John Alexander (Bennelong, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The type of activity known as ambush marketing, by association, has the capacity to diminish the value of sponsorship, reduce the incentive for organisations to enter into commercial arrangements with events and reduce the overall event revenue, possibly increasing financial impact on the government supporting such events. Memorably, at the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984, Coca-Cola, which was a major sponsor, had these types of problems with its competitor Pepsi. Pepsi sought to plaster their signs over every advertising billboard on every transport route from the airport to the city and to all of the events. Pepsi might have won the taste test at the time, but they certainly didn't win the fair-play test, which is central to all sport.

While protecting sports' rights to exclusivity, though, we must also make sure that we recognise the other side of the coin—freedom of speech and broader community access. While it's true that the games don't exist without sponsors, if no-one can see the sport or discuss it it dies a similar form of death to the proverbial tree falling in the forest. This legislation therefore makes some important exemptions which will ensure a pragmatic and functional approach to enacting this legislation. For example, generic words and references have been excluded from the list of protected expressions, as have words and expressions that have passed into common usage. A number of exceptions will also exist in relation to the events, allowing for the continued operation of rights and liabilities under the Trade Marks Act 1995, the Designs Act 2003 and the Copyright Act 1968; the provision of information, criticism and review of the events, such as in newspapers, magazines and broadcasts; use of protected indicia and images for the reasonable needs of sporting bodies in relation to fundraising and promotion; and communities and businesses to engage in city dressing and festival promotions supporting the events in non-commercial ways. These new event protections will cease to have effect approximately one year after the completion of the events—31 December 2024 for the FIFA Women's World Cup and 13 November 2023 for the T20 World Cup.

I'd like to conclude by briefly talking about these two events and, indeed, other sporting events we host in this country. The FIFA Women's World Cup and the T20 World Cup present a great opportunity to showcase Australia from a tourism, trade and event delivery perspective. In this respect, they mirror what is an already very internationally heavy sporting calendar. In normal years, international visitors flock to Melbourne for the Australian Open tennis event, and pretty soon the Barmy Army would start rolling in for the upcoming Ashes tour. These summer events will repeat over the coming years and will be capped off in 2032 with the biggest international sporting event of them all, the Olympic Games. On each of these occasions, hundreds of thousands of tourists will come into our cities for these events and then return soon after they are over, with memories of great sporting events at some of the most beautiful cities on the planet. But few of them will stay on. This is an opportunity missed. That only a fraction of the international visitors for the Australian Open are convinced to spend an extra week in Australia is a missed opportunity. These visitors are low-hanging fruit. We don't need to convince the people to come across the oceans to come here; they're already here. We just need to sell them that week in the wine country, in the outback, at the Barrier Reef or at any one of thousands of other unique tourism offerings that Australia can boast. We need to harvest these people. We should be throwing serious money at selling more Australian experiences to people who have already committed to the journey. That's where our tourism dollar can go further and support the regional businesses who need it, especially now. We need to leverage these great events and these great venues and stages that we have.

Furthermore, we should build on this sporting clusters idea when our teams go overseas for bilateral competitions. They are our ambassadors, selling Australia to the world, and we should use the opportunity to sell tourism and other opportunities at the same time. Yes, our cricket teams should be seeking to win matches, but they should also be seeking to sell tickets for the return test.

We've done the hard part: we've got the world cups, the opens, the Ashes and the Olympics. We need to make more of them. We need to use our events and our great stadiums—such as the Royal Randwick Racecourse, Flemington, Melbourne Park and the MCG—as launchpads for sports tourism in Australia.

Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's my honour to follow the member opposite to speak on the Major Sporting Events (Indicia and Images) Protection and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2021. Obviously, we've heard speaker after speaker today outline what this bill does. It is, in fact, a bill that merely changes some dates and puts new events into the Major Sporting Events (Indicia and Images) Protection Act 2014. But it gives us an opportunity to talk about and to celebrate sport, and it will be no surprise to anyone who knows me or to anyone in my electorate that I want to stand here and pay homage to the people who inspire, motivate and engage us. I'm talking about the elite athletes whom we get to support, barrack for and watch on our screens and whose actions in the sporting field translate into young people engaging in physical activity.

