Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm very pleased to speak on the motion moved by the energetic and passionate member for Lindsay.

There are just nine more sleeps until we experience the spectacle and excitement of the opening ceremony of the 2018 Commonwealth Games. This year, I'm happy to say, it's on my home turf of Queensland. In 2006 Australia last hosted a Commonwealth Games in a city—I think it's called Melbourne, Deputy Speaker? And the time before that, 36 years ago, was in Brisbane. The athletes village for the 1982 Brisbane Commonwealth Games was in my electorate of Moreton. The Griffith University Nathan campus was transformed into an operations centre. The student accommodation housed athletes and officials, new-release movies were shown in the university cinema and the grounds were a rolling venue for live entertainment to fill the athletes' downtime. We saw this on the Channel 7 news the other day in a flashback. The Commonwealth Games from 1982 left a lasting legacy on the Nathan campus. This year's Commonwealth Games will be held just down the road at the Gold Coast—again, next door to a Griffith University campus, but this time on the Gold Coast.

Hosting the Commonwealth Games is a massive undertaking. There will be 71 nations and territories competing. Six thousand six hundred athletes and team officials have already started moving into the Gold Coast, ready for the start of the games. Queensland's Minister for the Commonwealth Games, Kate Jones, and Annastacia Palaszczuk, the Premier, have done a wonderful job preparing for Queensland's biggest event—an event that has created thousands of jobs and opportunities for Queenslanders. Obviously, they have been ably assisted by their chairman, the indefatigable and ever-astute Peter Beattie.

More than one million tickets have been sold so far. But there are still some tickets available, including a new release of 40,000 tickets. There are still tickets available for athletics, basketball, squash, hockey, lawn bowls, badminton and weightlifting, and I hear that more tickets for the swimming are about to be released. I'm lucky enough to be able to take my family along to the swimming, to the boxing and to a few other events. Fifteen thousand volunteers and thousands more staff will be deployed to venues on the Gold Coast.

Not only will the event itself be fantastic as a sporting spectacle but it's great for Queensland. I can't wait to take my family to some of the events, and I know that other people from all around the world will be turning up. Up to 30,000 jobs have been created and 18 world-class facilities have been built or upgraded through a $320 million infrastructure program. The games venues were completed some time ago and the temporary overlays to specifically house the Commonwealth Games events are all but finished.

The magnitude of preparing the venues becomes apparent when you hear what was required to be installed before the games could start: 61,000 temporary grandstand seats, 500 tents covering 45,000 square metres, 50 kilometres of temporary fencing and over 38,000 branded elements to ensure that everyone will be well aware that they are celebrating the 2018 Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast.

The games will have a global viewing audience of about 1½ billion and will showcase the Gold Coast, Queensland and Australia to the world. Hopefully, some of these viewers will then be tempted to come for a visit themselves, bringing more tourism dollars for businesses. The Commonwealth Games will leave a lasting legacy, as the new sporting infrastructure will make Queensland more attractive as a location for other international sporting meets. More immediately, the games will generate $4 billion and support 16,000 full-time jobs.

As for the events themselves: what can I say? They will be a feast for sporting spectators: world-class athletes competing at world-class venues, and just a short train ride from my home. The games will be using the very best venues and the most beautiful natural resources that the Gold Coast can lay on. The 20-kilometre race in both the walking and road cycling will take place on the beautiful Currumbin beachfront. The marathon and triathlon will be staged at the Southport Broadwater Parklands, a route familiar to all who have done the Gold Coast half-marathon or marathon. Lawn bowls will be held at the Broadbeach Bowls Club, just metres from one of the Gold Coast's famous white sandy beaches—beaches that are easily, I believe, the best in the world. We must not forget the most important part of the Commonwealth Games: the athletes who have trained and are striving for gold. Importantly, this year, for the first time, female athletes will receive the same number of medals as males.

I wish athletes competing all the best, especially those who grew up in Moreton and started their playing careers in some of our wonderful south-side sporting clubs, athletes such as the talented Charlotte Caslick, who's already won a gold medal—at the Olympics—and will be competing in the Australian rugby women's sevens and Tom Lucas who'll be competing in the Australian men's Rugby Sevens squad and who started his Rugby at Sunnybank. I wish you athletes all the best—that is, anyone connected with my electorate and everyone in the Australian team. I will be cheering some of you from the sidelines and others from my lounge room.

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