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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2013-02-07 Daily Xml
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ORGANISED CRIME IN SPORT

Mr ODENWALDER (Little Para) (14:14): My question is to the Minister for Sport. Can the minister outline his reaction to the release today of the Australian Crime Commission's report into organised crime and drugs in sport?

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL (Mawson—Minister for Tourism, Minister for Recreation and Sport) (14:14): I thank the member for his question. The Australian Crime Commission today released the findings of a 12-month investigation into the extent of the use of performance-enhancing drugs by professional athletes, the size of this market and the extent of organised criminal involvement.

The Australian Crime Commission has identified that, despite being prohibited substances in professional sport, peptides and hormones are being used by professional athletes in Australia, facilitated by sports scientists, high-performance coaches and sports staff. Widespread use of these substances has been identified or is suspected by the Australian Crime Commission in a number of professional sporting codes in Australia. The Australian Crime Commission has also identified that organised crime identities and groups are involved in the domestic distribution of prohibited substances.

The commission has identified significant integrity concerns within professional sports in Australia related to the use of such prohibited substances by athletes and increasing associations with professional athletes and criminal identities. The Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority has now taken over the investigation with the assistance of state and federal police.

This report provides an opportunity for government, regulatory bodies and the sporting industry to address these issues head on. The findings are shocking, and we must remain vigilant to fight the challenges to sports integrity. We will be working closely with the commonwealth and professional sporting authorities and bodies to ensure that we do whatever we can to help combat these challenges to sports integrity.

It should be noted that, in response to this report, the Gillard government, together with Australia's major professional sports, has announced tough new measures to crack down on the use of performance-enhancing drugs and unethical behaviour in sport. The federal government has introduced legislation to strengthen the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority's powers to enable the full and unhindered investigation of these issues. I understand that under this legislation, if persons of interest refuse to cooperate with the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority's investigations, they will be liable for civil penalties.

We need to restore community confidence in sport, and that is why we are planning, as a state government, to criminalise match-fixing in Australian sport with offenders facing up to 10 years' imprisonment. We will seek to curb sport as a market for organised crime. Preventing criminal acts related to sport is something that we will work on collaboratively in conjunction with our federal counterparts and sporting authorities in order to stamp out such practices.

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