|
representatives vote 2019-12-04#15
Edited by
mackay staff
on
2019-12-20 16:38:05
|
Title
Bills — Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority Amendment (Sport Integrity Australia) Bill 2019; Second Reading- Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority Amendment (Sport Integrity Australia) Bill 2019 - Second Reading - Stop MP Martin from speaking
Description
<p class="speaker">James Stevens</p><p>It doesn't surprise me that Labor would try to shut down a debate on integrity. Integrity to them is like sunlight to a vampire—run away! This is not your topic; you don't want to face up to it. And I don't know why it is that every time I try to say a nice word about the member for Bennelong they shut me down, particularly on this topic, when it comes to integrity in sport. The member for Bennelong, one of the great athletes—a great Australian athlete, a fair athlete, a man who likes to win, which is why he's a member of the parliamentary Liberal Party!—I pay tribute to him and the contribution he's made to Australian sport and thank him for his contribution. I will just add a few words in the brief time that I now have left.</p><p>There's a great amount of logic, of course, in creating a single, unified integrity body to deal with these sport matters, as this bill proposes. I suspect, frankly, that there's going to be a lot more of this, not just in sport but in other areas going forward, particularly in the modern era of the complexity and the spread of data that we've got available and the need to be sharing it much more effectively. It's very important that we have a combined agency that can work with the various codes, with the various sporting administration bodies and, of course, with the various other jurisdictions that have relevant information, to make sure that we keep sport clean and that it maintains, as this agency is focused on, integrity.</p>- The majority voted against a [motion](https://www.openaustralia.org.au/debate/?id=2019-12-04.67.3) to stop the member for Reid [Fiona Martin](https://theyvoteforyou.org.au/people/representatives/reid/fiona_martin) (Liberal) from speaking any further in this debate. These motions are known as *gagging motions*.
<p>We've had a debate just recently about antidoping, and I won't revisit that. But one of the other areas relevant to this measure that I think is very important and concerns me personally—and I'm sure it concerns a lot of people—is making sure that we've got proper regulation around gambling and betting on sport. We all like to put a bit of money on the Melbourne Cup or maybe the AFL grand final, but there's been a pretty disappointing trend in recent times where we've seen some pretty low and petty things being put into the betting markets, and of course that has the serious and significant risk of putting at risk the integrity of some of the sports that are being introduced into the commercial space much more than the amateur space. So, I'm glad that we've got a legitimate entity to oversee these areas, and I think the data sharing that can occur now is very important and is going to mean that people who are doing the wrong thing have a lot more to fear, as they should, because we want to keep sport in this country very, very clean.</p><p>I think the other thing that's a good opportunity and outcome of this consolidation is that there are lots of sport codes that are looking for a lot more guidance, help and support from a national body such as this. There's a big difference between the AFL and some of the very small codes that operate particularly in the smaller jurisdictions, and they need guidance and support around integrity, around practices, around disciplinary measures, around education, and around ensuring that the people who participate in their sports—not just the players but also the officials, umpires, referees et cetera—get support in the way in which they're administering their code. Some of these organisations are small organisations. They don't have the ability to engage law firms to give comprehensive advice on dealing with some of the challenges that might come up.</p><p>There will also be new issues that develop into the future that we can't even anticipate or predict right now, which is why having this consolidated integrity body that has a remit across a whole range of areas—particularly anti-doping, gambling, betting, general governance and the like—is going to put a lot more robustness around the way in which all of the sporting organisations and entities in this country administer themselves. I think that's a great thing. It is going to ensure the integrity—integrity that is already in place, frankly; I don't think there's a crisis of confidence in the integrity around the sporting codes of our country. There are individual examples that will always come up that are disappointing, but the good thing is that when they come up we find out about them, we discover them, we uncover them and we shine a light on them. We don't sweep them under the carpet or hide them, and we make sure that it is well known that we have absolutely zero tolerance towards bad behaviour across any of those measures in our sporting sector. More importantly, I think this is only going to provide more robustness and give more confidence.</p><p>It comes back to the fact—as I mentioned in my previous contribution—that we are a great nation with a great sporting culture but we're also very proud that our sporting culture is clean, that it's fair and that the best person on the day will win the contest. We have to be always vigilant in supporting and defending those principles. That's exactly what this bill does, so I commend it to the House.</p> <p class="speaker">Ian Goodenough</p><p>The question is that the amendment be agreed to. I call the honourable member for Reid.</p> <p class="speaker">Fiona Martin</p><p>Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker—</p> <p class="speaker">Pat Conroy</p><p>I move:</p><p class="italic">That the member be no longer heard.</p> <p class="speaker">Tony Smith</p><p>The question is that the member for Reid be no further heard.</p>
|