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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2020-07-22 Daily Xml
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Adelaide Football Club

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS (15:49): I rise to speak about the 2018 Crows pre-season camp to the Gold Coast. There are many people who think that what happened on that Crows camp should stay on that Crows camp, others might even believe that the first, last and only rule of Crows camp is: don't talk about Crows camp.

The experience of that Crows camp deserves to be spoken about. I understand that the experience of different players on that Crows camp were actually quite different to each other. There were those three groups, and the experience of some players was, as one member said, beneficial, but as other members of that Crows camp have said it was quite devastating and I think potentially illegal.

One thing is really certain about Crows camp, it has quite rightly drawn significant concern from a number of sources. In the last few weeks that has included our own Premier, Steven Marshall, who stated to the media this month, with the most recent revelations from The Age, that he found the reported training exercises 'disturbing' and that they may warrant further investigation from a body such as SafeWork SA. It is a concern that has been echoed by the AFL Players' Association Chief Executive, Paul Marsh, who said:

Clearly it wasn't a psychologically safe environment for the players…It has been investigated by the AFL's integrity unit, the club has admitted they got it wrong and there has been significant personnel change there.

He further stated:

I'm not sure what more can be done on this issue, if they had their time again there might have been some things that everyone would have done differently including the players.

But I think it will be an issue that keeps on keeping on because there seems to be some things that haven't been said about it.

I note that the tipping point for the internal AFL investigation was media that a rival former coach did, which led to allegations that were ultimately unfounded, seeing the AFL review this camp through its integrity unit. However, most concerning is that, while the integrity unit determined that the Crows did not do enough due diligence, they did actually find that the camp did not contravene their standards.

While not everyone wants to talk about Crows camp, some people will possibly never forget Crows camp. We do not necessarily need them to be talking about it, but what we need to be talking about is what are the standards we accept in our workplaces, no matter whether it is a welder or a footballer.

My hope is that we can use the parliamentary system to address this particular matter in a way that will ensure that in the future the AFL does not have standards that would have accepted this Crows camp and that we are not inflicting harm on these players in their workplace that carries with them for years, potentially decades to come. Some of the bizarre practices would never be allowed in any workplace in this state but somehow they were accepted in this Crows camp.

The AFL may have cleared the club of any wrongdoing but it is the standards here that I question. I note that, whilst SafeWork SA is now considering investigating it, they are actually limited in what they can investigate when it comes to, literally, football in terms of the physical injuries. What happens on the field stays on the field.

A physical injury in the workplace is not considered to be a workplace injury if it happens on a football field. However, psychological harm within the industry of football is not so protected and should definitely be the focus, not only of SafeWork SA but of this parliament, to ensure that we are creating a safe workplace no matter where a South Australian works. The camp would not be accepted in almost any other workplace, but I believe this camp did breach the standards of a 21st century workplace.

The problems may or may not have moved on within the club but the reality is that for some of those players the problems carry with them and with our silence, our refusal to talk about Crows camp in a constructive way that promotes action, we will potentially see more Crows camps at more clubs in the future, and leave us scratching our heads and wondering why we did not admit that there was a problem in an industry that is enormously popular and economically important but should not be above our laws.

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