It comes as a leading advocate for athletes’ rights also questioned the integrity of the reporting systems put in place to handle complaints of abuse in sport.

Ten years on from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, sports industry experts say much has been done to make sporting clubs safer for children, but that there is still much left to do.

Data released from Sport Integrity Australia revealed the agency had received 255 child safeguarding related complaints in the 12 months from July, 2024 to June, 2025.

In the past month alone, alleged breaches of child safeguarding policies across multiple sports have been uncovered involving gymnastics in Victoria, hockey in Queensland and basketball in South Australia.

The findings of the royal commission recommended a national framework for WCC be adopted and for sporting bodies across the country to take a strict approach to background checks for any persons involved directly with junior athletes.

However, a leading expert in safeguarding child athletes has warned clubs to not become over-reliant on working with children checks, suggesting at times they can be treated as “just a piece of paper sitting on the shelf”.

Fears are also held that many local sporting clubs are not equipped with the resources or personnel to implement recommended child safety protocols.

A CULTURAL SHIFT

Lisa Purves is the director of safeguarding at government agency Sport Integrity Australia, and has been a driving force behind helping sporting organisations interpret and adopt the Commonwealth Child Safe Framework.

While Purves believes she has seen the sta

rt of a “cultural shift” in community sport, she warned that it needed constant reinforcement and vigilance at the grassroots.

“The thing to remember about the framework is that it is no different to any other model you work with,” Purves told this masthead.

“If you don’t apply it every single day, if you don’t have that governance and leadership, or it isn’t being driven by the leadership of the sport, then it might as well not exist.

“Some sports are doing really well in this space, (while) some sports, for various reasons, aren’t doing so well.

“If I was to say the framework has a failing of any kind, it is that, particularly with sports, we are expecting people who are a plumber in the morning, then go and help out with cricket in the afternoon, child protection and safeguarding is not on their radar. We are expecting unskilled practitioners to pick it up and run with it.”

That is where Purves, and her safeguarding team at Sport Integrity Australia come in.

The organisation works with sporting bodies at all levels to help simplify the framework and its expectations, to clarify how and where sporting bodies can make changes to better protect children.

Purves described it as a “cultural shift” for sport.

“It is trying to make people stop with the ‘children should be seen and not heard’ mentality. It is pushing children’s rights and that we all have a responsibility to keep children safe,” she said. “That message is going to take some time to get across.

“There is not a silver bullet for any of it.

“It is the things you do every single day that prioritises children. That says am I doing this in the best interests of children? What are the potential ways that I am putting them at risk, and can I reduce that risk. It is having that risk mindset.”

WHY CHECKS AREN’T EVERYTHING

Victims and survivor rights lawyer Judy Courtin warned sporting clubs needed to get their “governance in line” to properly deal with incidents of child sexual abuse.

“All of these organisations need to have the requisite insurance, they need to do their homework and have proper governance,” she said.

“Working with children checks... half the time they are worthless.

“(The sporting bodies) have to carry the responsibility for the risk. It is a very high risk when you have vulnerable kids around adults.”

Purves, who was involved in WCC legislation updates in NSW in a past role, warned sporting clubs that the ‘blue card’ cannot be treated as the only form of defence when it comes to protecting children.

“A lot of sports put an over-reliance on that,” she said.

“What’s worse is if they then think they have done everything they need to do to keep everyone safe. That over-reliance on the check is where the danger comes in.

“A working with children check just looks at your previous history and your conduct in the workplace, if you are a relevant workplace. It doesn’t look at who you are as a person. You could’ve not been caught and just going to join that organisation because they don’t have great procedures in place for protecting children because you want to offend against children.

“(A WCC) is just one element of keeping kids safe, and when clubs are over-reliant on that, I am fearful they are not doing everything they can to keep our kids safe.”

ABUSE FALLING ON DEAF EARS

Leading victims and survivors in sport advocate, and the head of Athletes Rights Australia, Alison Quigley said there was a culture in sport which impeded people from reporting abuse.

But even when they do, she questioned the systems put in place to handle those complaints.

Quigley, a former elite gymnast and survivor of child abuse in her own right, called for change across the spectrum.

“We have an issue (with abuse) in sport,” she said.

“There are things in sport that get past the keeper. Things that if you took them out of sport, they would be considered assault. Someone would be sued, there would be legal action and lots of repercussions. Inside sport, violence gets normalised.

“Yes, (abuse) exists. Yes, it is significant and it is well hidden.

