Mr FAHEY (Minister for Finance and Administration) (8:57 PM) —I endorse and support the remarks by the Acting Prime Minister and the Deputy Leader of the Opposition. This is an occasion when all Australians are looking forward with considerable excitement to the events that will unfold over the next six weeks or so encompassing both the summer Olympics and the Paralympics. I add to the best wishes that have been extended to the Australian athletes, and in fact to all athletes who will be participating, and acknowledge the enormous contribution that thousands of Australians have made to enable this event to take place. It had its genesis at the beginning of the last decade and, as that decade unfolded, there was a significant effort made by an enormous amount of very talented Australians.

I will never forget—and I am sure my colleague the member for Cook, who shared those early days with me and who put in an enormous amount of effort and made a significant contribution to winning the right in the first place, will never forget—the primary school children of New South Wales who determined that they would adopt one of the IOC members. They learnt the language of that member, no matter which country the member came from. They learnt about the member's country—some of them were remote countries of Africa—and they presented to each IOC member as they came to Sydney to check out the credentials of that city. There is no doubt in my mind that the bid that was launched by Sydney in those days was the best bid that has ever been made to host the Olympics and I suspect it will be a long time before it is surpassed. What Sydney and the Australian people had to offer was that we were culturally diverse and we had the capacity, when Australians were not competing in any event—and this will unfold in the next few weeks—to support so many other athletes in the world. We all know that, when it comes to achieving anything, Australians go about their business in a simple way. They do it without fanfare and without fuss. They do it in a friendly fashion.

I have absolutely no doubt that this will be a celebration of sport. If I had one wish at this time, it would be to hope the focus is on the celebration of sport. That is what the intention always was. Let us forget what the events may have been in the lead-up to it and let us come through this event, as I am sure we will, enhancing Australia's reputation as a nation, giving an opportunity to billions around the world to understand us more, to know who we are, to know where we are and to realise that there is a very proud and capable country called Australia that will host the biggest peacetime event in the world's history. I endorse the remarks of the speakers who have contributed to this small good wish to the Australian team. I hope there is success on the field, on the sporting arena and off it. I am confident that that will be the outcome.