Claire Chandler (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last night I had the pleasure of speaking with one of the world's best-known defenders of women's sport, the champion British swimmer Sharon Davis. Sharon knows better than most the devastating impact of unfairness in sport. At the 1980 Olympic Games she was denied an Olympic gold medal by an East German swimmer taking steroids as part of a state-sponsored doping program. The women competing at the 1980 Olympics knew what they were up against. They knew they weren't competing on a level playing field. As Sharon said, 'Not a single person in authority raised a red flag or fought for us'.

Fast forward four decades and, yet again, those in authority have turned a blind eye to women in sport being forced to play on an unfair field. Almost everybody knows, whether they say so publicly or not, that it is unfair for males to compete in women's sport. For a number of years, however, those who were prepared to say so were relatively few. Female champions like Sharon, Martina Navratilova and a few brave women in Australia had the courage not to stay silent but to speak up for the next generation of girls in sport. Many, unfortunately, felt pressured to say silent or were unable speak for fear of blowback from politicians, the media and sponsors. Worse, though, some sought to attack women like Sharon or Martina or our Australian champions who stood up and ensured that the next generations of female swimmers, cyclists and athletes can compete on a level playing field.

This has been a dark period for women's rights. Not only have governments removed the rights of women and girls to access single-sex spaces, sports and services but they and their supporters have aggressively targeted those women who spoke up. But the good news is that this period is coming to an end. We are going to win, and common sense will eventually be restored. Once the public sees what's happening, they don't stand for it. For years, the media and political parties have run cover for policies would never accept let alone vote for, whether it is placing dangerous male sex offenders in women's prisons or telling young girls playing community sport that they are bigots if they complain about adult males entering women's competitions.

In the United Kingdom the British Labour Party has just backflipped on years of cheerleading for self-identification policies. Labour members have started apologising to women who they have isolated and pilloried for expressing concerns for women's sex based rights that they now admit are correct. In sport, World Athletics, World Aquatics, World Rugby and the UCI have all admitted, because of the voices of women and the overwhelming scientific evidence, that for fair and safe competition the female category must remain female only. In other words, we were right. And those who denigrated us were too busy playing the woman instead of playing the ball.

The question now is: How long will Australian sports officials, the Australian media and the Australian government hold out? Because the longer they do, the more Australian women and girls will suffer unfairness in their sport and be put at risk of serious injuries—injuries, by the way, which will be indefensible in court for those sporting bodies who have ignored the science.

Sharon Davies never got the gold medal that she was cheated out of, nor did the women who finished behind doped athletes at those Olympics. But at least, because of what happened to them occurred at the highest level, everybody knows that they were the true champions, not those who used an unfair advantage to attain achievements that they weren't entitled to. Women and girls around Australia who are suffering the same unfairness in local sport will never get that recognition but they will remember the sporting leaders and the politicians who abandoned them and pretended it wasn't happening.