Sport Legislation Amendment (World Anti-Doping Code Implementation) Bill 2026
Ms ROBERTS (Pearce) (18:13): The incorporated speech read as follows— I speak in support of the Sport Legislation Amendment (World Anti-Doping Code Implementation) Bill 2026. Australians have a very special relationship with sport. It is part of who we are.
It brings communities together, creates lifelong friendships, teaches our children resilience and teamwork, and gives Australians moments of shared pride. That is certainly true in my electorate of Pearce. Across our rapidly growing northern suburbs, sport is woven into the fabric of our community.
On any given weekend, thousands of local families are travelling to football grounds, cricket pitches, netball courts, swimming pools and recreation centres. Parents are getting children out the door early in the morning. Coaches are setting up equipment.
Volunteers are running canteens, organising teams and doing the work that keeps community sport alive. And among those young people pulling on their club colours in Pearce today may well be the Olympians, Paralympians and international representatives of tomorrow. That pathway—from junior sport, to local competition, to state and national representation and perhaps, ultimately, to the world stage—is something Australia should continue to nurture and protect.
That protection includes ensuring that, wherever an Australian athlete competes, they can have confidence that the competition is fair. It means knowing that the person standing beside them at the starting line, across the net or on the other side of the field is subject to the same rules. It means knowing that performance is determined by talent, preparation, discipline and hard work, not by prohibited substances or attempts to circumvent the rules.
That is why this legislation matters. Sporting integrity is fundamental to sport. Without integrity, records lose their meaning.
Without integrity, medals lose their value. Most importantly, clean athletes can spend years training and sacrificing only to be denied an opportunity by someone who has chosen to cheat. Australians rightly expect better than that.
Australia has a proud history when it comes to protecting clean sport. We established the Australian Sports Drug Agency in 1990, nearly a decade before the World Anti-Doping Agency was formed. Since then, Australia has continued to play an important role internationally in the development of antidoping policy and in building systems designed to protect athletes and maintain confidence in sporting competition.
Today, Sport Integrity Australia carries much of that responsibility nationally. Modern sporting integrity involves far more than testing athletes. It involves education, intelligence, investigations, therapeutic use exemptions, safeguarding and responding to emerging threats.
And those threats continue to evolve. We have seen internationally how sophisticated doping programs can become. They can extend beyond the actions of an individual athlete and involve coaches, support personnel, administrators and, in the most serious cases, attempts to manipulate testing and undermine the institutions designed to guarantee fair competition.
That is why strong and independent institutions are so important. It is also why our antidoping framework cannot remain static. The methods used to detect doping change.
Medical science changes. Technology changes. The substances available change.
Our laws and regulatory systems therefore need to evolve with them. That is the purpose of the revised World Anti-Doping Code, which will take effect from 1 January 2027. The code establishes a common international framework so athletes competing across different countries and different sports operate under consistent antidoping rules.
Australia has been closely involved in developing the revised code, with Sport Integrity Australia consulting athletes, sporting organisations, the Australian Sports Commission, the National Sports Tribunal, medical experts and other stakeholders. This legislation forms an important part of ensuring Australia is ready when the new code commences. There are four significant areas addressed by this bill.
The first concerns therapeutic use exemptions and, importantly, an athlete's right to seek an independent review of a decision. Antidoping systems must be rigorous enough to identify and punish deliberate doping. But they must also recognise that athletes get sick, suffer injuries and may require legitimate medication or treatment involving a substance that would ordinarily be prohibited.
That is why therapeutic use exemptions exist. Under these reforms, an athlete refused a therapeutic use exemption by the Australian Sports Drug Medical Advisory Committee will be able to seek independent review through the National Sports Tribunal. That provides an independent national pathway and is an important improvement.
A strong antidoping regime should never mean abandoning procedural fairness. Athletes must be held accountable when they break the rules, but they must also be able to trust the institutions administering those rules. The second significant reform strengthens the operational independence of Australia's antidoping arrangements.
Responsibility for imposing certain antidoping consequences will move away from individual sporting organisations and instead sit with Sport Integrity Australia. That is an important principle. Sporting organisations have an understandable interest in their athletes and competitions.
They develop their sport, promote it, attract participants and sponsors, and support their representatives. There can therefore be circumstances where asking a sporting organisation to make decisions about sanctions involving its own athletes creates a real or perceived conflict of interest. The new arrangements provide clearer separation.
Under the new arrangements, the Sport Integrity Australia CEO will take responsibility for imposing provisional suspensions and sanctions under Australia's national antidoping framework, rather than leaving those decisions to individual sporting organisations. That provides consistency, independence and greater public confidence. For communities like Pearce, where children and young adults are progressing through increasingly competitive sporting pathways, confidence in those systems matters.
