Held at Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) Headquarters with diplomats from 67 nations joining Members of Parliament, Olympians, Paralympians and sport and community representatives, the event highlighted the decade of opportunity for sport to achieve positive outcomes throughout the Pacific.

The Parliamentary Friendship Group (PFG) is a non-partisan group open to all Members, co-chaired by Graham Perrett MP (Labor), Federal Member for Moreton and Bert van Manen MP (Liberal National Party), Federal Member for Forde.

AOC CEO Matt Carroll welcomed the launch of the PFG for the 47th Australian Parliament.

“Thank you to all the members for supporting this wonderful initiative and for your embrace of the immense benefits that Olympic and Paralympic sport can bring to your communities, and to our international friends who are celebrating with us tonight” Mr Carroll said. “Olympic and Paralympic sport is a unifying force for good.”

“Brisbane 2032 offers a decade of opportunity for every community across our country and indeed our region. It is an unprecedented opportunity to use the power of the Olympic Movement to deliver exceptional Sport Diplomacy outcomes. 

“We worked closely with the National Olympic Committees of Oceania and DFAT, to design and deliver the Tokyo Pacific Athletes Project - a comprehensive support project assisting Pacific nations prepare their Olympic and Paralympic athletes for the Tokyo Games.

“This partnership helped 73 athletes overcome immense challenges to attend Tokyo 2020, earning 26 podium finishes, four national records and inspiring their nations by competing in the world’s biggest sporting event. Feedback from the Pacific nations was very positive – that the impossible was made possible because of the project.

“The next decade offers even more opportunity to build even stronger relationships with our Pacific neighbours, through the common goals of the Olympic Movement. Together, we can contribute to building a peaceful and better world by educating youth through sport, practiced without discrimination of any kind and in the Olympic spirit, which requires mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play.”

Paralympics Australia CEO Catherine Clark said sport has a unique ability to unify.

“Sport can become the common ground upon which we build relationships,” Ms Clark said. “It becomes the universal language that enables all of us to learn and share our culture, to be safe and to belong.

“Among different people, places and languages, sport has always brought us together. Most of us have witnessed the capacity for sports to transcend nationality, culture, gender and geography in bringing people together around a shared passion or a shared purpose.

 “A home Paralympics is an incredible opportunity for us to work collectively for sport development initiatives, to build and strengthen pathways for more athletes, coaches, and officials in our Pacific Region and to pay it forward so the sport continues to thrive and grow, well beyond the Games.”

PFG Co-Chair Graham Perrett welcomed the relaunch of the PFG and highlighted Brisbane 2032 as a special opportunity for Australia-Pacific relations.

“The 2032 Games won't just be a Brisbane or a southeast Queensland or even an Australian Games, but an Oceania Games,” Mr Perrett said. 

“We want the Games in 2032 to be a real representation of our part of the globe, a chance to shine on the world's biggest stage.

“When it comes to the Paralympics and Olympics, we can all speak the same language of sport. We already have a strong connection with our Pacific neighbours through competitions and rivalry on the sporting fields, and I hope the 2032 Games can be a catalyst that cements our bonds and provides a lasting regional legacy from Brisbane.”

Co-Chair Bert van Manen echoed the sentiment.

“Everybody in this room knows the value and importance of sport. We know the pride that we get from seeing our athletes succeed on the international stage and it's no different for our Pacific family.

“The Pacific sports program as such an important tool, to help those in the Pacific who have the drive and ambition to want to be successful.

“We have a tremendous runway to Brisbane 2032 and we look forward to continuing to work with our Pacific neighbours over the next ten years and many more past that.”

Triple Olympian kayaker and Beijing 2008 Olympic champion Ken Wallace has a close connection to the Pacific region, as Chef de Mission of the Australian teams at the Samoa 2019 and the upcoming Solomon Islands 2023 Pacific Games and as Chair of the Oceania National Olympic Committee’s (ONOC’s) Athletes’ Commission.

“Sport is a vessel to unite countries no matter how near or far,” Mr Wallace said. “As Chef de Mission and in my role on the ONOC Athletes’ Commission, I have learnt and shared so much with our Pacific neighbours.

“We work together on key issues common to all of us, from safeguarding sport, to sustainability and how we can help each other to compete at the highest level, at an Olympic Games.

“It’s amazing what sport can do, the emotion it carries gives it such great power to unite us.”

The Parliamentary Friendship Group reforms with each new Australian Parliament. Its objectives are:  

• to promote, raise awareness of and encourage participation in sport for benefits of health, longevity, fitness, skill, achievement, social interaction, wellbeing and other benefits of exercise for all individuals;
• to promote the fundamental principles and values of Olympism and Paralympism, particularly in the fields of sport, health and education, by promoting Olympic and Paralympic sporting, health and educational programmes in all levels of schools, sports and physical education institutions and universities;
• to promote practice of sport as a human right where every individual must have the possibility of practising sport, without discrimination of any kind which requires mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play. and
• to recognise the heritage, culture and contribution of our nation’s first people, and to give practical support to the issue of Indigenous reconciliation through sport.