First Reading
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Minister for Sport and Recreation)
: I move,
That the Sports Anti-Doping Bill be now read a first time. At the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be referred to the Government Administration Committee for consideration. I want to thank the House for what I am sure will be a largely bipartisan, or multipartisan, approach on this legislation. That has been its history ever since my good friend John Banks showed leadership in this area in the early 1990s.
New Zealand is considered by the international community to be a world leader in the fight against doping in sport. We were a founding member of the World Anti-Doping Agency and have been a strong supporter of the development of the code that seeks to harmonise international efforts to address doping in sports by establishing international standards and values, which was finalised at the world anti-doping conference in Copenhagen in March 2003. Nations then moved on, as members will be aware because a committee has been dealing with the
Unesco international convention.
That is something New Zealand is just about to officially ratify, following the support of the Government Administration Committee.
The world code is a set of anti-doping rules and principles that are accepted by most of the world’s international sporting organisations. Those organisations have responsibility for ensuring compliance with the code and enforcing it through their member organisations. I make the point that a few international sporting codes have still not quite come into line with the code, and I encourage the relevant local national sporting organisations to work on their world organisations in order for that to happen.
This bill was developed in order to allow all doping violations to be handled in a uniform manner in New Zealand. The current legislative framework comes from the New Zealand Sports Drug Agency Act of 1994, which was the work of John Banks. From memory—and this will surprise people a little—I think David Lange played a bit of a role in the committee that was involved in getting that agency set up at the time, along with some other sporting matters. The advent of the world code in 2003 changed the environment we had for the previous decade. What we are trying to do is to bring our legislation into line with what is happening around the world. Therefore, this bill will repeal and replace the 1994 Act.
The bill does not contain the world code itself, as the code does not lend itself to going into legislation, nor does it incorporate it by reference. But it does allow for the making of rules that will interpret the code for New Zealand. The bill continues the Sports Drug Agency as an independent Crown entity with members who have knowledge and experience in law, sports, sports medicine, sports participation, and administration. I do want to acknowledge the work the agency has done. It has recently re-branded itself as Drug Free Sport New Zealand, and there have been three exceptional leaders there in Sir Graham Speight, David
Howman, who now has an international leadership role in the anti-doping area, and Dr Dave Gerrard, who as well as being a real athlete himself has shown technical expertise in this area, along with Graeme Steel, who is probably seen as the international leader in technical matters around doping in sport.
The bill will make some changes that will allow for the public notification of the names of athletes who commit doping violations, after the processes have been completed. There has been a tendency on the part of some sports to try to hush up some things in this area, and I think the naming and shaming approach is important. The bill also allows for the implementation of blood testing, something that was right at the edge of the rules. The bill makes that area a lot clearer.
I make it clear that the bill and the sports anti-doping rules will not impinge on the rights or affect the obligations of members of the general public. No one will be randomly stopped when riding a bike down the road and asked to give a sample. The legislation will apply only to people who, by their voluntary participation in sport, are required by their sport’s anti-doping policy to comply with the rules. But people will have to be aware—and it is important that there are some reminders—that both within the participation season and out of season there are rules, and people will have to be prepared to give samples if they are involved in sport.
Hon Tau Henare: What about normal clubs—at that level?
Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Theoretically, at the club level there is an obligation for people to be dope-free. I think that is quite important. There was probably a previous history. Many members of the House who have been members of gymnasia found that in the 1970s and 1980s the attitude to the taking of drugs was probably quite different from that now. Drugs were quite openly available, and almost certainly much more extensive use was made of them by club, and possibly even school, players in the past. I make it very clear that these rules apply to people who are in organised sport run under
the auspices of national sporting organisations, even at a club level. It is quite unlikely that they will be tested at that level, because the focus will always be at the top level, but the rules do allow for that sort of testing and people should be aware of that.
The support of Drug Free Sport New Zealand and of the New Zealand Olympic Committee has been vital in this area. I think it is very important that our athletes, who have shown recently how well they perform on the international stage, can compete, can be clean, and can win. It is interesting that we seem to be doing a bit better internationally as the rules are implemented for international competitions. That probably says something about some other countries and their longer-term attitude.
I will make two closing points. One is that an international debate is being held on whether the rules should focus on performance-enhancing drugs only. Therefore, there is a discussion around marijuana and its use—whether that is something that is clearly not performance enhancing, and whether it should be the subject of the testing. It is clear that the majority of positive tests in New Zealand are for marijuana, which stays in the system for 6 weeks or more. We should have that discussion at some stage internationally, and we should have it in New Zealand as well.
