Olympic gold medallist and former Labor senator Nova Peris was elected as a director of Hockey Australia just weeks after sharing a comment on social media from an anonymous account that called Muslims “Satan worshipping cockroaches that need to be eradicated”.
The 54-year-old joined the board of the government-funded national federation last month, nearly three decades after she played in the Hockeyroos’ triumph at the 1996 Atlanta Games, becoming the first Indigenous woman to win Olympic gold for Australia.
Nova Peris, pictured celebrating winning a gold medal at the 1996 Olympic Games (left) and taking cover in a bomb shelter in Israel last month. Credit: Craig Golding, X
Hailing her as a legend of the sport, Hockey Australia president Ross Sudano said Peris would be a powerful advocate for the women’s game and regional communities, “enriching our increasingly diverse board”.
But Peris’ re-posting of the anti-Islam rhetoric has brought into question her fitness to sit on the board of an organisation that receives $9.5 million a year from the Australian Sports Commission and whose diversity policy includes a focus on multicultural communities.
The post was made by a since deactivated account on X on April 14 above a cartoon which depicted a drowning Muslim man pleading for help before turning on his rescuers in a boat labelled “England”. The heading below the image read: “The path of Islam is always the same”.
Peris distanced herself from the comment when contacted by this masthead.
A screenshot of the post Peris shared.Credit: X
“I absolutely do not share the views expressed in that post, more importantly that account no longer exists and hasn’t done so in many months,” she said in a text message.
She did not answer why she had shared the post, a screenshot of which has been published on the social media platform and in an article by the National Indigenous Times.
Peris was nominated and elected as a Hockey Australia director in a vote by state member associations in which Sudano was returned as president and Seoul gold medallist Sally Carbon was appointed vice-president.
Hockey Australia did not say whether it was aware of her social media activity at the time.
“Hockey Australia’s various stakeholders have their own personal views which do not always reflect the views of the organisation and the Hockey Australia board,” Hockey Australia said in a statement.
“Hockey Australia has spoken with Ms Peris following her election and director’s induction to reiterate the organisation’s values and the role of the board in representing and protecting the diverse communities within our sport.”
Under Hockey Australia’s constitution, voting rights for its nine-person board are held by the states, giving the national federation little power to determine who are put forward and chosen as directors.
Lebanese Muslim Association secretary Gamel Kheir said Hockey Australia should consider whether it was appropriate for Peris to be on its board.
“In the highly sensitive days that we live in now, where all the attention seems to be on confronting antisemitism and to a lesser extent Islamophobia, I think it would be incumbent on Hockey Australia to examine her suitability for the role. That would be a given,” he said.
Peris and Craig Foster were co-chairs of the Australian Republic Movement before both stepped down over differences of opinion on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.Credit: Rhett Wyman
“More importantly, had those sentiments been made against the Jewish community, we wouldn’t be having this conversation today. She would be nowhere near any hockey board.”
Australia’s national teams, the Kookaburras and Hockeyroos, have played against opponents from majority Muslim countries Pakistan and Malaysia in recent editions of the Commonwealth Games.
A former giant of the sport, where hockey is the national game, Pakistan won men’s Olympic gold medals in 1960 in Rome, 1968 in Mexico City and 1984 in Los Angeles and took home silver behind Australia at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne. The Malaysian men’s team was third in that tournament and made the men’s final, losing to Australia, at the 1998 Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur.
“The Australian Sports Commission does not condone or support these views,” a spokesperson for the government agency said of the post. “The ASC is firmly of the view that everyone has a place in sport, and this is a matter for Hockey Australia.”
A strong supporter of Israel, Peris was in the country last month on a study tour with the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council when Iran rained down missiles in retaliation for a strike on its nuclear facilities, forcing her delegation to take cover in a bomb shelter.
She said she had sat down and eaten with Arab and Palestinian civilians in Israel and the West Bank during the trip.
“I am not anti-Muslims – I have Muslim family, friends and doctors,” she said on X in June.
“I respect all faiths that promote peace. But I will always oppose Hamas, Hezbollah, the IRGC [Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] and the Houthis – extremists who hijack religion to justify violence”.
Peris is also a director of the Y Northern Territory, an arm of the youth movement formerly known as the YMCA.
She resigned as co-chair of the Australian Republican Movement last year in protest at an open letter written by fellow group leader Craig Foster to FIFA and Football Australia calling for Israel to be suspended from international competition over the war in Gaza.
Foster also decided to quit as co-chair of the movement after Peris stepped down.
Peris switched to athletics after her hockey career, winning two gold medals at the 1998 Commonwealth Games and reaching the semi-finals in the women’s 400 metres at the Sydney Olympics, in which Cathy Freeman raced to victory.
In 2013, she became the first Indigenous woman elected to federal parliament.
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