“The complaint processes are currently not fit for purpose. They are still sports investigating sports, so it’s mostly sport marking its own homework.

“There are conflicts of interest everywhere.

“If a child complains about abuse or about a particular coach, but that coach is getting medals or they have a lot of people coming in, who wants to sack that coach? No one. The coach is bringing in income. The sports body doesn’t want to have the difficult conversation with the coach, so they let that behaviour slide.

SPORT IS NOT IMMUNE

Courtin has represented a number of child abuse victims who were involved in sporting clubs at the time of their abuse, and suggested predators were hiding in plain sight.

“Wherever there are children, vulnerable children, pedophiles will go,” Courtin warned.

“Absolutely sporting clubs are included. I don’t want to damn all volunteers, because the majority are doing it for the right reasons and we couldn’t survive without volunteers. But it is a high-risk environment.”

Sporting clubs across the country are not immune from potential offenders.

Sport Integrity Australia revealed it has received 705 matters containing child safeguarding concerns for evaluation from July 2020 to June 2025. Of those matters, more than a third came in the 12 months before July 2025.

But not all of the reports SIA receives are genuine safeguarding concerns.

“It is important to note that some matters reported as child safeguarding breaches often turn out to be other issues such as selection, governance or personal grievances upon preliminary enquiries and evaluation,” an SIA spokesman said.

SIA also has information sharing arrangements with law enforcement agencies across the country but said they were “not automatically advised of matters reported straight to police”.

In the past month serious incidents involving alleged breaches of child safeguarding protocols were uncovered across Australia.

Gymnastics Australia, following a joint investigation with Gymnastics Victoria and SIA, terminated the membership of Funtastic Gymnastics in the Melbourne suburb of Berwick after Victoria Police charged a part-owner of the facility for failing to comply with reporting obligations.

It is understood the co-owner is a registered sex offender.

In Brisbane, a well-known hockey coach was charged with sexually assaulting two teen girls.

Gregory Thomas Shirvington, 73, allegedly used his position as a coach to offend against two teenaged girls.

The Ascot Arana Hockey Club confirmed Shirvington worked there as a “volunteer”.

A Hockey Queensland spokesman confirmed Shirvington had been under investigation by the state governing body and had been removed from all hockey activity for the duration of the investigation.

The sporting body confirmed in a statement it was aware of the claims against Shirvington and had referred the matter to Sport Integrity Australia and Queensland Police.

Basketball South Australia chief executive Tim Brenton was forced to email members and participants earlier this month after a former coach had been arrested by SA Police.

“We are working closely with the relevant club to ensure they have the necessary support,” he wrote.

“Basketball South Australia is committed to keeping members, parents and caregivers informed of any matters pertaining to child protection and/or child safeguarding.”

The coach becomes the fourth Basketball SA official this year to be arrested for serious offences.

Purves revealed her safeguarding team responds to “at least one to two calls per week” from sporting bodies seeking advice on how to manage a breach of its childsafe policies or procedures.

“These issues are universal,” she said. “Sport is a reflection of the community in general. If you think about how prevalent (child abuse) is in the community, it is no different in sport. Wherever children are, there will be a risk of harm.

“We need to remove that stigma around it. While it has that stigma it is harder for people to manage. People don’t want to make an allegation against somebody if they think “what if I have it wrong, what if I am going to destroy this man’s life”

“But what if he is already destroying that child’s life. That is my view.”

EMPOWERING THE VULNERABLE

Purves believes for the large part, sport does provide a safe environment for our children to be active and have fun with friends.

A Sport Integrity Australia survey, which is expected to be released in January, surveyed 1000 kids across multiple sports with the overwhelming majority of participants reporting that they ‘felt safe’ playing their sport.

SIA has also worked to improve child athletes awareness of inappropriate behaviours and advances made by adults around them, with a series of education models aimed at helping kids identify potential harmful behaviour and how to report it.

But Purves was adamant sports leaders needed to be ready to hear what our kids had to say.

“We can tell children to speak up, speak up, speak up, but if we as adults don’t do anything when they do speak up, then we are taking away their voice,” Purves said.

“There are issues in sport. Not all of them are very drastic and harmful and abusive, but there are still issues in sport that we have to go through.

“If we could stop it for every child, that would be my ultimate dream.

“But realistically what we are just trying to do is reduce the opportunities for (perpetrators) and put in the prevention techniques and prevention practices so that sport is safer for kids.”