Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development) Share this | Hansard source

I wanted to make a short contribution to this debate. It has been a terribly sad week, since last Tuesday when we all saw the horrific incident which took Phillip Hughes's life. In saying 'the horrific incident', it was an incident which happens quite regularly on the cricket field. In fact, I got hit about five centimetres away from that same spot in my last game of district cricket, which broke my jaw. I think it brought home just how lucky we are—every day, in a lot of ways—and just how terribly unlucky Phillip Hughes was for that one spot in his head to have been hit and for it to have taken his life.

He was an outstanding cricketer who was progressing to become, I think, an even better cricketer. I think, probably because of the focus on AFL and the physical nature of AFL football, we look at people playing that game, and when they get to 25 or 26 they are getting to the mid-to-later part of their career. Cricketers, I think, often get a lot better as they get older. And I think with Phillip Hughes you were seeing a maturity develop with his batting and his cricket, which would have meant he would have contributed much more significantly in the future. In saying that, he was an outstanding junior cricketer. Anyone who plays under 19's for their country is an outstanding junior cricketer. He travelled from country New South Wales to the Western Suburbs District Cricket Club in Sydney to pursue his dream. I went from Mildura to Adelaide to play cricket with Glenelg to pursue a dream; he was far better than I was. It is a trip that many young Australians take, particularly those from regional areas.

Cricket is a game which was invented in heaven and will be played in heaven even better now, with Phillip Hughes as part of the starting 11. His death, I think, has shown how important cricket is to our culture. The reaction in the last week, with a simple tweet from a man in Sydney about putting out your bats and the reaction that got, was quite extraordinary. It is a game that pretty much everyone in our country plays at some point in their life, whether it be seriously and to the level of wanting to play for Australia or whether it be on Christmas Day in a backyard. Pretty much everyone has picked up a cricket bat and played a version of the game. It touches our lives enormously.

I think what you saw last week, and what we will see today, is that sport is more than just a recreation. It is a community builder; it brings people together. We can all share in the grief because whether you knew him well, whether you were as close to him as Michael Clarke, or whether you were just an admirer or someone who knows about the importance of the game, it has brought everyone to this grief that we all share.

I share the sentiments of all the members who have talked about Sean Abbott. Of course, we feel for what that young man is going through as well, and we hope that he is able to find peace and recover.

Michael Clarke, I think, has shown absolutely outstanding leadership in the last week, not just with the bedside vigil that the member for Werriwa mentioned but with the statement he made on Saturday morning, which was one of the most brutal things I have ever seen on live television; it was horrific. That moment, I think, encapsulated the grief that we all share as a community, and he deserves as much credit as he is rightly getting.

It has been a very sad occasion. Cricket will go on and life will go on, but it will not be the same. We have lost a very bright young man—a very talented young man—and it is a reminder of just how precious life is. Rest in peace, Phillip Hughes.

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