Paralympics 'have a special place in the hearts of all Australians'
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00:00In French popular parlance, to represent means to proudly fly the colours of those who can't make it to the party.
00:08Representing Australia at the Paris Paralympics is new Governor-General Sam Mostyn.
00:13Thank you for being with us here on France 24.
00:15Thank you for having me, Francois.
00:17The Paralympics, there is this Olympic fever we had.
00:23Those who skipped town during the summer are having remorse at this point.
00:28There is this buzz around it.
00:30What do the Paralympics mean to you?
00:32I think for any Australian, the Paralympics have a very special place in our hearts.
00:37Australians have been at the Paralympics since 1960.
00:41In fact, one of the first representatives was a First Nations man
00:45who then set the course for full representation in our Paralympic team.
00:50I think it says something about the fact that we come off the back of these wildly successful Olympics.
00:55It was delightful that both France and Australia secured the same amount of gold medals,
01:00although I think we nudged you out just slightly on total,
01:03but it was nice to be there with you on medal count.
01:05I think what the Paralympics does is remind us that this isn't just an abled-bodied celebration.
01:11We get crazy about Olympics, but Paralympics tell us something about those
01:16that should have always been at the table with sport.
01:18This is a moment where we get to celebrate those that have overcome extraordinary adversity
01:22to then represent their country, and their primary aim is excellence
01:26and real intent to represent their country.
01:29That's why I'm delighted to be here representing all Australians,
01:31because it's important that we pay as much attention to the para-athletes
01:34as we do to the abled-bodied athletes.
01:36Yeah, big discussion around mobility during the Games.
01:39It was great if you didn't have a car going around Paris.
01:41The Paralympics, a lot of the discussion is the back of the fact
01:44that there's so many of the metro stations that are not handicap-friendly.
01:48Yeah, well, it reminds you.
01:49I think the Paralympics and the Paralympic movement
01:51reminds us of the work still to be done for everybody to be included.
01:54So it shouldn't be that a Paralympics needs to adjust a city
01:57for those who are not abled-bodied.
01:59So it reminds us that we still have lots of work to do
02:01to make sure all of our cities are available and can be used by all people,
02:05and increasingly our ageing populations have plenty of people
02:07who are carrying all sorts of needs of wheelchairs and mobility issues.
02:11They'd like to get around cities too.
02:13So the Paralympics pushes a bit harder, I think,
02:15to look at who is really included in our society and who we celebrate,
02:19not just those who are able-bodied.
02:21Yeah, and celebrating athletes is something Australians do particularly well.
02:26We do.
02:27We love our sport here in France.
02:29But during the Olympics, I mean, I met with, for instance,
02:32people who'd come all the way from Perth to go see the rowing.
02:36You really take it seriously in Australia.
02:38What's that about?
02:39Well, historically, we have been one of the great sporting nations.
02:42We've always had a per capita success way beyond our population.
02:46And I think we take that really seriously as a country.
02:48It kind of defines something about us.
02:50We're a long way away, of course, from this part of the world,
02:53and it takes people 24 hours to come and visit us.
02:56So Australians have always been out on the world stage.
02:59And sport, whether it's our climate, our access to water,
03:02we're swimmers, we're tennis players, netball, team sports,
03:05and increasingly in athletics, we're doing very well.
03:08But it says something about our national character.
03:10We're outdoors people. We love to celebrate sport.
03:13It is a national character.
03:15And I see that in my job now as Governor-General,
03:17that wherever I go, there is always sport being played,
03:19and increasingly the new sports.
03:21And we did well in the games in BMX and skateboarding,
03:24in new disciplines that young people are kind of introducing
03:26to those of us that are slightly older,
03:28that says there's just a whole new form of sport
03:30that connects communities.
03:31Sam Mostead, you said that you edged out the French in gold medals,
03:36but you had a French flag bearer.
03:38I mean, Jessica Fox is from Marseille, so what's that about?
03:42So this is part of the enduring friendship between our two nations.
03:45I love that there are so many levels of this,
03:47that the Fox family were so totally embraced,
03:49not just because of the extraordinary athletic prowess of that family
03:53and the great successes they've had, but also the French history.
03:56Australia, in the last 50 years,
03:58has become one of the most successful multicultural nations in the world,
04:01underpinned by 65,000 years of First Nations history
04:05and the British institutions that came in between.
04:08And I think because of that, as a nation,
04:10when we see a family that has chosen to be Australian,
04:12has French antecedents, we love to celebrate them
04:15and we felt as French as anyone on that day, but we claimed them as ours.
