Anika Wells (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Aged Care) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Hunter for his question. He is a proud, five-time Olympian, a very talented sportsperson and a deadset legend, if I may express a personal opinion. This morning we welcomed our brilliant Paralympians home, following two weeks of transformative performances. All 160 athletes in Paris excelled, from the youngest, 15-year-old Holly Warn, to the oldest, 69-year-old table tennis whiz Jimmy Huo. The highlights were spellbinding: Alexa Leary dancing her way to two golds in the pool; Lauren Parker becoming the first Australian to win golds in multiple sports in 48 years. Our Paralympians won 18 gold and 63 medals total.

The Paris Games may have deprived us of our sleep but have provided us with record-breaking moments of triumph over adversity, cementing sport as Australia's connective tissue. Paris 2024 was the spiritual arm squeeze between millions of people across thousands of kilometres, even at 4 am—and every coffee was worth it. As a society, we are increasingly isolated, increasingly siloed and increasingly lonely, but sport makes us hug strangers, and that's what it did, especially the Paralympics, which provides that rare combination of preventive, mental and physical health benefits—and the chance to both cheer and cry at the same time!

But the Albanese government is doing more than cheering; we are committing. What people deserve from inclusion and equity is substance and structural change, to know barriers will not only be reported but also be acted upon. Our government has acted and made record-breaking investment into our Paralympians, doubling the funding over the next two years to almost $55 million. The Albanese government's commitment will shift the balance of sport funding in this country, from 85 per cent able-bodied and 50 per cent people with disability, to 75 and 25 per cent. This is part of a record government spend in sport overall of almost $500 million over the next two years.

We also invested an additional $20 million to help our Olympic and Paralympic athletes qualify for Paris. We provided Australia's para-athletes with the same financial incentives for winning medals at the Paris Games as our Olympians. Our Paralympian gold medallists received $20,000, our silver medallists received $15,000 and our bronze medallists received $10,000, because we recognise that high-performance sport is exactly that, no matter which body you are performing high-performance sport in. From playground to podium, from junior pathways to Paris, and from backyards to Brisbane 2032, the Albanese government is backing our Australian athletes.

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