Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It's my honour to follow the member opposite to speak on the Major Sporting Events (Indicia and Images) Protection and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2021. Obviously, we've heard speaker after speaker today outline what this bill does. It is, in fact, a bill that merely changes some dates and puts new events into the Major Sporting Events (Indicia and Images) Protection Act 2014. But it gives us an opportunity to talk about and to celebrate sport, and it will be no surprise to anyone who knows me or to anyone in my electorate that I want to stand here and pay homage to the people who inspire, motivate and engage us. I'm talking about the elite athletes whom we get to support, barrack for and watch on our screens and whose actions in the sporting field translate into young people engaging in physical activity.

I know that most of us in this chamber hope that the elite levels in our sport will translate into young people engaging in sport, because obviously sport is about physical fitness but it's also about being able to channel your competitive instincts in positive ways. It's about learning to take risks. It's about putting yourself out there and putting yourself on the line. These are all wonderful things for young Australians—and, in fact, young people all around the world—to learn. So the piece of legislation we're talking about is one that we can all support, because it updates what our nation's next major sporting events are. It's no surprise that, coming from Melbourne, I am passionate about sport and our sporting events at home. Sport is such a special part of our national identity.

I would like to pause for a moment and think about the pandemic and how it has shown us how important sport is in the community. During Melbourne's lockdowns across the last 18 months, I often thought about the very youngest of us not being able to be involved in community sport at the grassroots level because of the pandemic. I thought about what the impact would have been on me when I was in grade 3 and grade 4—that's a long time ago now—if I had not been able to look forward to the weekly game of netball on a Saturday. I know it would have been really, really hard. I measured the days in the week by when I was going to get to Saturday and be able to play netball again.

So I want to pay tribute to all of those community sporting organisations, particularly in my community, who responded to calls to maintain their presence and their connection with our community through social media. We had sporting organisations organising videos of training drills and things young people can do on their own at home to keep fit and keep connected to their sports. They did an amazing job in leadership in our community during the pandemic. I know how pleased they were to get back onto courts last year and to get some competition happening, and I know how excited they all are at the prospect of that happening as Melbourne opens up now.

One of my favourite sports, obviously, is netball, and I want to pay tribute to the Wyndham Netball Association, who are now ramping up to introduce a competition where there won't be registration fees; it will be 'rock up and play'. It will be an opportunity for people just to get back out there, get on the court and be part of sport again. In these times of lockdown, I want to pay tribute to our major football codes and to the Super Netball competition. Also, across two seasons, I also thank personally the Queensland government for supporting netball in their huddle in 2020. That was when, of course, the Vixens became premiers. Again, this year, there was support for netballers from around the country as they moved from huddle to huddle, and we saw the Sydney Swifts take out that championship this year.

While I am on netball, I would also like to put on record here my support for the Australian netball association, and, in fact, for the international netballers around the world. They are rallying to see netball included as an Olympic sport in Brisbane. This is extraordinarily important. And, for the record, for those in the community who believe that netball is just played by women, there is an international men's netball competition. There are boys and men playing netball all over many of the countries that are involved. To those who believe that netball is only a Commonwealth sport, again, you need to be corrected. Netball is played in lots of countries that have nothing to do with the Commonwealth. I want to see netball embraced by the Olympic movement, because I want to see that sport on that platform and presented to the whole world with the Olympic spirit behind it. So here's to netball getting there.

While I am thinking about women's sport in international sport and in this piece of legislation, I also want to acknowledge that the last thing I did before the pandemic took over our lives was attend the world cup where the Australian women's cricket team took that great championship. What a display was put on by the cricket world, by our cricketers and by the international cricketers. I also thank the Indian cricket team for the display they put on that evening as well. It certainly was inspiring. In supporting women's sport, it's important that, regardless of which sport you love to play, you make sure that you're promoting all women's sport. This week, for me, watching the Matildas defeat Brazil on home soil has certainly been inspiring, again, after watching them so recently in the Olympic competition.

So, I saw the excitement at the MCG for the ICC Women's T20 World Cup live at the MCG before the pandemic changed the way we do things. It is absolutely wonderful to see the Matildas on the ground now in Australia, with crowds. I want to congratulate the Southern Stars for their work at the start of 2020, and we will watch the Matildas compete in 2023 when we get to the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup. I acknowledge the work and the support that has happened from this federal parliament for that event to occur.

Sport is incredibly in important. It keeps us active, it brings the community together and it gives us hope in troubled times, like it did in the pandemic. There is something that I often say in my community. It's really important that our new and emerging communities actually understand how important sport is in Australian culture. Saying that, I would have to reference that we all know how passionate our South Asian community is in my neck of the woods about cricket. But, in our community, our youth sport participation rate is still incredibly low. And it's even lower if you segregate the girls from the boys. So one of the messages that I try and carry in my community is to get people to understand what kids learn playing sport and what value sport is for girls and boys. One of the things I often talk about is that it is true, as part of Australian culture—and particularly in Melbourne—that often when you are looking to employ someone and you've advertised for a position, you go through resumes to see who still plays sport in their 20s and go through CVs to see people who've captained sports teams. These are important cultural things. It's not just about the playing. It's about what it says about you. It's about what it translates to in relation to the character building that you've been through. It's about your capacity to work inside a team. It's about learning leadership skills. It's equally important for our girls to learn these things as it is for our boys, and it's equally important that our girls understand that having a competitive nature is an absolutely normal thing to have.

I think back to my time on the netball court and the way it allowed me to just be me, that in a competitive environment I could just be me. I loved to do it. I completely forgot about it. I was never self-conscious on the court. It was all about getting to that ball first. I didn't have to be nice. I was allowed to be aggressive and I was allowed to win, things that I want our girls to learn how to do as much as I want our boys to learn how to do.

I'll leave my remarks there. I welcome the bill. Labor, obviously, supports the bill. We need these changes in order to protect our sporting events and to ensure that sporting events continue to come to Australia and ensure that we continue to attract the investment in our sporting events to keep these things rolling so as to inspire and motivate our young people.

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