Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—I move:

That the House:

(1) congratulates the Socceroos on their magnificent consecutive victories over Tunisia and this morning over Denmark, securing a place in the knockout stages of the World Cup in Qatar;

(2) together with all Australians, declares its support for our team in the matches ahead; and

(3) on behalf of the people of Australia, declares 'you have made us proud'.

The Leader of the Opposition will speak to this motion as well, and I thank him for his cooperation. I do want to say that a few of us are a bit dusty this morning—a bit tired. I, the Minister for Sport and, I'm sure, others were exchanging messages through Twitter and in text messages in the early hours of this morning. When it was nil-all at half-time, I think that Australians who were up at that time—about three o'clock at half-time—were very hopeful of going forward. But the truth is that the Danes had had most of the attack in the first 30 minutes. But Australia really were coming back.

Then, of course, you had that extraordinary goal from Mathew Leckie on the break, where he went left, went right, went left again and nailed it with his left foot into the corner to send us into the lead. You then had, I think, quite an extraordinary period, including those terrible last six minutes, when it went up, where Australians—whether they were at Fed Square or in their homes—were all just hoping that Australia could hang on. There was corner after corner; there was attack after attack from the Danes, and I pay tribute to them. They kept coming at the Socceroos, but the Socceroos had a strategy. They went to a back five when they led one-nil, and it was an extraordinary win against a very high-class team. If you look at the salaries of the Danish team and the Australian team, I reckon that we're getting pretty good value from our team. It was also, of course, a fantastic win over Tunisia after a really tough first game against the World Cup champions, France.

I have to say that the celebrations we saw around the nation in the early hours of this morning were almost as entertaining to watch as the game itself. To the Socceroos we say as a country, 'You have done us proud.' I do note that the coach, Graham Arnold, who drinks at the Sackville Hotel in my electorate, has said that he made sure they rested after game 2 and that they got off social media, so they mightn't hear about this. But they should know that all Australians are on their side, and we'll be cheering them on against Argentina, who, of course, with Lionel Messi represent one of the great teams in world football.

It is the world game, football. It's watched by more than any other sport. It will be a fantastic boost, as the commentators were saying overnight, including Craig Foster—who does such amazing work at Addi Road in my electorate—along with Mark Bosnich in the commentating that I think we all watched afterwards. The problem with staying up at that time is that when you have a win like that it's very hard to just turn off the TV, and I certainly didn't for some period of time.

So I think that it is a fantastic achievement. I do note the calls around Australia for a public holiday to be declared. I'm afraid that at this point in time it was a bit late, at four in the morning, to call a public holiday today. But I reckon if we win the World Cup, well, that might be a different story. So we'll wait and see how that goes. I think that would be very hard to resist.

I do want to pay tribute to the work that Anika Wells does as the Minister for Sport. The Minister for Sport was recently in New Zealand. Of course, we will hold the Women's World Cup, and that is going to be a major event for Australia, a major opportunity for tourism and a major opportunity to inspire young girls, in particular, to take up a team sport. Team sport teaches people how to win, how to lose, how to work as a team and how to cooperate and teaches them great social skills as well. Whatever team sport people play, I think, it is always good for young girls and boys to participate as well as good for people in later life if they can.

So all the best to the Socceroos. We will all be watching in a week's time. Parliament won't sit, of course, for the rest of the World Cup unless the Senate keeps talking over the next week—and that is possible! I don't discount that possibility. Whenever they stop talking, we will gather back here, but I suspect that we will be watching it from different places rather than together as well. I commend the motion very much to the parliament and I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his cooperation and support for this.

See this speech in context