Extended powers for sport integrity investigators

The Morrison government will overhaul the sports integrity and anti-corruption framework.

Sports Minister Bridget McKenzie. Picture: Getty Images

The Morrison government will overhaul the sports integrity and anti-corruption framework by establishing a national, ICAC-style body to expose drug cheats and match-fixers and better protect sporting competitions from global crime syndicates.

Athletes accused of doping will lose the right to silence and a newly created National Sports Integrity Commission will gain the powers of a law enforcement body — including access to phone and electronic surveillance. Match-fixing will become a federal crime under the proposed changes.

In its response to a review of Australia’s sports integrity ­arrangements chaired by ­corruption-busting jurist James Wood QC, the government will trial a stand-alone, Australian sports court to hear doping cases and other disputes involving Australian athletes.

The government noted but ­rejected a Wood recommendation to lift a prohibition on online, in-play sports betting; a proposed reform aimed at regulating a fast-growing form of betting that is offered by offshore gambling companies.

The Wood report noted that global betting through regulated bookmakers was dwarfed by an offshore gambling market with an estimated annual turnover of ­between $US500 billion ($704bn) and $US2 trillion.

In its detailed response to the Wood recommendations, the government concedes that sports integrity is beyond the control of any single agency.

“The nature of sports corruption is evolving at an unprecedented rate due to the immense commercialisation of sport and sporting organisations and accelerating technological advancement,’’ it warns.

The overhaul will be announced today by Sports Minister Bridget McKenzie, who said the improved anti-corruption framework would increase public confidence in the integrity of sport following recent match-fixing scandals in soccer and tennis, doping scandals in the NRL and AFL and the sandpaper cheating scandal that engulfed the Australian Test cricket team.

“In particular, we want parents to know their children are protected and be confident the sports in which they participate are clean, fair and safe,’’ Senator McKenzie said.

Under the proposed changes, the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority and the National Integrity of Sport Unit, located within the Department of Health, will be housed within the new NSIC, to be called Sport ­Integrity Australia.

It is proposed that over time, sports integrity specialist units with state and federal policy agencies will also be shifted to Sport Integrity Australia, creating a single, national body to investigate corruption in sport.

Australia’s decision to join the Macolin Convention, a ­European treaty on sports integrity, will enable investigators ­attached to Sport Integrity Australia to share information with Interpol and national anti-corruption agencies across Europe. Senator McKenzie signed the treaty earlier this month.

A National Sports Tribunal will be trialled for two years, creating a national jurisdiction for Australian athletes and sports with limited resources to resolve their cases, rather than having to meet the expense of a hearing before the Swiss-based International Court of Arbitration for Sport.

The tribunal will run on an opt-out basis for doping matters and opt-in basis for all other disputes.

This will allow the big professional sports opposed to the creation of a domestic sports court — the AFL, NRL, cricket, rugby, football, tennis and netball — to sidestep the new jurisdiction in favour of their own disciplinary bodies.

In response to recommendations by the Wood inquiry to strengthen Australia’s anti-doping powers and resources, legislation will be introduced to give ASADA chief executive David Sharpe greater discretion to comment on cases before his ­organisation and apply more ­lenient penalties to athletes who complete below the elite level.

Under current anti-doping rules, amateur or country footballers who inadvertently take a banned substance face a mandatory four years on the sidelines, despite many of them not having ready access to anti-doping education.

The removal of an athlete’s privilege against self-incrimination is likely to be opposed by powerful player associations and international player unions.

However, it will enable Sports Integrity Australia to investigate athletes independently from the governing bodies of the sports in which they compete.

Australia’s largest and most significant anti-doping investigation, the protracted probe into the use of banned peptides at AFL and NRL clubs, was compromised by ASADA’s use of AFL contractual powers to conduct coercive interviews of footballers suspected of doping.