PRIME MINISTER: Well bula vinaka, it’s great to be here. Back home I’m quite a rugby league tragic, particularly when it comes to my Sharks. But I’m more passionate frankly about how sport can play such a wonderful role in communities. Not just in Australia, but here in Fiji and across the Pacific and we see that in the wonderful boys and girls we’ve just been seeing running around showing us their skills. Some great champions there no doubt for the future. But the great thing when you see kids playing sports - whether it’s rugby league or rugby union or it’s football or netball or any of the things - the great thing you see particularly among the kids here in Fiji, are these teeth! All these smiles, big smiles, they’re having a great time. They’re getting on with each other and it’s a great way to bring communities together, it’s a great way to bring countries together around sport. And nowhere more important than here on this very important oval here in Fiji, which has seen many great contests for Fiji and particularly in the contests domestically here in the local season.
So I’m very pleased to be here and I’m very pleased to be making a number of announcements as part of our arrangements here as part of our Pacific ‘step-up’ program. I said that if you’re going to step up, you’ve got to show up and that’s why I’m very pleased to be showing up here with the Assistant Minister for International Development and the Pacific Anne Ruston, who is also here with me as part of this visit as we’re making a series of announcements.
Over the years, my own local club has had great arrangements and great associations here with local Fijian football. Over the years, we’ve boasted the likes of Junior Roqica as well as – you know Junior well of course – but right now, there’s Jayson Bukuya and I have got to know Jayson quite well over the last few years. He’s not just a great player with a lot of heart and a lot of spirit, he’s a great bloke as well and he shows a real example of leadership within the club and within the community. Beyond the Sharks of course we’ve got the talents of Lote Tuqiri and Noa Nadruku and Petero as well who is well known. It’s great to have everybody here celebrating the great achievements of Fijian rugby league.
So it’s not hard to see why Fiji’s national team the Bati, is such a powerhouse, now ranked fifth in the world and a World Cup semi-finalist in 2017. I know that was a great sense of achievement and the whole nation was very excited about that at the time. Few can forget the win over the Kiwis in the quarterfinals, how good was that?
[Laughter]
Sorry Jacinda, I couldn’t help it and nor could our Fijian friends as well. Australians want to see more of the Bati. Australians, we love the team that does so well and showcases such great sporting talents and we want to see Fiji’s best playing week in, week out against Australian opposition. That’s why today I’m excited to announce that as part of the new Australia-Pacific Sports Linkages Program, Australia will facilitate Fiji’s pathway into the Intrust Super Premiership in NSW in 2020. It’s a dream of many, including Petero who has long wanted to see Fiji compete in one of Australia’s most beloved competitions and I know that I will be tuning in to watch and getting along to a few games, maybe when they’re playing the Jets out there on the weekend, which is a link to the Sharks club.
We also know that we want to see Australian players too enjoying more of their rugby league right here. So we’re going to have preseason NRL matches here, played in the Pacific, starting with PNG in 2020 and Fiji in the following year. I want to particularly thank the NRL and Jaymes Boland-Rudder who is here today, I want to thank them for their participation with the Government in facilitating the entry of those preseason games here in the Pacific and specifically here in Fiji.
And of course, we’re celebrating women’s sport. How good is it see the girls out there playing and matching it up with the boys there, equal skills if not better. We have just had the women’s Rugby League World Cup in Australia just recently and many of the games were played down in my local electorate in Sydney. It was great to see the talent on display and how that part of the code is developing year on year. To see so many girls out there enjoying rugby league and being part of the rugby league community I think is a very positive thing. But in addition to that, they love their netball as well and they’re very, very good at it as we’ve seen with the Fijian players that are participating in our national league.
Our weekends for me and Jenny and our family are very much mixed up between Church, netball during netball season and getting down to see the football when we can. So this morning, it’s a great combination of all three, having just come from the prayer breakfast across the way. Netball is a great sport, it does have a rich history here in Fiji as it does in Australia. Not just for kids, but for adults as well. Over half a million Australian women play netball, it’s second only to swimming in participation and it’s great fun. It’s great to tell you that the Australian Government will be working with Netball Australia so we can help the Fijian national team prepare for the Netball World Cup later this year. We’re also looking forward to seeing the Pearls compete in Liverpool and hopefully go toe-to-toe with our Aussie Diamond girls.
And for our two sporting–obsessed nations, this is really about sharing our common love of sport. These are one of the many values and one of the many things that we share in common as peoples. It lies at the heart of the new relationship, the new stepped-up relationship, the landmark relationship, the Vuvale Partnership that Prime Minister Bainimarama and I have been able to bring together, not just in this visit but in the last few visits that the Prime Minister has made to Australia as well.
So I think it is very fitting that this is part of the new relationship and a growing part of the relationship and I want to thank everybody who has played a role in bringing these announcements together today. Thank you very much to the Minister for your kind words and we look forward to working closely with your Department and your Ministry as our nations become even closer. Thank you very much, vinaka vakalevu.
