Contribution of Soccer to Australia and Locally

What a terrific opportunity to speak about something that is truly bipartisan in this place: our shared love for soccer football. I acknowledge the member for Forde who moved the motion. Whatever his other substantial shortcomings are in this place, he is actually a terrific advocate for this sport. I have seen firsthand that he is also a very handy goalie, because we played on the same team in the Parliamentary Street Soccer Cup in support of The Big Issue. I acknowledge that. He was easily our best player, but please do not tell Senator Conroy that I think so!

This is a timely opportunity to speak about soccer football from my point of view. I spent some time on Friday afternoon with David Gallop, the CEO the Football Federation, talking about this very issue: the contribution that football makes to our local communities and, through that, the broader nation. The stats in the member's motion really do speak for themselves: there are 1.18 million people involved; it is the most popular sport amongst both genders; more girls play football than netball; and there are 105,000 A-League members and 2,155 clubs. Those numbers are pretty stunning numbers when you think about it and it is a terrific success story when it comes to participation in our sport, with all of the benefits that that brings. I will touch on some of those in a moment. The popularity of soccer would not come as a surprise to any of us who engage with our local communities. Whether it is the member for Gellibrand, the member for Grayndler or the member for Moreton, we would all spend time with our soccer clubs, our football clubs, for various reasons, because they make that terrific contribution.

Of those 2,155 clubs, there are none finer than Rochedale Rovers, Logan Metro, Slacks Creek Football and Logan City Kings—four of the best clubs anywhere in the world. They are terrific football clubs—

Anthony Albanese: Up there with Real Madrid!

Jim Chalmers: Up there with Real Madrid, as the member for Grayndler said! There are also many other community and school teams. I was at the Rochedale Rovers match on Saturday for their season opener. I want to thank Paul Swindells and the whole executive for making me feel so welcome there, as they always do. I know Underwood Park intimately from growing up just around the corner. I have kicked a soccer ball around Underwood Park more times than I can remember in my 37 years. It is terrific to go back there as the member for their community. They make such a terrific contribution to it, not just to Rochedale.

Mr Van Manen interjecting—

I cannot hear what the member for Forde is saying. That is probably for the best. The motion mentions mental health which is very important. When you talk to some of the service providers in my community, particularly in Logan City, they do talk about the role that football can play in building social capital and giving people the opportunity to understand what services are available—particularly as it applies to new migrant and broader multicultural communities. For an electorate like mine, with 189 different cultural backgrounds, football is a terrific unifier. This weekend we have the Brisbane Roar Harmony Day Community Shield. We have got a club called Logan Metro which makes a special effort to include recently-arrived migrant young players. In late 2014 I hosted some of the former Socceroo greats—Craig Foster, Jason Culina and David Zdrilic—for the World Game Multicultural Festival in my community, which was a terrific success, working with SBS and Access in our community.

My electorate is becoming the epicentre of soccer in Queensland, because Football Queensland have moved their headquarters to Slacks Creek, which is a terrific development for Logan City more broadly but specifically for my neighbourhood. To have Football Queensland there at Meakin Park is something we appreciate greatly, and we thank our friends at Football Queensland for having the vision and foresight and the understanding of football in our community to move the headquarters right into the middle of my electorate.

Beyond football, we also need to think about the role that sport in general plays in our economy. Football is a huge participation sport and is a big contributor to the 137,000 jobs that exist in sport—which creates $5 billion in economic value added each year. More important than the economic impacts, of course, is the contribution it makes to the social fabric.

I congratulate everyone involved in football, whether it be in my local community or around the country, and David Gallop and his friends and colleagues at the FFA. We have had such a good story to tell about football in the last year or so, with the success of the Asian Cup—not just in hosting it effectively, but also in taking out the cup ourselves. It shows that football really is becoming ascendant in Australia. It shows the power and potential of football to enhance cultural ties with our neighbouring economies as well. I am very proud to stand up here and talk about the contribution of football. I thank the member for Forde, and I look forward to working with my football clubs in the years to come.

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