Motions — 2012 Paralympic Games—Success of New Zealand Team

I seek leave to move a motion without notice congratulating the Paralympic team on its performance at the recent Paralympic Games.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Is there any objection to that course of action being followed? There is none.

I move, That this House congratulate the members of the 2012 New Zealand Paralympic team on their outstanding performance, achieving six gold, seven silver, and four bronze medals and finishing ranked 21st in the world. The 2012 New Zealand Paralympic campaign can be judged a real success, and on behalf of the Government I want to acknowledge all of the athletes who were members of the team and congratulate them collectively on their achievement.

I want to mention in particular Sophie Pascoe, who added significantly to her previous successes on the international stage, collecting three gold and three silver medals, and setting two new world records and one new Paralympic record. We saw outstanding performances from a number of other athletes who were part of the New Zealand team. The achievement of 17 medals is all the more admirable when you note that there were only 24 in the team. On top of that, New Zealand has come out as the leading nation per capita, up on third at the Beijing Paralympics.

The 2012 Paralympics broke a number of records, with 2.7 million spectators filling the various venues and more than $70 million raised in ticket sales. Both of these are unprecedented figures. Two hundred and fifty-one world records were broken over 11 days. For our people to have succeeded in an environment this challenging is a very significant achievement indeed. I am therefore pleased to offer on behalf of the Government our congratulations to all of the members of the 2012 Paralympic team as well as their coaches, support staff, and families, who played such an important part in their performance.

I also would like to join in congratulating our Paralympic team. It was a great moment to able to stand here and say that today New Zealand is on top of the world, and that means that our medal total per capita was actually the best in the world, which is a remarkable achievement.

The incredible performance of our paralympians in London has been something that has made us very, very proud. When our team comes home tomorrow it will bring with it 17 medals: six gold, seven silver, and four bronze. That is an absolute triumph, and it is a significant improvement on the Beijing Paralympics, when New Zealand was ranked third for medals per capita. This achievement reflects the hard work, the dedication, and the commitment of the Kiwi contingent.

I would like to pay tribute to the efforts of the entire team of 24 athletes, from 13-year-old Nikita Howarth, who made her debut in swimming, to Jan Apel, who also made her Paralympics debut, in sailing at the age of 61, which is an enormous inspiration to us all. Our athletes performed brilliantly across all of the events—swimming, cycling, rowing, athletics, equestrian, sailing, and shooting—and I would particularly like to mention the achievements of Christchurch swimming sensation Sophie Pascoe, who won a medal in every event that she entered. It was a proud moment to see Sophie carry the flag into the stadium for the closing ceremony. She absolutely deserved the honour. Our team overall did us proud. I was lucky enough to meet swimmer Mary Fisher at the Upper Hutt “cossie club” just before she left for the games, and I was struck by her commitment and the amount of hard work that she had put in to get where she was. She went on to win four medals, including a gold.

One disappointment for me, however, and, I am sure, for many other New Zealanders, was that we were not able to see many of these achievements of all our team live on television, as people did in other countries. We had to rely on delayed coverage or an international feed that did not focus on our Kiwi team. That is a shame, and I hope it is different for the next Paralympics. To be able to see our athletes triumphing over personal adversity to excel at their chosen sport is an inspiration to us all.

So I would like to thank our athletes and pay special tribute to all the unsung heroes around them: the coaches, the physios, the volunteers—all those people who put in enormous amounts of time so they could succeed. Thank you and congratulations on your success.

I wish to add the Green Party’s congratulations to our Paralympic team. To compete at the elite level in any sport requires determination, commitment, and sacrifice. Our Paralympic team had those attributes in spades. These Paralympics perhaps mark the point not only in this country but in others around the world where Paralympic sport is seen as elite sport in its own right. That is a great milestone to have reached. I share the concerns that David Shearer has just expressed about the decisions made by the sports editors of our media. I cite Richard Boock’s column in the Sunday Star-Times where he noted that the media had misjudged the public mood, our desire to actually see our paralympian team competing on the world stage. Our team has been an inspiration to people living with disabilities. They have been an inspiration to those of us who look out the window and decide we do not want to go to training, because it is too hilly, or it is raining, or we just cannot be bothered. They have also unlocked a gateway for the New Zealand public in that we may finally now honour the rights of people with disabilities to be full members of our own society. Thank you.

The London Paralympics were a great success and particularly so for our New Zealand team. New Zealand First stands with all parties here today in congratulating our paralympians on their efforts and great achievements.

