Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Every four years the world comes together in the greatest show of humanity and athleticism to marvel at the sporting feats of the world's greatest athletes at the Olympic Games. Australians—and people throughout the world—stop for two weeks to watch the greatest sporting feats and athletic marvels of the last four years. This year's Olympics were no different. As Australians, we were glued to the television—watching sports that we would never watch ordinarily if they were not during the Olympics period!

Tonight I want to pay tribute to all of Australia's athletes who competed at the Olympic Games, who did our nation so proud—in particular those who hail from our community in Kingsford Smith—and to thank them for doing our community quite proud at the Olympics. The Olympics began with events in the pool, and our swimming team got us off to a great start. Our athletic accomplishments are a great source of pride and, for members of this place, that sense of pride is amplified when our own constituents chase gold against the world's best. From Kingsford Smith there were 10 local athletes who competed in a range of events: Jess Thornton, Selma Kajan and Victoria Mitchell on the track; Lea Yanitsas, John Cotterill, Nathan Power and Joel Dennerley in the water polo; Henry Hutchison in the rugby sevens; Miranda Giambelli in judo; and Samantha Stosur in tennis.

Our water polo players did us proud in what is a very, very difficult sport to excel in, as did Miranda Giambelli, who did us very proud in the tough sport of judo. Samantha Stosur achieved her best result in an Olympic Games, reaching the third round before losing out to world number two Angelique Kerber. Henry Hutchison was in the rugby sevens team that, unfortunately, lost to South Africa at the quarter-final stage, Selma Kajan ran with pride in the 800-metre heats, while Victoria Mitchell ran a season's best time in the 3,000 metre steeplechase, finishing in 29th place.

The youngest member of the athletic squad, Randwick-Botany Harriers star and Kingsford Smith Local Sporting Champions grant recipient, Jess Thornton, proved to be a highlight, as she and her compatriots reached the final of the women's 4 x 400 metres, finishing in eighth place. They are a very young team, and I have no doubt that if they stick together they will do much better at the next Olympics.

As a strong believer in the importance of sporting participation and the promotion of health and wellbeing, I thought it was fantastic to see local athletes perform at the highest level and more than worth a few extra late nights, but it is not over yet.

We now have the Paralympics in action and a number of athletes from Kingsford Smith are competing, including 14-year-old Tamsin Colley in the open-age 200-metre sprint; neuroscience student Prue Watt in the 100-metre butterfly, 200-metre individual medley, 100-metre breaststroke and 50-metre freestyle; and Andrew Edmondson in the wheelchair rugby. We wish them all the best. Best of luck to all the Paralympians and congratulations to all of those who competed and did us proud in Rio.

I will finish by dealing with the issue of some of what I thought was unnecessary and unjustified critical commentary of the performance of Australia's Olympic team in Rio. I say to the athletes, in particular the members of our community from Kingsford Smith, that critical commentary does not reflect the views of the people in our community and the wider Australian populace. We are extremely proud of all that you achieved at the Olympics. We understand the sacrifices that you make: the early mornings, the hours and hours of training, the technical preparations and the sacrifice that your parents and families made. We thank you for that sacrifice and we want to know that you did us extremely proud and that we are proud of you wearing the green and gold. We wish you all the very best for the future. Thank you for representing our country with such pride.