I know that most of us in this chamber hope that the elite levels in our sport will translate into young people engaging in sport, because obviously sport is about physical fitness but it's also about being able to channel your competitive instincts in positive ways. It's about learning to take risks. It's about putting yourself out there and putting yourself on the line. These are all wonderful things for young Australians—and, in fact, young people all around the world—to learn. So the piece of legislation we're talking about is one that we can all support, because it updates what our nation's next major sporting events are. It's no surprise that, coming from Melbourne, I am passionate about sport and our sporting events at home. Sport is such a special part of our national identity.

I would like to pause for a moment and think about the pandemic and how it has shown us how important sport is in the community. During Melbourne's lockdowns across the last 18 months, I often thought about the very youngest of us not being able to be involved in community sport at the grassroots level because of the pandemic. I thought about what the impact would have been on me when I was in grade 3 and grade 4—that's a long time ago now—if I had not been able to look forward to the weekly game of netball on a Saturday. I know it would have been really, really hard. I measured the days in the week by when I was going to get to Saturday and be able to play netball again.

So I want to pay tribute to all of those community sporting organisations, particularly in my community, who responded to calls to maintain their presence and their connection with our community through social media. We had sporting organisations organising videos of training drills and things young people can do on their own at home to keep fit and keep connected to their sports. They did an amazing job in leadership in our community during the pandemic. I know how pleased they were to get back onto courts last year and to get some competition happening, and I know how excited they all are at the prospect of that happening as Melbourne opens up now.

One of my favourite sports, obviously, is netball, and I want to pay tribute to the Wyndham Netball Association, who are now ramping up to introduce a competition where there won't be registration fees; it will be 'rock up and play'. It will be an opportunity for people just to get back out there, get on the court and be part of sport again. In these times of lockdown, I want to pay tribute to our major football codes and to the Super Netball competition. Also, across two seasons, I also thank personally the Queensland government for supporting netball in their huddle in 2020. That was when, of course, the Vixens became premiers. Again, this year, there was support for netballers from around the country as they moved from huddle to huddle, and we saw the Sydney Swifts take out that championship this year.

While I am on netball, I would also like to put on record here my support for the Australian netball association, and, in fact, for the international netballers around the world. They are rallying to see netball included as an Olympic sport in Brisbane. This is extraordinarily important. And, for the record, for those in the community who believe that netball is just played by women, there is an international men's netball competition. There are boys and men playing netball all over many of the countries that are involved. To those who believe that netball is only a Commonwealth sport, again, you need to be corrected. Netball is played in lots of countries that have nothing to do with the Commonwealth. I want to see netball embraced by the Olympic movement, because I want to see that sport on that platform and presented to the whole world with the Olympic spirit behind it. So here's to netball getting there.

While I am thinking about women's sport in international sport and in this piece of legislation, I also want to acknowledge that the last thing I did before the pandemic took over our lives was attend the world cup where the Australian women's cricket team took that great championship. What a display was put on by the cricket world, by our cricketers and by the international cricketers. I also thank the Indian cricket team for the display they put on that evening as well. It certainly was inspiring. In supporting women's sport, it's important that, regardless of which sport you love to play, you make sure that you're promoting all women's sport. This week, for me, watching the Matildas defeat Brazil on home soil has certainly been inspiring, again, after watching them so recently in the Olympic competition.

So, I saw the excitement at the MCG for the ICC Women's T20 World Cup live at the MCG before the pandemic changed the way we do things. It is absolutely wonderful to see the Matildas on the ground now in Australia, with crowds. I want to congratulate the Southern Stars for their work at the start of 2020, and we will watch the Matildas compete in 2023 when we get to the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup. I acknowledge the work and the support that has happened from this federal parliament for that event to occur.