04:19So I think that says so much about the French-Australian relationship.
04:23I mean, more Australians probably got up to watch
04:25those two last basketball games between the men's and women's sides
04:28when the French,
04:29when you were desperately trying to win against the Americans,
04:31you had all of Australia barracking for the French in those two games.
04:34And I love that about these great sporting events,
04:37that we begin to find who our great friends around the world are
04:40and we show up and cheer.
04:41Yeah. And there's going to be Los Angeles,
04:45then there's going to be Brisbane.
04:46That's right.
04:48Is Paris such a different city from Brisbane
04:51that there are really not that many lessons to draw from these games
04:55or are you seeing things that you can take home with you?
04:57I think what France and Paris taught everybody for future Olympics,
05:01and particularly Brisbane, is that you can claim this culturally
05:04and you can turn your city into the star of a show
05:07without being held to the convention.
05:08So you liked the opening ceremony?
05:09I loved it. I loved it. I thought the panache...
05:11Because there were critics.
05:12There were. I mean, that's people who like to be in stadium.
05:14And I think what you did with the Seine
05:16and your national cultural institutions, it was so French.
05:19It was so Parisian.
05:20It was, you had, it just, it gripped us watching the broadcast.
05:23We probably saw it better than those sitting in Paris
05:26because we were watching this magnificent broadcast.
05:28But you taught the world to be so thoroughly proud of your culture,
05:31to share that with the world
05:32and not be contained by what has always been a stadium event.
05:35So I don't know whether Brisbane will think about this,
05:37but it would be great to see the city of Brisbane
05:39and the area around that part of Queensland celebrated.
05:43And we've had one hugely successful Olympics
05:46in recent history in 2000 in Sydney, and Sydney shone.
05:49And I think Brisbane will shine.
05:51But I think the Brisbane Organising Committee
05:53would have learnt a lot from, as I say,
05:55the panache and the cultural confidence of France
05:58in putting on these games.
05:59Because there are doubts about these big events.
06:01I know the state of Victoria had to forego hosting
06:03the Commonwealth Games in 2026.
06:06What's the lesson learned?
06:08So I think the lesson learned there is we can no longer afford
06:10to build infrastructure purely for an event every two or four years.
06:14And so the reuse of infrastructure,
06:16being smart about the use of the city,
06:18thinking about the reuse of infrastructure for housing
06:21and making sure that the design of the investment
06:23isn't just about that two weeks or the four weeks with the paras,
06:27but it's also about a long-term commitment to a city.
06:30And if you don't do that, you do end up with communities
06:33who are very upset about that money being spent just on sport
06:35instead of community.
06:37And you've shown,
06:38or I've seen it with the Olympic Village here just yesterday,
06:40that the reuse of the village for housing
06:43will be a renewal of the suburb that the village is in.
06:46They're the lessons.
06:47And also to not just always say yes
06:49if you can't afford to host the games.
06:51And I think Victoria learnt the lesson
06:53that you can get very enthusiastic
06:55and sort of think it's going to be all right,
06:57but when you look at the numbers
06:58and realise how much debt you have to go into to run a games,
07:01particularly Commonwealth versus Olympic,
07:03a hard decision had to be made.
07:05So that's an interesting dilemma, I think, for the number of games
07:08and whether you can reuse cities and not just go around the world
07:11ensuring that there's more and more infrastructure created
07:13than is probably necessary.
07:15Sam Mostyn, you're the new Governor-General.
07:17Yes.
07:18Since July 1st of this year.
07:19That's right.
07:21Now, if I understand this correctly,
07:24your job, in a sense, is not to make headlines.
07:28That's right.
07:29We know that in France, in Europe, we have different scenarios.
07:33In Italy, president is kind of a boring job
07:36until there's a constitutional crisis,
07:38and then it becomes a super important job.
07:40Yes.
07:42In Germany, it's more hard-baked,
07:44that they're used to building coalitions
07:47and the Constitution makes up for it.
07:50And, of course, in Britain, the King, his job isn't to do but to be.
07:55Yeah.
07:56What's your job?
07:57So my job is ultimately to both be the representative
08:01of His Majesty the King,
08:03so I am his representative in Australia,
08:05but that's where the relationship, I guess,
08:07in terms of advice and counsel from the King himself stops.
08:10So I'm a representative,
08:11but I'm appointed by an Australian Prime Minister
08:14and I work on the advice and counsel of the Prime Minister
08:17and his Cabinet.
