Hird’s father accuses Senate of covering up important documents during doping scandal hearing

The father of former Essendon coach James Hird has slammed the Senate for withholding vital documents related to the drug saga, as ASADA’s chief says it was “never ready” for the scandal.

The father of James Hird has accused the Senate of failing to release documents related to the Essendon supplement saga.

Former Essendon coach James Hird’s father has accused the Senate of covering up of documents relating to the Bombers doping scandal.

Allan Hird has been denied access to a response from former Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority chief Ben McDevitt regarding allegations made to parliament that he misled a Senate Estimates hearing.

The inquiry was examining the authority’s handling of the probe into Essendon’s 2012 supplements regime, which resulted in 34 players being banned for two years.

During the parliamentary committee’s hearings in March 2016, Mr Hird accused Mr McDevitt of misleading the Senate at least 16 times at those hearings.

James Hird's father, Allan, has accused the Senate of covering up documents during the hearing into the Essendon drug saga.

James Hird opened up about the controversial supplement saga earlier this year, which brought the Essendon Football Club to its knees.

But Mr McDevitt was later cleared after providing a written response to the allegations.

Mr Hird then applied under Freedom of Information laws to see the document, but was refused access because its release “may be considered contempt of parliament”.

“A letter generated by a bureaucrat in response to allegations from the public is kept secret because its release may be contempt of parliament. It can’t get any more absurd, can it?” Mr Hird says.

“Up until this day the Senate has refused to justify its decision.”

The Herald Sun earlier this month revealed that an official log of ASADA’s “Check Your Substances” site — which athletes and coaches are encouraged to inspect prior to using supplements — did not flag the Thymosin Beta 4 as being banned until the afternoon of February 4, 2013.

Former ASADA chief Ben McDevitt was accused by Allan Hird of misleading the Senate at least 16 times.

That was the day before the club “self-reported” its supplements program in February 2013, and several months after the injections had stopped.

But describing the players as culpable to the Senate Inquiry in March 2016, Mr McDevitt said: “Ultimately the onus rests always on the individual … They (the players) should have gone to the website where you can look up the substances that are banned.”

“The Essendon players could have looked all they liked … but they would not have found TB-4, the substance they were alleged to have taken, despite Mr McDevitt’s testimony at Senate Estimates.

“All this has been pointed out to the Senate, which the Senate has blithely disregarded, while refusing to explain its reasons.”

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Jobe Watson, who lost his Brownlow Medal in the fallout from Essendon drugs debacle, weighed in on the fresh revelations, tweeting: “As I say to my bulldog Benson, if it smells, keep digging.”

Mr Hird says the latest “cover-up” is yet more evidence of the importance of the Right To Know campaign, which is calling for reforms to protect public interest journalism in Australia.

The campaign is pushing for stronger protection for media freedom and seeking to combat a growing culture of secrecy that restricts journalists’ ability to hold the powerful to account.

In an unprecedented show of unity, it is being run by all of Australia’s major media organisations including Herald Sun-owner News Corp, Nine, the ABC, SBS, The Guardian, and journalists’ union the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance.

ASADA CEO David Sharpe: “What we’ve learnt from it is, we need to be more engaged …” Pic: AAP

ASADA BOSS: WE WEREN’T READY FOR SAGA

ASADA boss David Sharpe admits it was “never ready” for Essendon and Cronulla but added nobody was ready for the doping cases that rocked a nation.

The AFL and NRL were stunned by the doping scandals which began at the Bombers and Sharks in 2011.

There were 34 Essendon players banned for 12 months in 2012 after a Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled the players were injected several times with a banned substance.

Then 10 Cronulla players accepted a doping ban in 2014 as the result of their drugs scandal which involved growth hormone-releasing peptides. It dragged both clubs and codes through the mud for several years, but Cronulla recovered to win the NRL premiership in 2016.

Australian Sports Anti-doping Authority chief executive Sharpe took the ASADA top job in 2017 and said one of his first orders of business was talking to Essendon.

“Every single thing we do. Every case we look at, we look to what we’ve got to learn from it,” Sharpe said.

Former Essendon skipper Jobe Watson had a Brownlow Medal stripped as a result of the saga. Picture. Phil Hillyard

“You look at Essendon and Cronulla – unprecedented in sport. ASADA was never ready for it, the government was never ready, Essendon and Cronulla were never ready and the NRL and AFL weren’t ready.

“People are writing books and you can go back and look at the Essendon 34 and all the rest but I look at it in where we’ve come from and what we’ve done as an organisation.

“I look at what Essendon has done and we have a close relationship with Essendon because I went and saw them straight up.

“I said ‘what did you learn?’ and their response has been incredible. The NRL and AFL responses around integrity was incredible because no one was prepared for it.”

Sharpe admitted ASADA was far from perfect dealing with the cases but emphasised his organisation was constantly improving.

“It’s automatically a process of ours that we will review (every case),” Sharpe said.

“We’ve seen a lot of high-profile cases, do we sit there and say we got them right? No. We sit there and say ‘what can we do better?’ What can we do if this happens next time?’.

“What we’ve learnt from it is, we need to be more engaged, we need to be more education focused, we need more awareness in providing messages.”

– AAP

Originally published as Hird’s father accuses Senate of covering up important documents during doping scandal hearing