Sport Legislation Amendment (World Anti-Doping Code Implementation) Bill 2026
Mr McCORMACK (Riverina) (19:19): No true sports follower likes cheats, and the Sport Legislation Amendment (World Anti-Doping Code Implementation) Bill 2026 absolutely puts Australia at the forefront of combating cheating in sport. This is a necessity. Sadly, we do have some sports men and women throughout the world who do things to their bodies, take things, to enhance their ability to win a piece of tin, to win something that they otherwise would not have gained—to cheat.
This bill puts Australia's legislation in line with the revised World Anti-Doping Code and international standards, which is required in order to host international sporting events. And when it comes to hosting world events, Australia is very much at the forefront on the international stage. The four updates in this legislation are to: (1) enhance an athlete's appeal rights for therapeutic use exemption decisions, providing an independent pathway through the National Sports Tribunal, (2) transfer responsibility for imposing consequences to Sports Integrity Australia, which was previously the sporting code body, (3) ensure that publication decisions balance the public interest with privacy safeguards—for example, a no-fault and minors, and (4) update the definition of an athlete, removing the domestic definition of post six months of last completion.
Australia is a signatory to the World Anti-Doping Association, or WADA, which updates its international standards every six years. The last update approved by WADA was in 2019 and was implemented by countries including Australia for 2021, when the coalition was in office. Following a two-year global review by WADA, the revised 2027 code was approved in December last year and will begin on 1 January next year.
Australia, through Sport Integrity Australia, took part throughout the review process. It worked through this with athletes, sporting organisations, stakeholders, the National Sports Tribunal, the Sports Drug Medical Advisory Committee, the Australian Sports Commission, peak sporting bodies and Australian antidoping experts. To maintain a globally harmonised antidoping framework, all code signatories, including us, are in the process of reviewing and updating their frameworks to comply with the revised code and international standards by New Year's Day 2027.
I need to stress that these amendments are unrelated to athlete gender matters. That's separate. Sport Integrity Australia has engaged with the World Anti-Doping Association extensively on this process for more than two years.
That process has also involved regular consultation with major sporting bodies, athletes and athlete associations. The office of the shadow minister for the arts, sport and youth, the member for Moncrieff, has been in contact with the department and has gained a full briefing. I appreciate that, on behalf of the coalition.
That's important, it's necessary and it's to be expected. We know that Australia is a great sporting nation. We punch well above our weight.
It doesn't matter whether it's individual sports or team sports; our weather, our venues and just our true national spirit and pride get us across the line on so many occasions. Most Australians really love our sport, and all Australians want to see us succeed—but want to see us succeed in a fair way. The concept of the game is to play within the spirit.
Yes, it's to win, but it's about quality participation, fair competition, the teamwork, the culture and what it provides to community, whether it's park sport or whether it's at what I think is the greatest theatre for sport in the world, the Melbourne Cricket Ground—and I say that as a New South Welshmen. I see you raising your eyebrows, Deputy Speaker Wilkie—a true Tasmanian, as the member for Clark—but the MCG is the most amazing and remarkable sporting stadium.
I've been to many, and it is something to behold. When you get a packed crowd for the Boxing Day cricket test or that one day in September, the Australian Football League Grand Final, the MCG is the place to be. While I'm at it, there's no greater horse race than the great two-miler at Flemington, either, on that first Tuesday in November.
Australia is a world leader in sports integrity. It has a longstanding and proud record of supporting clean, fair and safe sport. I want to digress just a little and talk about the Stawell Gift.
The Stawell Gift is a famous footrace in country Victoria. This year's winner, Olufemi Komolafe, won the Easter Monday 120-metre event off a five-metre handicap in a very impressive time of 12.03 seconds. This fellow has attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.
Tragically for him, he failed a doping test due to inadvertently taking a banned substance found in ADHD medication that he was on that was prescribed to him by his sister, who is a doctor, to assist with his concentration in his studies. He lost the title, something which was obviously very prestigious and important for him, and the $40,000 winner's cheque. He also received a 12-month ban after Sport Integrity Australia accepted that the breach was accidental and that the athlete cooperated fully.
