Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am most pleased to rise to speak on the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority Amendment Bill 2014. Our nation has a long and proud sporting history, sporting heritage and sporting reputation. This is something that did not just evolve overnight by the efforts of one or two people; it is something that has evolved over a century by the efforts of our most famous athletes—from Don Bradman to Dawn Fraser and across thousands and thousands of other athletes who have participated in Commonwealth and Olympic Games or who have pulled on that green and gold jersey. Every single one of them has added to our sporting reputation, our sporting heritage and our sporting traditions. No matter what nation we are playing against, we always tend as Australians to fight above our weight. If an Australian pulls on the green and gold jersey, it does not matter who they are fighting, the opponent from the other side will know that they are competing against someone who will play the game as tough as it possibly can be played but that it will be played as fair as it possibly can. Our job is here as members of parliament is to guard and protect the heritage, those traditions and our reputation. That is what this bill does.

Australia was an initial supporter of the establishment of the World Anti-Doping Code and we were a very early signatory to the UNESCO Convention against Doping in Sport. This bill brings us in alignment with the revised World Anti-Doping Code that comes into effect on 1 January 2015. Here are a few specifics about bringing us into compliance with that code. Every nation that participates in sport, every athlete has the same standards across the world no matter what nation they are from. There is a prohibition on athletes and supporting persons that are associated with convicted drug cheats. There is a new provision which makes aiding and abetting or covering up a doping violation a violation in its own right. We have increased some of the sanctions under the code from two years to four years for deliberate doping infractions such as taking anabolic steroids. We also established a violations list that formalises a WADA requirement to publish a list of people who received antidoping sanctions for a period of that sanction. By this bill, this government is ensuring that our sporting legacy, our sporting heritage and our sporting traditions are protected, because ultimately we are the guardians of that legacy.

This brings me to the so-called 'darkest day in sport': 7 February 2013. It was not the darkest day in sport. I put it to you that, amongst all the dark days of the six years of the previous government, that day was the darkest of the previous government. That was the day they lined up the CEOs of the AFL, rugby league, rugby union, soccer and cricket like naughty schoolboys on a stage and had a stage managed press conference. We know the entire purpose of that press conference was not to unveil some great revelations that they had discovered. It was simply a political distraction to get the bad political news off the front pages of the day and have this as the replacement.

Why would a government do such a thing? We have seen that they do not understand the importance of the traditions—including sporting traditions—and history of this nation. It is the job of the Minister for Sport—their most important job and their first task—to be the guardians of our nation's sporting reputation, and what we saw was a squalid political stunt. We saw the previous government prepared to absolutely trash our nation's sporting reputation around the world with that press conference last year.

This government is taking a different approach. We understand the importance of our sporting heritage. We understand the importance of our sporting reputations. We will be the guardians of those. We will do everything we can to protect them so they will continue to flourish, so our sportsmen will continue to be a proud part of our nation's history and traditions. That is exactly what this bill does, and I am very pleased to commend it to the House.

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