Zed Seselja (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Before I get to some of the detail of the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority Amendment Bill 2014, which our committee was able to look at in some detail, I want to say that it is unfortunate that, whenever we talk about anything in relation to drugs in sport and in relation to ASADA in recent times, it is always looked at—even in the contribution of Senator Di Natale there—in the context, to some degree, of the 'darkest day in sport' and the shameful way that that was handled. I will come back to that, because I want to deal with the bill. We are dealing with two very separate issues, but I can understand how, in the public's mind and in sporting bodies' minds, they would look at even legislation like this, which I think is pretty uncontroversial broadly and is certainly legislation that should be supported. But it is difficult to separate those two issues because of the way that we saw the politicisation of that process some time ago by the former Labor government.

There is no doubt that Australians value their sporting teams. We enjoy sport, we enjoy watching sport and we have great and understandable pride in the performance of our elite athletes, be they our athletes who compete in the Olympics or be they our athletes in our major sporting codes—the NRL, the AFL, the A-League, rugby union, netball, a whole range of elite sports in this country. We have a proud tradition and we are justifiably proud of our athletes. But what is critically important to that is the idea that we expect that it will be a fair contest. There are some things we can agree on. We do want to see a fair contest. We do want legislation that ensures we have the maximum confidence that we are not seeing wide-scale, widespread cheating, with people using drugs to get a competitive advantage over others. Australians have absolutely no time for people who would seek to cheat, for people who would seek to use drugs to get an unfair advantage, and for anyone who might facilitate that.

What we are debating in the Senate today is legislation that will help to give us more confidence and help to improve our regime so that Australians, when they see our elite athletes, be it at an international level, be it at a domestic level, will know that all that can reasonably be done is being done to ensure we have a fair playing field, that we are stamping out drugs in sport and that we are sending a very clear message to our athletes—not just our elite athletes but our younger athletes coming through—that there is no time for this and that, in some cases, severe penalties will be needed to deal with some of the worst abuses of our laws and of the rules of various sports.

We know that anti-doping regulation is a key part of the approach. To maintain sport integrity in the WAD Code is the global standard for over 170 governments and 300 international sporting bodies. As a signatory to the WADA convention the Australian government has made a commitment to abide by the principles of the code. The example that Senator Di Natale used of the NFL is a false comparison because what we are talking about here is what the government does—what kind of framework we put in place. If we do not put in place the right framework it will undermine particularly our Olympic athletes ability to compete on a world stage. We do not want to be laggards in this area; we want to be leaders. And we want to ensure that we have the best possible compliance with the WAD Code here in Australia. So the comparison with the NFL is a false one—that needs to be said. That is an individual sporting code. What we are talking about here is our nation's response to doping and our nation's response to the WAD Code, which we have signed up to—both sides of politics have committed to it. We are committed to the WAD Code and this is our legislative framework for implementing that WAD Code.

There is a lot of detail in this, some of which is in the headline legislation and some of which necessarily must come through regulation. That is also important to ensure that we comply with the WAD Code. It is worth just going through some of the key changes because the committee looked through the changes to the code and additional administrative changes in detail.

We have the prohibition of athletes and support persons from associating with convicted drug cheats. This is designed to protect athletes from known doping facilitators, such as unscrupulous doctors or support staff. This is the prohibited persons violation and I will come back to that because that was one of the most controversial parts of it. But I think that in broad terms this is a very important part. This is a recognition, in fact, that we cannot always test for every substance; testing alone does not always get to the bottom of it. We do know that in many cases there needs to be a whole range of mechanisms for regulatory bodies to deal with these issues. As we have seen in the broad publicity around recent cases—and I will not go into details of recent cases, some of which may be ongoing—we know it can centre around one or two individuals. So it is an important tool, and there are important safeguards that were outlined to the committee in some detail to ensure that a casual association is not something that is likely to bring someone undone. We are talking about protecting athletes, in fact, from people who would in some cases lead young, impressionable athletes astray; who would take them down a path that is detrimental to their health and potentially detrimental to their careers and to their reputations. So it is actually a great protection for athletes as much as it is an inhibition on them.

We have complicity: aiding and abetting or covering up a doping violation is now a violation in its own right. There is increasing the sanction under the code from two years to four years for deliberate doping infractions, such as taking anabolic steroids. There is smarter target testing by testing for specific substances for particular sports—for example, steroids for strength sports and blood doping for endurance sports, making testing more efficient and targeted. The establishment of a violations list formalises a WADA requirement to publish a list of people who have received an anti-doping sanction for the period of that sanction.

The provision of a review panel in the Australian Sports Drug Medical Advisory Committee, which is separate to ASADA, will provide mechanisms for athletes who apply unsuccessfully for a therapeutic use exemption. A therapeutic use exemption is where an athlete is approved for legitimate use of an otherwise prohibited drug for medical reasons, such as asthma medication. There is the removal of unnecessary distinctions in types of information received by ASADA by clarifying content as protected information, regardless of the source, and ensuring that the same provisions apply for all information to protect the unlawful use of that content. ASADA will be enabled to comment publicly in response to incorrect statements by an athlete or their representatives to correct the record—that was certainly something that the head of ASADA put to us as being important.