The other point I will make is in reference to articles in a Sunday newspaper last week around the rider Lisa
Cropp. I think we need to get some consistency around our testing and our rules, and around the regulations and the courage of enforcement, because it is becoming very clear that a very senior person in the racing industry has been cheating. She has been achieving records when she has been cheating, and the authorities have been unable to deal with her. It is absolutely unfair that New Zealand records are broken by someone who, at the time, was using methamphetamine. That is wrong, and it has to stop.
ERIC ROY (National—Invercargill)
: National will definitely be supporting the bill going to the select committee. I have the view that anybody in this House who does not support the first reading of the bill should probably be swabbed, because the need to have in place a range of mechanisms to keep sport as it should be—the pure and wholesome prevail of those who want to achieve by dint of training and ability—makes so much sense.
If there were an example that we should use to show that this issue does have some currency, it is today’s
Dominion Post headline “US sprinter banned for two years” and the article about Tim Montgomery, a previous world record holder, and his doping offences. That is just using today’s news as an example that the subject does have some real currency.
So National will be supporting the bill certainly through the first reading, in the select committee, and at the subsequent stages. But we believe so strongly about this issue that we will be giving this legislation absolute scrutiny through every stage to ensure that we are able to provide adequate levels of protection, the right incentives, and the right enforcement procedures, as far as New Zealand is concerned, to play our part in what is a world international sports arena.
New Zealand has been a world leader in this area for some considerable time. We have been right at the cutting edge of making decisions. We have not been at all tardy in accepting our responsibility in the arena of sports anti-doping. So we support the Minister’s comments about some of the details in the bill, and I will not repeat those.
The explanatory note of the Sports Anti-Doping Bill includes the code, which states that doping is fundamentally contrary to the spirit of sport. I think that sums it up. Doping puts at risk ethical principles and educational values, and we support working against that. The bill will continue the New Zealand Sports Drug Agency as the national agency responsible for compliance with the code. It empowers the agency, and changes
and enhances its role in quite a number of ways. So National is supportive of the bill in every way.
We have to protect our young people from some real dangers. Today sport is a business. Once it used to be a pursuit of competition; today it is a business. The rewards for those who achieve are so much greater than they were when I was a youngster, although there were some opportunities then. Today, when one sees the earning capacity of the top sportspeople around the world, both in prize money and in endorsements from a range of commercial entities that associate themselves with sport, one can understand the temptation that is there.
We say it is good that people can and want to achieve. We support people who want to be winners, but we want them to do it in a way that is fair and that does not put their bodies at risk. We now have a situation where there is just simply so much money attached to sport that probably the best chemists and doctors in the world are creating new enhancement drugs, and the second best are trying to catch them. I think that that is simply the reality. So we need to say: “Let us empower those who have the responsibility of keeping sport clean.” That is entirely what we want to do.
There are a few people who might ask what harm it does if people want to win, as it is their bodies and it is the ultimate free market. But it simply is not that simple. There are clear and catalogued illustrations of how drug doping has had serious implications on the health of individuals.
If members want a model of just what drug doping can do, they should look at Germany. For about a millennia Germans were essentially the same people, the same race. In fact, one of their leaders in the 1930s thought they were the purest race in the world—although that is a debatable issue that I do not want to get into. But, essentially, all German people were the same. In 1960 a fence went up and cut one-third of the country off from the other two-thirds. Within 15 years, in the mid-1970s, one-third of the country had gone from winning one or two gold medals at the Olympics to being the second-greatest achiever in the Olympics in the world—winning something like 30 or 40 gold medals. That was in the period that the Minister mentioned: in the 1970s, when the ability and the desire to control drugs internationally was much less.
It is a matter of record now that in the late 1980s the Berlin Wall came down and the countries were merged. The performance of the winners of that former country in the Olympic arena has diminished considerably with the increased scrutiny of drug management, drug control, and the testing around international sports events. A number of very clearly documented illustrations show how some of those East German athletes’ bodies were distorted. Some of them even died. There was a high jumper—whose name escapes me at the moment—who died at a meet and subsequently was found in the autopsy to be overloaded with a range of performance-enhancing drugs.
