Pauline Hanson (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The 2024 Paris Summer Olympic Games will go down in history as Australia's most successful in terms of gold medals—all 18 of them! Olympic success at such an unprecedented scale requires dedication, commitment, supreme skills and fitness and a lot of support. Gina Rinehart, the executive chair of Hancock Prospecting, is a patron of four Olympic sports: artistic swimming, rowing, volleyball and our most successful Olympic sport by far, swimming.

Mrs Rinehart stepped in to assist Australian swimming after the disappointing results in the pool in London 2012. Since then, she's poured about $80 million into the sport and aided almost 150 athletes every year. Mrs Rinehart began sponsoring rowing in 2015 and, in this, helped Australia to win two gold and two bronze medals at Rio in 2016. She's been sponsoring Volleyball Australia since 2013. The current agreement is worth $500,000 a year. She's also assisted artistic swimming, directly supporting athletes as well as coaching, competitions, training and health experts. Finally, Mrs Rinehart is directly supporting the Australian Olympic Committee in a five-year agreement worth $7.5 million.

Gina Rinehart stepped in where governments have failed to step in, and I am aware the athletes are very grateful. She started from virtually nothing to become the wealthy individual she is today thanks to her keen business acumen. She has shared the fruits of her success right across the Australian community in many areas as a proud Australian. For this, she deserves our thanks. It's an honour to commend Mrs Rinehart for her contributions to Australia.