball in particular. In my youth I participated enthusiastically in a whole range of sports—ball sports as well, like the member for Chifley—most particularly team sports. You will note that avid enthusiasm is not the same thing as athletic virtuosity, but I tried and I had a lot of fun. That includes involvement in netball, which is of course the leading participation sport for females in Australia and which delivers a fitness dividend of great value to our society. I had involvement when my two girls played netball at school and when I was commandant of the Army Recruit Training Centre, where I sponsored the Kapooka netball 7s, and today I stand before you very proudly as the patron of the Northern Tasmanian Netball Association. Some 1,300 young women participate in the sport from age 11 right up to masters level. They are our emerging Diamonds, some rougher than others but emerging nevertheless into the future to carry the flag for Australia in netball in future competitions.

Team sports have always played a vital and important role in Australia. In today's technological world, they encourage people to engage with each other, to get active and physically involved in life, and to do so directly with other participants. I am glad that, fortunately, real team sport has not been hijacked to the virtual ether. The rewards for all involved in team sports like netball are diverse and long-lasting: physical wellbeing, social interaction and, particularly for the young, the development and enrichment of their character—in a sense, a wider preparation for life. The dedication and discipline shown by players on the field, pitch or court inevitably reap rewards in others facets of players' lives, far beyond their sporting venues.

There remains something very special, unique and rewarding about channelling one's personal efforts toward a goal apart from oneself: to a team unified and made whole by purpose, goal, direction and above all collective effort, that symmetry and poetry we have heard some speakers talking about before. Indeed, many of life's harder lessons, particularly perseverance, are also well learned through the friendly combat of sport. I will paraphrase Teddy Roosevelt, who said this about some of the spirit and gritty requirements of people involved in the elite level of sport. I think his quote is equally applicable to character struggle in life, both sporting and beyond. He said:

It is not the critic who counts; nor those who point out how the strong have stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to those actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds … who at the best knows … the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if they fail, at least fail while daring greatly, so that their place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

Simply put, team sports matter, and perhaps nowhere more than in Australia. They matter most because winning a match, championship, tournament or other such goal is inevitably tough. It cannot be done without much work, discipline, effort and struggle. While talent is important, beyond a base level it is not sufficient of itself. And this alone makes team sports great practice for winning at, and in, life, which is inevitably much harder still.

Amongst Australia's eminent sporting bodies is Netball Australia, which has a lustrous past and a very bright and exciting future. I congratulate Netball Australia for boosting the profile of women in sport, affording its members valuable opportunities to develop leadership and team skills and supporting our world-class netballers. I look forward to cheering our netball teams, particularly as the Aussie Diamonds take on the New Zealand Silver Ferns at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. I wish the ladies all the best in reclaiming their Commonwealth Games title and in defending their world title in Sydney next year. I also look forward to watching our emerging young Diamonds at netball every Saturday in Launceston.

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