There is plenty of evidence to suggest that that behaviour is entirely inappropriate. At a time when our young people have enough to contend with in terms of planning careers, studying, fitting in family, and training—balancing competition and the desire to win—to add something else into that mix, such as whether they will be part of the doping scene in sport, is just entirely inappropriate. I think that it is harder today to engage in the taking of performance-enhancing drugs. But because the money is there, those who really want to pursue that course are able to do so. The desire to win can and does cloud judgment.
I had a very limited involvement with athletics in the 1960s. I am no great shakes as an athlete, but one thing I could do was throw a discus. I was probably competitive at most provincial meets. I can recall on one occasion going to the Caledonian ground in Dunedin. I was 18 years old, 18 stone, and straight off the
swedes, and I thought I could throw a discus—until this man-mountain arrived on the scene. His name was Robin
Tait. He was just a veritable behemoth of a man. He had muscles in places where I did not even have places! He was just a huge, powerful man.
I do not want to besmirch Robin Tait; a man who won a number of medals for New Zealand at the Commonwealth Games and who performed quite adequately for us at a number of international meets. But there were a lot of anecdotal stories about Robin Tait and little blue pills, and the way in which he had enhanced his performance. Sadly, Robin Tait died in his 40s, and I think members can draw whatever conclusions they like, but certainly there is evidence that he would have been partaking in something that assisted him.
In my own case, it was not until later years that I actually took steroids for cancer, and the repercussions of doing that, even though I was in my 40s, is that I now take a bigger size of shoe. My left foot is one and a half sizes bigger than my right. That happened on the taking of steroids. My left hand is 20 millimetres bigger than my right hand. That is something that just distorted my body, in my 40s. So we cannot presume there is not a huge risk with the taking of steroids. As I say, that is pretty well documented.
Can I just say to the House that National supports this bill. We are keen to see in place the most rugged and robust rules surrounding the absolute exclusion of drugs in the sports arena. So we will be voting for the bill.
DARIEN FENTON (Labour)
: It is my pleasure to speak in support of the Sports Anti-Doping Bill. I must say it is a relief to be talking about sport and athletes, and getting away from veterinarians, cats, dogs, gorillas, and even parrots, which we have been talking about over the last day or so.
Hon Tau Henare: Then Labour should not have introduced that bill.
DARIEN FENTON: I thought National supported it! As members have already said, New Zealand is recognised internationally as a world leader in the fight against the use of performance-enhancing drugs in sport. Sport is such an important and integral part of our nation, and is something we all can identify with—our record in sport, our children’s involvement in sport. I think we should be proud of our efforts thus far in implementing a progressive and comprehensive anti-doping programme. It is very heartening that the National Party has said it will support the bill through the select committee process, and beyond. I think we all can identify with how important it is to our international reputation and what we believe as a nation in terms of the part that sport plays in our daily lives.
The bill was developed to allow all doping violations in New Zealand to be handled in a uniform manner, and to update our legislation to ensure it allows for the making of rules to interpret the very important anti-doping code. It is very good to see our leadership role in the international community. We were a founding member of the World Anti-Doping Agency, and are a strong supporter of the code, and I look forward to our joining other nations in adopting the convention early next year.
The bill repeals and replaces the 1994 Act. When the Act was developed there was no common international practice around doping and sport, or drug testing. Of course, with the 2003 code this situation has now changed, which means our legislation is outdated. Although New Zealand anti-doping practices are generally consistent with the code, the bill brings our legal framework into line with the code. It allows all doping violations to be handled in a uniform manner, and it is integral to the anti-doping regime in New Zealand as it provides for the national anti-doping agency and national hearing body to implement the code.
We need to understand that non-compliance with the code could affect our strong anti-doping reputation, and damage the efforts made by previous New Zealand
Governments and our anti-doping agencies to establish an effective and credible anti-doping programme.
Hon Tau Henare: What does the code say?
DARIEN FENTON: I am sure the member can read it for himself without having me read it out for him. I hope he will take the time to read the code and inform himself about it, which is the duty of all of us.
We should be proud of this measure. It is a very, very good bill. We should commend New Zealand for its leadership in this matter, and give our thanks to all of our sportsmen and sportswomen who have upheld, and who will continue to uphold, our tradition of competing and winning cleanly and fairly. I look forward to the support of all parties for this very important bill during the select committee process.
Hon TAU HENARE (National)
: National will support this bill because it is necessary and it is timely. I congratulate—and I never thought I would ever say this—the Minister in charge of the bill, Trevor Mallard. I have to say it quickly in case it hurts too much.
