Keith Wolahan (Menzies, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to do something that often happens in this place, which is to take you, those here in the chamber and those watching at home on a journey. I'd like to take you on a journey in time to one particular date, and I hope all of us remember it. It's 16 November 2005. Australia hadn't made the World Cup yet, and we had this huge game against Uruguay in Sydney. We were down a goal. We had to score at least one for the home goal in order to go to penalties and more than that to win in our own right. For a while, we weren't sure that would happen. We've seen this movie play out so many times before, where Australia got so close and fell short. But, in the 33rd minute, Mark Bresciano scored the goal that led us to penalties and that great moment when we went on to the World Cup.

People focus on John Aloisi, but I want to single out Mark Bresciano. For him to be there at that moment, at that time, and strike the goal into the net didn't happen by accident; it happened because of the love, affection and work of him, his family and the Italians in my electorate. Mark Bresciano was a proud member of the Bulleen football club. The Bulleen football club and the Veneto Club are one and the same. Recently, I had the great honour of being at the Bulleen football club's 50th anniversary gala dinner. There was Mark Bresciano! He was there acknowledging and thanking the people who made him the superstar that he is. When he stood up, he spoke with humility and gratitude first to his parents and then to everyone who mentored him—the people that he looked up to, the club that nourished him—and then said that, of all the things that meant something to him, that club meant so much. You could hear a pin drop in the room. I want to thank Mark Bresciano. I want to thank the Bullen Lions and all of the parents, volunteers and coaches who have made that club the success that it is.

Speaker, I took you to 16 November 2005, but the seeds of that great moment started in 1974, when the Veneto Club was founded on 16 acres of land in Bulleen. It's where Italian migrants came and wanted a home away from home in which to gather, eat great food, have fantastic coffee and play the sport they're so good at and passionate about: football—or, as Australians call it, soccer. But, in my electorate, it's called football. When they did that, they were planting seeds for a future that mattered to their children and their grandchildren, and I saw them there in that moment. I saw them there watching Mark Bresciano, one of their own, say how much that club meant to him.

The Veneto Club is about the Australian dream. The club itself is quite distinct. If you drive up what is now the construction site of the North East Link, it stands out. It's amazing brutalist architecture designed by a very famous Italian architect Ermin Smrekar. You can't miss it. You can tell that thing has been built to last. When the club celebrated its 50th anniversary last year, the president Lou Kremer and his team were there. People from all around the world, particularly from the Veneto region in Italy, gathered to acknowledge this momentous occasion.

When I was there, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the club, there were some other great events to celebrate, other than the national ones that we know about. In 1987, they won the division 1 championship by one point against Ringwood City. In 1993 they became known as the Bulleen Lions. They won the premier's and the championship cup that year. Now they have a vibrant girls and women's team, and they're leading the way and breaking barriers.

To all the parents who cut the oranges, who wash the tops, who stand behind the bar, who run the sausage sizzle, who drive their kids all around Melbourne on weekends, I want to say: thank you. When the nation stops at that key moment, it was because of you. It was because of the Bulleen Lions, the Veneto Club, and the great Italian diaspora of our nation, of Melbourne and of my electorate in particular. I salute you, I am very proud of you, and I congratulate you on your anniversary.