Pat Conroy (Shortland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Hansard source

Labor will be supporting the third reading of this bill because it goes to the integrity of sport. But there are some very important features that we need to discuss. Australia has a long and proud history as a sporting nation. From backyard games to the Boxing Day test to grassroots participation to competition on the national and international stages, sport has played and continues to play an important role in our way of life and our national identity. Whenever we hear good-news stories about sport at any level, they enhance the reputation of Australian sport and our love for it. But when we hear reports of doping in sport, when we hear reports of match fixing, those reports damage and devalue Australia's sports reputation and our relationship with sport.

Labor, in government, was proactive in deploying measures to protect against these and other threats to the integrity of sport in Australia. We recognise the need to evaluate the effectiveness of Australia's sports integrity measures and upgrade and update those measures, when needed, to address changing environments and new threats. In 2012 the Labor federal government established a National Integrity of Sport Unit. In 2013 we passed legislation to strengthen the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority's power. But threats to the integrity of Australian sport continue to evolve, and so must our protective measures. You only have to look at the rise of online gaming—such as the ability, in sports like cricket, to bet on the outcome of individual balls—to know that we need enhanced protection measures for the integrity of sport. The Australian public must have trust in our sporting competitions and our institutions. Otherwise, we'll lose a key feature of Australian life.

In response to these ever-evolving risks, the government announced a review of Australia's sports integrity arrangements in August 2017. The panel that conducted the review was chaired by Justice James Wood, and the review was to become known as the Wood review. The government received the Wood review's report in March 2018 and released its response to the report in February of this year. It is a detailed and extensive review—nearly 300 pages, containing 52 recommendations. One of those recommendations was the establishment of a national sports integrity commission to cohesively draw together and develop existing sports integrity capabilities, knowledge and expertise and to nationally coordinate all elements of the sports integrity threat response, including prevention, monitoring and detection investigation and enforcement.

The Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority Amendment (Sport Integrity Australia) Bill 2019 seeks to implement the government's response to that recommendation. This bill would establish a new Australian government agency, to be known as Sport Integrity Australia, designed to protect the integrity of Australian sport. It is proposed that this new agency would bring together a range of sports integrity functions that are currently the responsibility of the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority, ASADA; the National Integrity of Sports Unit; and Sports Australia. To paraphrase from the review, a centrally coordinated response to sports integrity issues will help overcome the silo effect that currently exists with multiple bodies, including NSOs and law enforcement and regulatory agencies engaged in protecting sports from threats. The review also noted that difficulties in securing a coordinated response are compounded by our federated system, in which there are often differences in state, territory and federal regulatory and criminal laws.

Protecting Australia's sports integrity is a goal that has bipartisan support. Labor intends to continue the bipartisan approach by supporting the establishment of Sport Integrity Australia through these bills. Labor has engaged with stakeholders across the sports sector and has taken into account their views on the reforms that will be implemented by this bill and the associated Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority Amendment (Enhancing Australia's Anti-Doping Capability) Bill 2019. While the majority of the feedback has been supportive, some stakeholders have raised specific concerns regarding certain specific aspects of this bill and the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority Amendment (Enhancing Australia's Anti-Doping Capability) Bill 2019.

In relation to this bill, the scrutiny committee is seeking advice from the Minister for Sport as to why it's considered appropriate to provide members of the Sport Integrity Australia Advisory Council with civil immunity so that affected persons have the right to bring an action to enforce their legal rights, limited to situations where lack of good faith is shown. The scrutiny committee has also asked for more-detailed advice as to why it's considered necessary and appropriate for Sport Integrity Australia to be an enforcement body for the purposes of the Privacy Act 1988. Specifically, the committee has noted that considerations of this aspect of the bill would be helped by further explanation of how Sport Integrity Australia enforcement related activities will be undertaken in practice, including the nature of the enforcement powers and who will be exercising the enforcement powers.

These scrutiny committee concerns largely mirror the issues that some stakeholders have raised with Labor. Broadly speaking, those concerns related to appropriate checks and balances and ensuring that, in bolstering Australia's defences against sports integrity threats, the rights of individuals are not inappropriately eroded. In recognition of these concerns, the Senate has referred the bill to the Senate Standing Committees on Community Affairs for a short inquiry to report on 3 February next year. Labor hopes that this process will enable stakeholders that still have concerns to outline those issues and allow them to be appropriately considered before this bill is passed in its final form. The Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority Amendment (Enhancing Australia's Anti-Doping Capability) Bill 2019, which has just passed this House, has been referred to an inquiry with the same time frame, given its deep connection with this bill.

Given the great value of sport to Australians, our society and economy, protecting the integrity of Australian sport is something that Labor supports. Integrity in all things, I think, is essential. What we've witnessed today is a complete lack of integrity from the government—a government that is intent on silencing opposition to any attempt to question its behaviour and to question its performance. We've seen a lack of integrity from the Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction in his use of fraudulent documents to try to smear the Lord Mayor of Sydney. We've seen the Prime Minister and a retinue of ministers misleading parliament—again, going to the lack of integrity from this government.

This is a government that's only six months into its third term but lacks completely an agenda and is pursuing that lack of agenda without any integrity, so, while it's very important to have integrity in sports, we should also have it in politics. That's why a commitment to a truly genuine national integrity commission, one with true powers, is essential. That's Labor's policy as well—something, again, that the government professed to support but backtracked on when they won government again. Integrity matters. The Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction is a classic case of someone who lacks integrity. This is a man who misled parliament in his first speech. While I'll criticise him for many things, I can't criticise him for a lack of consistency. He has been consistent in his contempt for parliament, his lack of integrity—

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