I agree with the member for Euroa. She was just talking about the great work that is happening with female participation in sport and saying that we need to do a whole lot more to get girls and women into sport, and sports that traditionally they never felt were for them. When I think about local clubs in my community who are absolutely kicking goals – no pun intended – in that regard, that would have to be the Williams Landing soccer club. I was just down there to watch a training match – it must have been on a Thursday night, when soccer trains – happening between Western United and the Williams Landing soccer club. I cannot remember what age group it was, but it was just an incredible opportunity to watch young kids – they were young boys in this case – play a sport that they absolutely love and absolutely excel at.

But it also gave me time to talk to a lot of the mums – as a soccer mum, I know a lot of mums turn up day in and day out to see their kids and enable their kids to play sport. I was talking to a whole lot of mums there on the sideline, but I was also talking to the president of the club, the secretary of the club, the social media person of the club and a lot of people on the club’s committee. The great thing about Williams Landing soccer club is that the committee members are mostly women. I am very proud to say that there are quite a few women of Islamic faith on that committee as well, because their daughters are playing for the club.

I was talking to one of the mums there; I think her name was Robyn. She is Muslim, and she was telling me about the importance of women and mums there at the club participating in their children’s sport – not just being a bit like me and turning up and maybe sitting in the car, because it is cold or it is raining or it is windy, for kids’ training, but becoming a coach. She was telling me that she had gone and done the course to become a referee and she was refereeing quite senior games. She was talking to me about some of the barriers that she was facing as a woman and as a woman of faith who wears the hijab. One of them – I am sure she would not mind me passing it on here – was about going into the change rooms and there not being female change rooms and male change rooms for refs. Some of the men were getting changed in front of her, which was quite confronting and made her feel quite uncomfortable.

But she is a pretty amazing woman. She stuck with it, and now she is actively encouraging other women – other mums at the club whose kids are training two or three times a week and then playing on weekends – to get involved, and that means showing leadership, in local sporting clubs. It was a great example of women running the club and girls’ participation increasing.

The other great thing about Williams Landing soccer club, I have to say, is they are also enabling their young girls to undertake more serious athletic training to get them fit for soccer and also reduce injuries that they know quite often young girls and women get in soccer. We are talking about quite intensive training, almost CrossFit-like exercises. It looked absolutely incredible – young girls around that sort of age of 13, 14, 15, 16 having the opportunity to train like an elite athlete. I am intending to invite the Minister for Community Sport down to check it out and to go down myself and hopefully try to give those young girls a run for their money – or they might give me a run for their money with how fit they are versus me.

Sport in this state matters. Although, as we have talked about, this bill makes a number of small changes, they are important changes to the legislation that governs our major sporting administrative bodies. When we talk about sport in this state, people have incredible memories going right back into their childhood of being at the G with the AFL.

I was looking around on the weekend when I was at Albion footy club and they were having this really competitive – I am talking about really competitive – game with their arch rivals, which unfortunately for me was Sunshine footy club, which is also in my electorate. As I said to the boys, these grown men who were feeling pretty feisty about which club was the favourite of their MP, ‘Boys, MPs are just like any good mother – we don’t pick our favourites. We wish you all the best. We’ll still be here for you at the end of the game no matter whether you win or lose.’ They were not particularly happy about that; they wanted me to choose. I am very pleased to say that Albion won that match, and from what I have heard it is a prelude to the grand final, so I will most certainly be there to again do the coin toss.

What struck me about being there at that game – and it is just on a smaller scale than being at the G really – are the fans, who are locals, who are either going for Sunshine or Albion. Lots of them have generations of their family, past and present, that still play or have played for the club. On Saturday they had the past players presentation and also a barbecue for them. The clubhouse and outside were absolutely packed. Anyone who is sort of like me in having to turn up on a drizzly Saturday morning to activities in their electorate would remember it was absolutely pouring and absolutely freezing on Saturday, and these guys were out there playing in mud like I have not seen. All I could think about was who was going to be washing their uniforms at the end of the game, because God knows they would never get the mud out of these uniforms. But they had a great game – it was a great match – and the community spirit on both sides in coming together in the most appalling, freezing, typical Melbourne weather was absolutely awe inspiring, and that really is what community sport is about. You had kids running around that were about this high. You had players. You had mums, dads, grandparents and great-grandparents there at the club, with the history of the club all over the clubhouse walls – all there to watch a game but also to socialise and have fun together as a community. I actually had a really good time. It surprised me, not having one of my kids playing there. It was a great moment, so I am looking forward to a rematch, which will hopefully be Sunshine and Albion versus each other in a couple of weeks.

We know on a larger scale – and the member for Tarneit has talked about this really well, as have other members in their contributions this evening – Melbourne has an incredible history with sport on such an elite level.

If you think about some of the most iconic places in Melbourne, folks who may come to visit, like my parents from northern New South Wales do every now and then – they want to go and visit. I took my parents to watch an AFL match at the G, and they were, I think, actually quite overwhelmed. I know my dad felt overwhelmed that he was watching AFL – he loves NRL, being up there in northern New South Wales – but he was also completely overwhelmed by the size of the G and also the crowd and the atmosphere. It is one of the great things about Melbourne – you hear the cheering at the G and all of those sorts of things. It is such an iconic thing about Melbourne, and it makes it a great city to live in. But regardless, if it is not AFL, it is cricket, it is tennis, it is soccer and indeed it is also netball. Melbourne is home to Australia’s Diamonds, and we know netball is one of the favourite sports that is played by girls and women right across the world – it is a fantastic sport – and Victoria is considered their home.

There is so much to talk about in relation to this bill and major sports, but at the end of the day it is really important to make changes, no matter how small – or mechanical amendments if you want to call them that. They are still amendments that need to be done to help make a piece of legislation like this one much more efficient and streamlined. I commend the minister for making the changes, and I most certainly commend the bill to the house.