Mr SHORTEN (Maribyrnong—Leader of the Opposition) (14:13): Today, along with a vast congregation of mourners in St Mary's Cathedral in Sydney, our parliament pays tribute to the memory of an Australian sporting legend, Bart Cummings. We honour a gentleman of the turf and a king of the sport of kings. For more than half a century punters would run their eyes down the form guide and catch upon that name JB Cummings. That name in print or the flash of the green and gold silks in the mounting yard would be enough for many to redo their carefully formulated trifecta and rework their quaddie. Perhaps they would say to themselves, 'Bart has something up his sleeve again.' And so often he did. Racing weaves many tales. It invokes great mystique, but it only pays on results and no-one can match Bart Cummings for results: Seven Caulfield Cups, 13 Australian Cups, five Cox Plates, four Golden Slippers, 32 Derbies, 24 Oaks, 268 group 1 wins, in total, and more than 8,000 race wins. And, of course, there are the victories that made him the cups' king: 12 Melbourne Cups. When Viewed saluted the judges in 2008 for cup No. 12, Bart's long-time stable foreman Reg Fleming said, 'There's Bradman and there's Bart.' Andrew Webster, from TheSydney Morning Herald, later asked Cummings about this comparison with Australia's most famous sporting name. Bart raised one of those famous eyebrows and offered a vintage response: I wasn't bad at cricket but I wasn't as good as Bradman. As much as Bart's modesty would not allow it, the Bradman comparison hits the mark I think—not just for his statistical dominance and the relentless accumulation of records but for that other ephemeral quality of sporting greatness: the sense of the man with the special gifts using them for the big occasion. Bart, it was often said, had 'the eye'—the knack of picking a yearling and turning it into a champion. We know so many of the names: Storm Queen, Galilee, Light Fingers, Think Big, Maybe Mahal, Shaftesbury Avenue, Let's Elope, Saintly and So You Think—and it was horses that he credited with the success, never himself. Ray Thomas, from the Daily Telegraph, new Bart well. In one of the last interviews they shared, he asked Bart to describe himself. Bart said: I'm just an ordinary sort of fellow, can train a bit though. Today we pay tribute to this modest champion. We salute the contribution he made to our national memory. We offer condolences to the people he loved and the people who loved him. May he rest in eternal peace.