Michael Forshaw (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

‘Served’. He is also, I acknowledge, a very keen ocean swimmer and participates both in Australia and internationally in ocean-swimming events. I regard Bruce Baird as a good friend—and a great Sharks supporter, which I am going to come to in a minute. It was okay for Bruce to come to Cronulla to get a seat in the federal parliament but Mike Baird, his son, back in Manly is getting stuck into us. Frankly, I think it is a disgrace.

That leads me to my second acknowledgement tonight, and that is the fact that tomorrow night the Sharks rugby league club play the Storm in the semifinal of the National Rugby League. I have my fingers crossed that we are going to win and get to the grand final. Who we will play I do not know, but it could well be that we are up against our old nemeses, the Manly Sea Eagles, the team that beat us—we believe we were robbed—on the two previous occasions we made the rugby league grand finals. We have never won a championship in 42 years. Since joining in 1967, Cronulla have not won a rugby league title, and that is a tragedy. But we have one of our best chances this year.

It is a team that is, as they say, not a team of champions but a champion team. Ricky Stuart, the coach, has welded them together as a very forceful and cohesive unit and they have had great success this year in sharing the minor premiership with Manly and with Melbourne, who ultimately won it on points for and against. I do want to single out one player for special recognition tonight, and that is Brett Kimmorley. Brett Kimmorley came to play for Cronulla in 2002, after having played for the Hunter Mariners; the Melbourne Storm, where he was involved in their historic grand final win in 1999; and the Northern Eagles, at a rather difficult time, as we know, for rugby league and for the Northern Eagles club.

It is fair to say, because it is well documented in the media, that Brett Kimmorley has never been the most popular player. He has often—in my view, very unfairly—borne the brunt of the criticism when the Cronulla Sharks team has not been playing very well. In fact, a couple of seasons ago we had a pretty poor season and Brett, because he was the star player and captain, copped all the unfair criticism. Nobody should ever have doubted Brett Kimmorley’s passion for the game and for the Sharks. He always gave 100 per cent or more and, I believe, carried the team through those difficult years. It is no coincidence that today he is playing some of the best football of his career, at a time when the Sharks are going well.

He has been a fantastic role model off the field, doing a lot of charity work and providing support—as was recently reported, to a family that is very close to him who tragically suffered the loss of a child’s life in a fire in Nelson Bay. Brett Kimmorley is a fantastic advertisement for what is good about rugby league. We are going to miss him. He is leaving the Sharks at the end of this year to go and play for the Bulldogs—a team that is not doing terribly well, as we know. They have had a lot of off-field dramas and have not performed very well this year, but I think Brett Kimmorley is going to be a part of the resurgence of the Bulldogs club. I just want to thank Noddy for his great service. Go the Sharks!