08:18My job is fascinating in that I represent all Australians
08:21and get to travel the country and the world occasionally,
08:24as we are today, to represent the very best of Australians
08:27and look at things that Governors-General should be
08:29playing back to the country.
08:30When I started, I talked about the fact
08:32that I thought we had an absence of care and kindness
08:35in our political and policy systems
08:37and communities I felt were yearning for leaders in whatever form,
08:41particularly in high office, to start talking about
08:43what does it mean to have a culture of care or a polity of care?
08:46And by that I mean how do we care for those that do the caring?
08:49How do we care for each other?
08:51How do we engage in strenuous debate with care for civility
08:55so that we don't descend into violence and rancour?
08:57And how do we care for our civic institutions,
08:59such that we would want to keep them and invest in them
09:02so that we remain stable democracies that are successful
09:05and can navigate our way through,
09:06sometimes things like hung parliaments
09:08and a change in the political environment?
09:10And I think that is the role of a Governor-General in Australia,
09:13is to set a tone of care for our institutions.
09:16I'm also the Commander-in-Chief of the Australian Defence Force,
09:19which kind of amuses my father,
09:21who served in the Australian Army for 40 years,
09:23that his daughter is now the Commander-in-Chief.
09:25And, of course, that's not a role where I get to push a button
09:28to exercise our troops,
09:30but it is one where I represent the very best of our Defence Force
09:34and the role that they play in providing peace
09:36both in Australia and around the world.
09:38So it's a really privileged role to have
09:40and increasingly one where my Prime Minister asked me
09:42to behave in a modern, very visible and optimistic frame
09:46so that Australians could see the character of Australia represented
09:49in the office of Governor-General.
09:51Sam Mostyn, after the Paralympics,
09:54you'll be going to the battlefields of the Somme in the north,
09:58commemorations of World War I.
10:00Every year, thanks to new technology,
10:02they're identifying soldiers who fought more than 100 years ago.
10:06They found seven of them, I know, in Fromelles recently,
10:09who are Australian.
10:11Yes.
10:12And, again, you mentioned how Australia is really
10:14the other side of the world,
10:16and yet World War I is so important in the memory of it.
10:21Yeah, and it always will be.
10:23Every Australian will tell you that the ceremonies
10:25of the commemoration of the Somme, of the loss of Australian lives,
10:29we had, I think, over 295,000 soldiers that were involved,
10:34volunteer soldiers that were in the First World War
10:36on the Western Front.
10:38I think it was around 45,000, 46,000 who were killed,
10:41and we still don't know of the resting place
10:44of over 10,000 of those soldiers.
10:46And, as you say, we're discovering more and more.
10:48But in Australia's heart, the French hold a very special place,
10:51and most Australians that come to Europe will go to the front,
10:54will go to the Somme, will spend time at the Sir John Monash Centre,
10:57will commemorate and think about and reflect on that war.
11:00But there's these particular personal relationships
11:02between the Australian and the French that will endure.
11:04I don't see that changing at all.
11:06Because there's this dichotomy between the geographical distance
11:09and how near it is to the memory and hearts of Australians.
11:12Why is that?
11:14I think these are human experiences
11:16that have been passed down by generations,
11:18and the sense of friendship, of loss,
11:20of the catastrophe of that war and the loss of life,
11:23particularly for so many young men at the time,
11:25that those stories have continued to play down.
11:28And Australia...
11:29We went through a difficult time, I think, in the Vietnam War,
11:31where there was a movement about, should we be in wars anymore?
11:34And post that period,
11:35we've seen Australians really come back to the notion
11:37of very serious commemoration,
11:39reinvesting in things like visits to the Somme.
11:42We have very special commemorations
11:44about the French losses in Australia.
11:47To me, it's a people-to-people matter,
11:49and people keep recreating these moments and finding stories,
11:52as we've found with the bodies that have been found,
11:54and families who come back for the very first time
11:56three or four generations later
11:58and are still tearful and deeply emotional.
12:01I will be very moved to represent Australians
12:03at Villers-Bretonneux and to lay a wreath
12:06in commemoration of the relationship
12:08and those lives that were lost,
12:10and very mindful that I don't think this will change.
12:12I think this deep personal set of relationships
12:14between our two countries will endure
12:16and hopefully teach us to keep us far away from conflict
12:20and to remain peaceful and to commit to peace as a principle,
12:23as we've heard from many of those who served on the Western Front.
12:26Well, we're certainly honoured, Australia Governor-General Sam Mostyn,
12:29for your visit here to our studios.
12:31Thanks for joining us.
12:32It's been a real pleasure. Thank you.