Hon Dover Samuels: You could have a heart attack.
Hon TAU HENARE: Absolutely. The present Minister, the Hon Murray McCully, and, before him, the Hon John Banks, have done sports in this country a very, very good service and I congratulate them all. But it is more serious than just aligning ourselves with a code. I note, and the Minister pointed out for his own reasons, that the code this legislation will put us alongside is not in here. I would have thought that at least it would be included as an attachment or be in the schedule, so that when people are reading the bill they can see the international code right there and have a look at it. Sports are part of our national identity. They are part and parcel of what makes us the people we are. It is not only the All Blacks, but also the netballers—
Chris Auchinvole: The cyclists.
Hon TAU HENARE: Cyclists, you name it, we have them. We compete on an international stage far above what our population ratio should be. We are a country of sportspeople. I am also glad to say that the Minister answered my question about whether this was designed for people at club level. Although he said yes, my worry is that the bill is all about the glamour people. It is all about the glamour pusses who get all the kudos around the world. It is never about the 18-year-old who may have been forced into doing something that he or she should not have, at a club level, just so that person can go the extra mile, and that is something we need to put a lot of our energies into.
I point out to the House that there are the internationally named people like Robin Tait, who was not just rumoured to take steroids, but did take steroids. He took performance-enhancing drugs and it killed him. Robin Tait was, as my colleague said, dead in his 40s. There are also the glamour athletes like
Flo Jo. We all thought she was a great athlete. She passed away in her 40s.
Eric Roy: Tim Montgomery!
Hon TAU HENARE: I will come to Tim Montgomery in a minute. In this country we should be putting pressure on international bodies in relation to the whole issue of sports doping. Arnold Schwarzenegger is a great character—“I’ll be back.” He took anabolic steroids. [Interruption] I suppose that is the reason why he is not a very well-liked man at the moment.
Hon Dover Samuels: A famous Tory, like Tau Henare.
Hon TAU HENARE: Here we go. The
Noddy from the north has nothing better to do than to come down to the House—
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Christian names, not nicknames, are to be used in the House.
Hon TAU HENARE: It was not a nickname, Mr Assistant Speaker, it was a derogatory name.
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Well, it is unparliamentary.
Hon TAU HENARE: I withdraw and apologise, Mr Assistant Speaker. That unfortunate person lost his seat because the voters in the north decided enough was enough. I always said that if I could not beat Dover Samuels, I did not deserve the seat, and I still believe that. I am so grateful to the people of Te Tai Tokerau that they put their faith in a person who is willing to go the extra mile—and he already has. Here is some interesting stuff, and this is a wide-ranging debate: the former electorate office of the past member for Te Tai
Tokerua, Mr Dover Samuels—talking about doping—is now Te
Atatū’s first knock-shop. Does that have anything to do with doping? There was the former leaseholder and now there is a new leaseholder—it must be all about doping.
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): The member will come back to the bill.
Hon TAU HENARE: I just did, Mr Assistant Speaker, and it is a wide-ranging debate. I want to talk about the drug-induced frenzy of performance-enhancing drugs. It will make people do anything. It will make them accept things that they would not normally accept. It will make people underperform, not
overperform. It will create havoc in communities. Like any drug dependency, there is a price. It is a sad life and it is a false life. It is depressing for those who are around such people, and it can even lead to break-ups in the family.
The new designer drug on the market today is “Winstone Alone”. Members might laugh at it, but it is a performance-enhancing drug. It is about a quick shot of a hormone-enhancing drug that has some sad side effects.
It is depressing for those who are around people on this new drug, “Winstone Alone”. It can lead to a false life, it can lead to a sad life, and it is not performance enhancing, at all. All it leads to is living out a lie. When one is on this drug, one is living out a lie.
I want to congratulate the Minister again, and also those people who have been part of the whole industry of sport, because that is what it is—an industry, and we do have to clean it up. I want now to refer to Tim Montgomery, and this touches on one of my major concerns about this bill. Tim Montgomery, the 100 metres world record holder, was suspended for 2 years. He was suspended without testing positive. That happened because he was caught up in the big scandal and because of the evidence of somebody else. He has not tested positive at any stage of his career. He is the world record holder of the 100 metres.
