Philip Ruddock (Berowra, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is always a unique opportunity—largely because you never get such a large audience in the other chamber—but, for me, this is a particularly unique opportunity to be able to speak about something that quite surprised me. I thought that modern technological devices were particularly important. I thought that they aided children's development. What I found was that, if your children are watching these devices all the time, their schoolwork results deteriorate, but, if they play sport, they continue to get outstanding results. So it pleased me when over the weekend I was able to go to the Northern Suburbs Football Association for their girls—women's—football cup. It was a unique occasion. I must say that I have never seen such a competitive environment, and I wanted to comment about it and draw attention to it. It was the clash between Mount Colah and Northbridge. The game finished nil-all. It surprised me that, when they had extra time, it was still nil-all. Then I saw these girls go into penalty shoot-outs. I must say, I though Northbridge was in front, but then they missed one and Mount Colah was able to come out again in front. I congratulate Paul McSweeney and his team. It was a fantastic match at Asquith and brought great credit to the district.