Young athletes should grow up understanding that the rules apply consistently, whether they are competing at a suburban sporting ground or representing Australia internationally. The third area addressed by this legislation concerns the publication of information about antidoping violations. Transparency is an important component of sporting integrity.
Where an antidoping violation has occurred, there can be a legitimate public interest in knowing what happened and what consequence followed. But transparency must also be balanced against privacy, fairness and the circumstances of the individual. That is particularly important where children, protected persons or recreational athletes are concerned.
The revised arrangements provide greater scope to consider whether publication is appropriate and better recognise situations in which a person has not been found to have committed an offence or was not at fault. This is a sensible balance. We should be tough on deliberate doping, but our laws should also recognise proportionality.
A child, vulnerable participant or recreational athlete should not automatically be treated in exactly the same manner as an elite athlete who knowingly participates in a sophisticated doping program. The fourth reform updates the definition of an athlete under the Sport Integrity Australia Act. The existing arrangements can continue to classify somebody as an athlete for six months after they last competed.
This bill removes that automatic domestic rule and brings Australia's definition into closer alignment with the international antidoping framework. It may appear to be a technical amendment, but consistency matters in a global system. Athletes compete internationally, sporting bodies work across jurisdictions and antidoping organisations operate within common international standards.
These reforms are also taking place at an extraordinary time for Australian sport. Our athletes continue to deliver remarkable performances internationally, and the next decade will place Australia at the centre of world sport. We are moving towards the Los Angeles Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2028 and, of course, the Brisbane Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2032.
Those events will inspire another generation of young Australians. I think about what that opportunity means in Pearce. We are one of the largest and fastest-growing parts of Western Australia, with young families establishing their lives across communities including Alkimos, Butler, Yanchep, Eglinton and Wanneroo.
We need the infrastructure to give those families opportunities to participate in sport. That is why projects such as the new Alkimos Aquatic and Recreation Centre are so important. The Australian government has committed significant funding of $30 million towards the facility because our northern suburbs deserve high-quality aquatic and recreation infrastructure closer to home.
The centre will create opportunities for swimming, fitness, indoor sport and recreation, and will support local schools, sporting clubs and families. Across Pearce, facilities such as Halesworth Park demonstrate what quality community sporting infrastructure can mean for growing communities. These projects might seem removed from international antidoping legislation, but they are all part of the same sporting ecosystem.
The child learning to swim in a community pool may become an elite swimmer. The young cricketer training after school may progress through representative cricket. The girl joining a local football or netball team may one day pull on Australian colours.
Every one of those young athletes should grow up in a sporting culture that tells them clearly that success comes from preparation, hard work, perseverance and talent. There are no acceptable shortcuts. That culture begins at grassroots level and must extend all the way to our national sporting institutions.
The Albanese Labor government is therefore investing across the sporting pathway. We are supporting community participation. We are investing in women's and girls' sport.
We are supporting high-performance athletes. And we are strengthening the integrity architecture that sits behind it all. In the 2026-27 budget, the government committed a further $20.1 million to Sport Integrity Australia to continue safeguarding the integrity of Australian sport.
That investment and this legislation send the same message: Australian sporting success must be clean sporting success. The great moments in Australian sport matter precisely because we believe in them. When an Australian touches the wall first, crosses the finish line or stands on a podium with a medal around their neck, Australians should be able to celebrate without wondering whether the competition was legitimate.
The athlete standing second or fourth should also know that they were given a genuine opportunity to compete fairly. The consequences of doping do not fall only upon the athlete who breaks the rules; they fall upon the clean competitor who misses a final, the person who finishes fourth and misses a medal, the athlete who misses selection, the family that has supported years of training and the supporters who put their faith in the integrity of the competition.
Once an opportunity has been taken from an athlete, awarding a medal years later cannot fully restore what was lost. That is why prevention, detection, independence and strong governance are so important. As we look towards Brisbane 2032, Australia has an opportunity not simply to host an outstanding Olympic and Paralympic Games but to demonstrate what we believe sport should represent—competition, excellence, respect, integrity and, above all, a fair go.
Those values are just as visible on a Saturday morning sporting field in Pearce as they are in an Olympic stadium. We owe it to the volunteers running our local clubs, to the parents supporting their children, to our emerging athletes and to those already representing our country to protect those values. The Sport Legislation Amendment (World Anti-Doping Code Implementation) Bill 2026 strengthens that protection.
It provides athletes with stronger review rights. It strengthens independent decision-making. It provides a more balanced approach to publication and privacy.
It ensures Australia's legislation remains aligned with the international antidoping system that underpins fair competition around the world. Australia has long been a leader in protecting the integrity of sport. This bill ensures that we remain one.
For the sporting clubs and families of Pearce, for Australian athletes competing today and for the young Australians dreaming of representing their country tomorrow, we should continue to insist upon a simple principle: if you compete, you compete fairly. Our athletes deserve nothing less. Our sporting community expects nothing less.
I commend the bill to the House.