I am really delighted to be able to share with every party in the House today the pride and excitement that we have experienced over these last 2 weeks with the amazing success of the New Zealand team at the London 2012 Paralympics. Yesterday as I landed at Whakatāne Airport I arrived at the same time as a reception was being extended to welcome home Ngāti Awa and Te Arawa mountain bike superstar, Karen Hanlen. In reflecting on her meteoric climb to the London Paralympics, she said her approach was built upon the philosophy that pain is temporary and pride is for ever. It is a philosophy that every single one of the 24 New Zealand athletes who competed at the Paralympics has demonstrated in abundance.

These stars of many sports, including cycling, shooting, swimming, and shot-put, have shown the world that even when others have said they could not, the determination of these athletes revealed that they could, and they are. In doing so, they have lifted our collective pride. They have shown us all what we are capable of if only we believe. Our Paralympians are true champions, for they have persevered. They have withstood every challenge and they have invested every moment of their lives in representing Aotearoa on the international sporting stage. In doing so, they have shattered stereotypes and shifted perceptions. They have demonstrated that it is not the disability that defines them; it is the way they deal with the challenges that that disability presents them with. Within the disability sector we often talk about the aspiration to live a good life, an ordinary life, a life unburdened by the stigma and discrimination of a disabling society. The New Zealand Paralympian squad goes that one step further, and reminds us that the only difference between the impossible and the possible lies in the spirit of determination.

There have been some truly remarkable achievements in London. The talents of Sophie Pascoe left us in no doubt of the power of having a dream. Phillipa Gray, Mary Fisher, and Laura Thompson were not content with the honour of a gold medal; they went on and won silver and bronze as well. These are truly multi-performers. The former Disabled Māori Sportsperson of the Year, Cameron Leslie, not only earned gold in the Olympic swimming pool, he is also a member of the New Zealand Wheel Blacks’ successful rugby squad. Each of our 24 stars and each of their coaches and managers, and their families around us, could teach us all about the power of positive thinking. The Māori Party applauds the New Zealand Paralympic squad for, and congratulates it on, their amazing success. Tēnā tātou katoa.

The extraordinary television coverage that we saw on the news at night was of the elation of the New Zealand winners with their gold, silver, and bronze medals. The sheer elation on their faces said everything about the quality of themselves, their family supporters, their team-mates, and the whole of the country. I rise on behalf of the ACT Party to give our warmest congratulations to the New Zealand Paralympics Team on its outstanding achievements in 2012. The team brought home a total of 17 medals, including six gold, seven silver, and four bronze. Per capita country entered, it must have been one of the highest.

The Paralympians are an inspiration for all of us. They live with disabilities that many people would think would hold them back, but instead they have gone on to participate and succeed in sport at the very highest level. I hope their success is of particular inspiration to young people living with disabilities, who need to know that they can achieve anything with the support of the community, with the support of their families, and with the support of their country. Swimmer Sophie Pascoe is to be congratulated on her remarkable success in the swimming pool. She alone won half of New Zealand’s total gold medals. I am reminded this afternoon of my old friend from Whangarei Murdoch Ross, who has cerebral palsy. A sign on his wall, which has been there for the last 50 years, says it all, does it not: “Obstacles are what you see when you look away from the goal.” This attitude has truly done New Zealand proud at the Paralympics 2012.

On behalf of United Future I want to associate myself with the comments that others have made to congratulate our Paralympic team on its remarkable success at the London Paralympic Games. I imagine that many people felt that, coming on the back of the successful Olympic Games, it would be very difficult to, firstly, mount a level of interest in what would happen at the Paralympic Games, and, secondly, to match what we thought was an extraordinary level of achievement by our able-bodied athletes in London. But in many senses our paralympians have surpassed them—not only Sophie Pascoe, who must be probably our most successful Olympic athlete ever, in terms of her medal success both here and in Beijing, but also the team as a whole. This was a proud achievement by a committed and dedicated group of New Zealanders.

I share the concern expressed by the Leader of the Opposition and others that it was just a pity we did not get to see very much of it on television. I sincerely hope that television bosses will take that lesson on board when it comes to covering the next Paralympic Games, because these are athletes of high quality, high dedication, high commitment, and high skills. It was comforting and, I think, almost flying in the face of the lack of coverage that New Zealanders as a whole embraced the team over the last couple of weeks. Despite the anonymity of what we were seeing, we got to know about these athletes and their successes, and encouraged them in their ongoing endeavours.

My warmest congratulations to them. They have done their cause, and our cause as a country, extremely proud. I doubt there will ever be a team anywhere that will go away with such small numbers and come back with such a high proportion of medal success as our paralympians.

Motion agreed to.