It reinforces the fact that Australia will always put what is right over an inadvertent mistake. He remained on the medication moving forward. He was reportedly unaware that the specific substance was banned in competition by Sport Integrity Australia and WADA and that he needed to file for a therapeutic-use exemption.
Those exemptions are there for athletes who need to be on a certain medication for certain conditions and still be able to compete in certain events. ADHD medications are banned in sport for their potential performance-enhancing effects, with athletes able to use them only if they have a medical diagnosis and it's part of their treatment. It really brings home the fact that athletes have to be especially careful when using such substances.
The retrospective winner, runner-up Jake Ireland, was elevated to the official winner, and good luck to him. But it was so disappointing for the one who was across the line and breasted the tape first. I also want to talk just a little about the Essendon Football Club.
We know that Essendon has not won a premiership for a long, long time. I was in parliament, as were you, Deputy Speaker, when the supplements saga occurred. That led to some very harsh outcomes.
Some might say they were very appropriate outcomes. Without wanting to be partisan, there were suggestions of political interference in timeliness over when things were pushed and taken—not taken by players but taken to certain levels of jurisdiction by the parliament. It ended up with the football club, the Bombers, being fined $2 million, barred from playing in the 2013 AFL finals and stripped of draft picks.
Senior coach James Hird was suspended for 12 months, and that had all sorts of implications for his life, both personally and professionally. Sports scientist Stephen Dank received a lifetime ban from the AFL and the National Rugby League, and Jobe Watson subsequently relinquished and was stripped of his 2012 Brownlow Medal. That had real and lasting implications for the 34 players from Essendon guilty of doping.
But, as I say, sport and parliament probably don't mix that well. We often just allow the sporting administrative codes to sort out their own issues, and that's probably the sensible and wise thing to do. Unfortunately, there were all sorts of allegations—that the timing of certain events in the chronology of the Essendon supplements saga were done to aid a certain political outcome.
But, as I say, I digress. As a signatory to the UNESCO antidoping convention and as the Oceania representative on the WADA, on the executive committee and associated committees, Australia through Sport Integrity Australia has been integral in shaping the World Anti-Doping Code. I do commend the government for what it's done in this regard, enhancing and building upon what the coalition did.
I acknowledge the fact that we as a nation are hosting the 2032 Olympics and Paralympics. If ever there is a time for us to be squeaky clean when it comes to supplements and substances, it will be then, noting that the 2000 Olympics in Sydney to this day are still considered one of the finest of the modern-era games. They're games which, I might add—and I'm just sorry that the member for Adelaide is not here to hear me say this, but I'll certainly pass it on—were started by the Greeks.
Noting too that the member for Adelaide is currently recovering from knee surgery, I'm not quite sure whether he thinks that his sporting potential will be enhanced by said surgery, but I do wish him all the very best in his recovery efforts because he's a good friend of mine and he's a good friend of the parliament's. The World Anti-Doping Code does provide the framework allowing athletes to compete under the same core antidoping rules, and that is paramount.
The consistency has to be there. It allows countries to, as I said before, host world sporting competitions, and making sure that it's updated right for implementation is exactly what happened under the former, coalition government in 2021. For this iteration, as I said before, the code was approved last year and will begin next year.
Specifically, the 2027 code strengthens the effectiveness, fairness and consistency of the international antidoping system. That is why I do say to the government that this legislation is necessary. Again I commend the government for doing this, including enhanced operational independence and improved athlete appeal rights—because that's important—and updated public disclosure provisions, which are also very important.
Australia, through Sport Integrity Australia, participated through the review process, and it's good that we have a seat at those important discussions, at the table where these things are being discussed, because, as I say, there's no country on earth with more of a per capita record of sporting achievement than Australia. With that, I commend the legislation.
Debate adjourned. Federation Chamber adjourned at 19:33