Sport is incredibly in important. It keeps us active, it brings the community together and it gives us hope in troubled times, like it did in the pandemic. There is something that I often say in my community. It's really important that our new and emerging communities actually understand how important sport is in Australian culture. Saying that, I would have to reference that we all know how passionate our South Asian community is in my neck of the woods about cricket. But, in our community, our youth sport participation rate is still incredibly low. And it's even lower if you segregate the girls from the boys. So one of the messages that I try and carry in my community is to get people to understand what kids learn playing sport and what value sport is for girls and boys. One of the things I often talk about is that it is true, as part of Australian culture—and particularly in Melbourne—that often when you are looking to employ someone and you've advertised for a position, you go through resumes to see who still plays sport in their 20s and go through CVs to see people who've captained sports teams. These are important cultural things. It's not just about the playing. It's about what it says about you. It's about what it translates to in relation to the character building that you've been through. It's about your capacity to work inside a team. It's about learning leadership skills. It's equally important for our girls to learn these things as it is for our boys, and it's equally important that our girls understand that having a competitive nature is an absolutely normal thing to have.

I think back to my time on the netball court and the way it allowed me to just be me, that in a competitive environment I could just be me. I loved to do it. I completely forgot about it. I was never self-conscious on the court. It was all about getting to that ball first. I didn't have to be nice. I was allowed to be aggressive and I was allowed to win, things that I want our girls to learn how to do as much as I want our boys to learn how to do.

I'll leave my remarks there. I welcome the bill. Labor, obviously, supports the bill. We need these changes in order to protect our sporting events and to ensure that sporting events continue to come to Australia and ensure that we continue to attract the investment in our sporting events to keep these things rolling so as to inspire and motivate our young people.

Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm delighted to sum up this important bill, the Major Sporting Events (Indicia and Images) Protection and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2021, and to thank all speakers. Listening to the member for Lalor, I was thinking she would have been pretty scary on the netball court, but I endorse the fact that she is very nice.

The purpose of the bill is to protect sponsorship and licensing revenue from the FIFA Women's World Cup Australia & New Zealand 2023 and International Cricket Council T20 World Cup 2022 from being undermined by ambush marketing. Ambush marketing is the unauthorised commercial use of event indicia, or expressions and images. This will be achieved by including the FIFA women's World Cup and T20 World Cup as recognised major sporting events under the Major Sporting Events (Indicia and Images) Protection Act 2014. The bill also removes a schedule relating to a historical sporting event, the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games, that will no longer provide protections under the act. In addition, the bill makes a minor and technical amendment to the Sport Integrity Australia Act 2020 to correct an erroneous reference to an article of the World Anti-Doping Code. The code's article numbering changed due to revisions that commenced from 1 January 2021. The bill also meets a commitment by the Australian government to provide such intellectual property rights protection for both the FIFA women's World Cup and T20 World Cup.

The bill will protect the use of a range of expressions associated with the FIFA women's World Cup and T20 World Cup from ambush marketing and unlicensed commercial use in the lead up to, during and in the immediate aftermath of each tournament. In addition to protecting specific event related terminology, the bill also provides protection to certain images that, in the circumstances of their presentation, suggest or are likely to suggest a connection with the FIFA women's World Cup and T20 World Cup. These images may either be visual or oral representations.

A number of exceptions will exist in relation to the FIFA women's World Cup and T20 World Cup, allowing for the continued operation of rights and liabilities under the Trade Marks Act 1995, Designs Act 2003 and Copyright Act 1968; the provision of information, criticism and review of the FIFA women's World Cup and T20 World Cup, such as in newspapers, magazines and broadcasts; the use of the protected indicia and images for the reasonable needs of sporting bodies in relation to fundraising and promotion; and communities and businesses to engage in city dressing and festival promotions supporting the FIFA women's World Cup and the T20 World Cup in non-commercial ways.

In line with the Australian government's deregulation agenda, the bill is not intended to increase the burden on businesses or affect their everyday operations. The bill fully protects the rights of existing holders to use FIFA women's World Cup and T20 World Cup indicia and images to carry out their business functions. The new event protections will cease to have effect after 31 December 2024 for the FIFA women's World Cup and after 13 November 2023 for the T20 World Cup—approximately one year after the completion of each event. This is consistent with other major sporting events protected by the act.

Once again, I thank members for their contributions to the debate on this bill. I commend to build the House.

Kevin Andrews (Menzies, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The original question was that this bill now be read a second time. To this, the honourable member for Shortland has moved as an amendment that all words after 'that' be admitted with a view of substituting other words. The immediate question is that the amendment be disagreed to.

Question agreed to.

Original question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.