Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Green for the question, and I acknowledge her work and her contribution to support women in sport and particularly in relation to the Women's World Cup as co-chair of the Parliamentary Friends of Football and for the very many speeches you do in this place on the Matildas in particular. The Women's World Cup has once and for all ended any debate about the place of women's sport in this country. The Matildas's opening game reached almost five million people across Australia, shattering records. In Sydney, more than 75,000 fans packed in to set a new attendance record for women's football matches, and more than 40,000 fans watched England against Haiti in Brisbane. This tournament has been such a game changer for women and girls, and it is not just in football that women are leading the way. I give a huge congratulations to the Diamonds team and their coach for their victory against England in the Netball World Cup, a 61-45 defeat, and I have no doubt there are a lot of tired eyes in this place today from sitting up in the early hours of this morning to watch that amazing result.

Our women athletes are excelling on the world stage and have changed sport in this country. The professional lives our Diamonds and Matildas are experiencing now have been born from the sacrifices of those before them. Only a decade ago the Matildas had to train in car parks at night-time with car headlights as their only source of light. In the late eighties the first-ever Matilda, Julie Dolan, organised off the books a high-stakes poker night to fundraise. This allowed the team to travel to China for an international tournament in 1988, a tournament that morphed into the Women's World Cup. Now the Matildas get bigger crowds than the men. The tournament has sold more than 1.5 million tickets, breaking records repeatedly. Some people are wondering whether this event will push the Matildas to be more popular than the men's team. Well, they already are on the statistics. Football Australia's own metrics show this, and all of their social engagement proves it.