There is the removal of the register of findings. The register is currently confusing to athletes and the public, as the Anti-Doping Rule Violation Panel does not in fact make a 'finding', rather they make an 'assertion' that it is possible that a violation has occurred and then this information is provided by ASADA to the sport to consider through the normal tribunal process. Importantly, whilst the register is removed, safeguards for athletes to appeal a decision by the ADRVP are retained. There is one that I recall that is not in my notes here about the ability to go back and test. At the moment it is eight years; that will go to 10 years. I think that is also an important provision because that sends a message to dopers who think they can get away with things now and who think that maybe there is no test for the substance that they are taking. In fact they will have 10 years of technological advancement where we might be able to go back and find out if they actually are cheating now. I think that is a very sensible change, and a very reasonable change, to ensure that we can use future technologies to provide a deterrent right now and get to the bottom of doping in the future.

We found a lot of support for these changes, notwithstanding—as Senator Di Natale has raised—that there were a number of organisations who are opposed to these changes. We had some of the lawyer representative groups and we had the Australian Athletes' Alliance opposed to a number of the changes. But I commend the committee's report, which has been tabled in the Senate, to senators and to others because it actually dealt with each of these objections one by one and in some detail. It dealt with the responses and the safeguards that we have. We had submissions to the inquiry stressing the importance of Australia taking a stronger stance on drug use in sport for the benefit of all athletes and the importance of protecting Australia's integrity as a sporting nation. The majority of submissions expressed support both for the revised code and for the measures in this bill to facilitate the implementation of the code.

A key point raised by a number of submitters was that they wanted to make sure that we were able to continue to compete on the world stage. Simon Hollingsworth, of the Australian Sports Commission, noted in his evidence:

… if the bill were not to go through in its current form, national sporting organisations would be placed in a situation where they would be required to comply with their international federations and organisations like the International Olympic Committee and the Australian Olympic Committee, which would be different to the legislative framework that would exist in Australia.

John Coates, of the Australian Olympic Committee, submitted:

In order to continue this longstanding commitment, any staging of future Olympic Games, World Championships and other major international events in Australia, such as the Asian Football Cup in January 2015 and the Commonwealth Games in 2018, must be Code compliant.

With this in mind, passage of this bill is important to secure our participation in world sporting events.

I will deal with the prohibited persons violation because this was, I think, probably the most contentious part of this legislation, and it certainly got the most commentary as the committee examined this. Some argued that the prohibited persons violation is broad and might implicate athletes whose family members or other unavoidable associates have previous doping violations. However, in response, the department made clear:

… the association which might be the subject of a prohibition must be in a professional sports related capacity.

So there are limitations around that prohibition to start with. It is not meant to interfere with the day-to-day interactions between individuals outside those particular provisions. It is targeted at athlete-support personnel. There are numerous safeguards in place that ensure that athletes will not be charged due to accidental or unavoidable association with a prohibited person, including opportunities to explain associations and rights to appeal.

The new WADA code comes into force on 1 January 2015, so it is vital that we help these clean athletes by enacting the amendments as soon as we can to avoid any consequences that might come from not being compliant. In the AOC submission we had a number of quotes from some of our athletes imploring the parliament to pass this legislation and imploring us to protect these clean athletes through changes such as are being proposed in the legislation we are debating today. Matthew Dunn, a three-time Olympian, said:

As an ex-athlete I hope all stakeholders will be able to use the new WADA Code with maximum effect to protect all clean athletes and ensure a level playing field.

Claudia Bokel, also a three-time Olympian, said:

… I am proud to say that all athletes' representatives unanimously supported strong bans for athletes convicted of a deliberate and aggravated doping offence. We actually wanted lifetime bans. Clean athletes don't want to compete against dirty athletes!

We had a number of other quotes from Beckie Scott, from Cydonie Mothersill and from Kim Crow. Kim Crow said:

For every doper out there, clean athletes suffer. We dedicate our hearts and souls to pursuing our sporting dreams. To have those dreams stolen by cheats is an irreplaceable theft.

This is an important piece of legislation. It has been thoroughly examined. I think it has stood up to the scrutiny in terms of some of the criticisms that have been put by some groups, but I think there is a far more compelling argument put by the many submissions in favour as to why it is important that we do this.

In passing, I note Senator Di Natale's comments in relation to a broader inquiry. I think that is something that needs to be considered. I think that any inquiry would need to look at the politicisation of ASADA that occurred under the former government. I do not think that we can turn our eyes away from that. It was something that I know that all sporting bodies in Australia now look at and see the damage of those kinds of inflammatory comments and the way that that particular press conference—the 'darkest day in sport' press conference, as it is now known—was handled. It cast a pall over all Australian athletes, unfortunately, when we know that the vast bulk of Australian athletes do absolutely the right thing. They stay within the rules. They work their butts off to compete, but they have no time for doping and they have no time for cheating. The way that that particular issue was handled and the way that that particular press conference was handled damaged Australian sport in the eyes of others. Those headlines were damaging and unnecessarily so.

We do not need inflammatory rhetoric. We need a sensible approach. We need sensible legislation. If there is a case to look at things like ASADA resources, well, so be it. But I think we should also look at how we can avoid the type of politicisation that we have seen in the past to ensure that ASADA can get on and do its job, that we give it the legislative tools that it needs and that we give it the resources that it needs. We, as legislators, have a responsibility to do that, and governments have a responsibility to make sure that independent bodies like ASADA can do their job so that the integrity of sport is not called into question—certainly not called into question unnecessarily—and so that Australians can have confidence that all is being done to ensure that we have a fair and level playing field. I commend the bill to the Senate.