Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On this day of the first State of Origin rugby league match for 2017 I would like to say a few words about sport. Unlike others in this place, such as the member for Murray, Damian Drum, an AFL legend, and the member for Bennelong, John Alexander, an international tennis legend, if ever there was a member whose own sporting prowess, seasoned by advancing years, ill-equips him to talk about sport, I am your man. I am not a sports nut but I am a fan—a modest one who has every right to stay modest. But State of Origin goes beyond sport. It is, in an odd way, part of our national psyche. Millions watch it, and not just those from the maroon and sky-blue states.

Origin has become a phenomenon akin in many ways to the Melbourne cup. People who usually do not take much of an interest in rugby league are for three nights a year glued to their sets, absorbed in the latest struggle between the Cane-toads and the Cockroaches. I suspect that is down to more than a triumph of marketing and a top-of-the-shelf television coverage—it appeals to something deep within us all, in the same way that the best of the best in any field or calling will have something that grabs us, something that tells us a bit more about ourselves. It is almost as if Australian sports fans have become as attached to State of Origin as British historians and dramatists have been to the Wars of the Roses.

Sport, even viewed from an armchair, has lots going for it. It can be as beautiful as ballet or as poignant and instructive as King Learespecially off the field. And let's not forget some of this country's finest writing has been about sports by wonderful and prolific all-rounders like Gideon Haig, Roy Masters, Spiro Zavas, Evan Whitton, Peter FitzSimons and Peter Lalor. And Australian sports broadcasters and their crews are amongst the finest in the world. The Channel 9 team, headed by the incomparable Ray Martin tonight, is world class—something we tend to forget simply because they have been doing it for so long and so well.

Anyone who has ever heard a race called by an American broadcaster will know just how good generations of Australian race callers have been. The technology employed and those who deploy it—much of it pioneered in the days of the late Kerry Packer and coinciding with the birth of World Series Cricket—is of course 'simply marvellous'. To quote another unlikely sports fan, the musician Neil Young, 'Tonight's the night,' if ever I were going to say something about sport.

So here I am, possibly a bit underdone, but ready to make some hard yards on three important issues. Sport is good for our mental health. Sport binds us together; it integrates us into this society, provides us with social contacts and improves our self-esteem. Sport allows social mobility, and can help support education and the stable environment which is essential in any child's development.

Secondly, sport encourages exercise, exercise patterns and healthy lifestyles which are very important in combatting our epidemic of childhood obesity and type 2 diabetes. Thirdly, sport and regular exercise are very important for our ageing population—for continuing mental agility and preventing the onset of some of the diseased of age, such as cardiovascular disease.

I am lucky that I represent an area which has a large culture of team sport. In Macarthur, sport is embedded in our community, with over 80 varying sporting clubs. We have sporting groups that start at age 4, like the Campbelltown Cobras Soccer Club, and groups that have divisions for the over 70s, like the Macquarie Fields Swimming Club. We have AFL, basketball, dance, Little Athletics, netball, rugby league, rugby union, soccer, softball, swimming, a Special Olympics team, tennis, touch football and baseball as well. There is no greater social mechanism to breakdown divides and to bring the community together than sport.

We have had a lot a fantastic talent in Macarthur—names such as Israel Folau, Jarryd Hayne, Jim Piper, Brett Hodgson, Alyson Annan, John Skandalis and Brett Emerton hailed from our region at some point in their busy lives, amongst many others. Of course, I cannot forget the great Campbelltown institution, the Wests Tigers rugby league team.

Sport has been very important to me. My father was President of West Harbour Rugby Union Club for many years, my wife is an active netballer and I have seen the way that Sport transforms the lives of some of my patients. I wish both teams well tonight. I hope it is a great game—but go the Blues!