Thank you very much Graham Duff, Premiers, Leader of the Opposition Kim Beazley, the Governor of Victoria and the Lord Mayor of Melbourne and my fellow Australians. This is without doubt, the greatest sporting meal on the Australian calendar, there is nothing quite like the North Melbourne Grand Final breakfast, I have been coming to it in various guises for a long time now, it seems to get bigger and better each year, and it is a remarkable coming together, not only of the AFL fraternity of this country, but also in a very real sense the sporting fraternity of this country, and I always find at these breakfasts, my mind doing a little bit of a stocktake of the year in sport for Australia. Because Grand Final day, whether it's here in Melbourne or Sydney, always reminds us of how sport binds us together whatever our differences might be on other issues. And I look back over the year and it is certainly a fantastic 12 months to look back on. The way, in which the various football codes have spread, I prefer to call it the 'Australianisation' of football, I've never been very keen on nationalisation, but be that as it is, the Australianisation of football has been quite remarkable, and everyone knows, of course, of the extraordinary situation today and tomorrow in relation to the teams that are participating.
But it's also been a wonderful year in a lot of other sports. Very recently our women's basketball team, the Opals, brought enormous pride to Australia in winning in Brazil, and I think they deserve a great round of applause. And of course, that other code of football which is so widely played, especially by the young all around the country, the Socceroos brought tremendous pride and put that game well and truly on the map, and there have been, yes let's give them a round of applause.
And we look back on other quite remarkable sporting performances, and it all serves to remind us of how important our sport is to our national psyche as Australians. And I remarked to James Sutherland on the way in, this is the time of the year when one sporting activity seems to dissolve into another, and of course many of us are conscious of another titanic sporting struggle which will I suppose reach its apex on Boxing Day at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, without doubt the greatest sporting arena in Australia, and of course the great Ashes clash between Australia and England. I mean all of these things we celebrate as Australians, and in a way this breakfast gives us an opportunity to reflect on them and to remark to ourselves and to each other of what a wonderful inheritance we have this great sporting tradition of our country. It's been a wonderful year for the AFL, it's gone from strength to strength, the vitality of the competition, the way in which it has spread around the nation, the way in which it has attracted fans from parts of Australia that a generation ago would not have heard of the game, let alone wanted to watch it or be in any way associated with it, and that is an extraordinary tribute to the game's leaders and administrators, and I know I speak for all of you in wishing Ron Evans well in his health struggle at the present. He's a great bloke, he's a very good Australian and he's a wonderful gentleman, we wish him well.
I simply conclude by paying tribute to all of those who've made AFL such a loved game throughout our country, the courage of those who decided to take it national years ago, the commitment of the players, the skill of the coaches, and above all the incredible enthusiasm of the fans. There is no city in Australia that has a greater tradition of watching and supporting sport than the city of Melbourne, it's an enormous tribute, Grand Final day to the people of Melbourne, and to the people of Victoria, it will be a wonderful day, and like all other Australians I look forward to watching the game, thank you.
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