Claire Chandler (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When Australia's peak sporting body was asked for advice on whether sports should allow males to play women's competitions, why weren't their first questions: Is that fair for female competitors? Is that fair for women? After all, it's no secret that males enjoy significant physical advantages over women and girls. Ten thousand males have run faster than the current Olympic female 100-metre champion. Male weightlifters in the 69-kilo category out lift women in the 108-kilo category. Men hit a golf ball much further and serve a tennis ball much faster. In contact sports, men, on average, have much greater mass, power and speed, which cause collisions with greater force and impact.

That's why, when looking at the issue of transgender inclusion, World Rugby turned to the science. They found that it is neither safe nor fair for biological males to play women's rugby. Why, then, when facing the same considerations did Sport Australia produce a document which, by their own admission, didn't even attempt to assess scientifically whether it's safe and fair for males to play women's sport? Why did Australia's peak sporting agency avoid answering these questions and instead delegate the task of providing advice on who should play women's sport to the Human Rights Commission? Why do the guidelines, instead of providing accurate advice on the law, actually mislead sporting clubs and give them the impression they'll be sued for discrimination if they refuse a male from competing in a women's competition? Expert legal advice, provided to me by a prominent QC, describes how Sport Australia's guidelines misrepresent the Sex Discrimination Act, which very specifically provides for female-only sport.

Over the last 12 months I've been attempting to find out why Sport Australia didn't do the obvious and affirm what common sense, science and the law all stipulate—that women are entitled to their own sports. I and women across the country who have been trying to get answers have been stonewalled and provided with spin and contradiction rather than facts.

Here's what we do know. Sport Australia refuses outright to say who was consulted on the guidelines or which groups requested their development. Lobby groups fighting for biological males to be able to play women's sport were engaged to advise on the guidelines, while women's groups were not invited to participate. Sport Australia delegated the writing of the guidelines to the Human Rights Commission without providing any brief to consider scientific research relevant to safety and fairness in women's sport. After I continued to ask questions, Sport Australia conceded their guidelines were never intended to be a scientific document. Despite admitting they never looked at the science, the guidelines somehow conclude that there is limited science available, even though World Rugby cite 49 scientific reports in their analysis. Sport Australia has conceded World Rugby's findings of a potential 30 per cent increase in head injury risks to women when playing against transwomen may be correct but refused to reconsider their own guidelines in light of these findings. They seem to suggest we need to see some more women getting head injuries before they reconsider their actions.

Rugby Australia ignored World Rugby's findings when they recently published their own transgender guidelines allowing biological males to play full contact rugby against women. Rugby Australia's guidelines acknowledge they draw heavily on Sport Australia's science-free guidelines. We also know that diversity and inclusion staff at both Sport Australia and Rugby Australia are on the advisory board for Pride in Sport, the lobby group which claimed credit for Rugby Australia and other major Australian sports recently releasing their own guidelines that promote the inclusion of men in women's sport.

We also know that the interpretation of Commonwealth law in the guidelines, which Sport Australia has said is the sole purpose of the document, is misleading according to legal experts and fails to make clear that the vast majority of sports are entitled to limit their women's competitions to females.

What we have, in short, is a set of guidelines impacting on women's sport that women weren't consulted about, that its creators admit are not based in science and that legal experts say are predicated on an inaccurate interpretation of the law. It is simply unacceptable for Australia's taxpayer funded peak sporting body to have conspired in secret with favoured lobby groups to undermine the integrity, safety and fairness of women's sport. Australians know that men and women are physically different. They know that this is why women's sport exists and they know that it is not fair and not safe for women to lose the right to their own sports on the basis of a murky, secretive, unscientific deal between bureaucrats and lobbyists.