Are we aligning ourselves to a system where there is justice for all? What about access to the courts? What about access to justice for those who are caught up in some way, shape, or form? That is what I want the select committee to look at when this bill comes before it. There is no code as part of this bill. It is not attached, and I think it should be. People will then be able to look at the international code and know what we have actually signed up to do. I am glad that the Minister said that, yes, people can be tested if they are a member of a sports organisation and play sport. I want again to congratulate the Minister.
RON MARK (NZ First)
: I rise to indicate that New Zealand First will support the passage of this bill, and to congratulate the Minister again on bringing the bill, which is long overdue, to the House. I note that the work on it was actually commenced under a previous administration—in fact, quite some time ago when the Hon John Banks was in Parliament.
I want to spend a wee bit of time in responding and replying to some of the comments that have just been made, and I say to the Hon Mr Henare not to go away—
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order!
RON MARK: That is not an enhanced performance.
Hon Tau Henare: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I do not think it is right for a member to mention when another member is leaving the Chamber or coming into it, or his or her absence from the House.
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): The member is absolutely right, and he will notice that I called the member to order. In fact, that was under Speaker’s ruling 23/8.
RON MARK: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The member was still in the House. How could I refer to a member being absent from the House when he was still here to raise a point of order? Time immemorial will show that that was a ridiculous ruling.
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): The member will be seated. I, as well, inferred from what you said that the member was leaving the House. The member was concerned about that, and there the matter rests.
RON MARK: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. With all due respect to you and to your position—a position I actually voted for you to have, because I respect you—I ask that you deliberate in private on the ruling you have just quoted, and see whether any reference whatsoever was made to the impending possible departure of a member who indeed might not depart the House.
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I have applied the principle of Speaker’s ruling 23/8, and I want to let the matter rest there. I have made a decision.
RON MARK: I hope Mr Henare is listening with both ears, because what we saw over there was not a performance-enhanced performance, and neither was it a drug-enhanced performance. It might have been enhanced, but it was definitely not performance-enhanced; it was actually quite detrimental—whatever that member has been subjecting himself to over the last 24 hours.
Might I point out to honourable members of the National Party that we should possibly have been debating this bill last night. What we heard and what the people of New Zealand heard last night—and let there be no mistake—were speeches from all those brand-spanking new members of the National Party, who were making what were probably their second contributions to the House, and I say to them: “When I start playing the CDs of those speeches, you’re
gonna look pretty stupid around the country.” New members of this House should be warned that what they say in this House is recorded forever, in perpetuity, so it is not very smart for them, within a month of their being here, to make the most banal, stupid, childish, immature speeches, thinking they can get away with that in the dead of night—because we have a wonderful thing in this country and this speech right now is being recorded. It can be downloaded on to CD and no doubt will be played at the forthcoming election, and so will my remarks on the Sports Anti-Doping Bill. [Interruption]
I am allowed to respond to the interjection, Mr Assistant Speaker. Again, new members and recently returned members should remember that the rules allow me to respond to interjections and to broaden my debate. If members want to keep chipping, then I make the point to them, through you, Mr Assistant Speaker, that they should not follow the lead of people like Mr Henare. He failed. If that is the example they are going to follow, then they will all be in serious trouble.
I will give Mr Henare one little bit of credit. He touched very briefly on youth. This bill is very important because of the forthcoming Commonwealth Games and, looking ahead, the Olympic Games. Yesterday Parliament hosted an absolutely amazing ceremony in the handing over of the taonga from the former flag bearer of the Winter Olympics team to the chef de mission, and from there it will be handed over to
whomever is appointed as the new flag bearer for the New Zealand Winter Olympics team. In looking at the DVD that shows how our New Zealand village was set up at the last Olympics in Athens and how our athletes performed, one is absolutely filled with pure pride. It is 100 percent New Zealand pure pride.
New Zealand First people can be forgiven for that—we are quite a nationalistic party. We take pride in the flag and in the performance of our athletes. What we do not take pride in is people who cheat. That is akin to the National Party bringing in the Exclusive Brethren and doping the party’s campaign with $500,000 to performance-enhance it. We do not admire cheats. We do not admire people who do underhand things, so any legislation that stems that or stamps that out is good.
But there is a problem that I will reflect on. It was interesting to hear Mr Tim Montgomery say in an interview that one of the reasons he took the drugs he took was that he was told to take them. He did not have time to understand them or learn about them. He did not actually bother himself with considering the implications or looking at the analysis of what he was being told to take. He simply lifted his tongue to have it popped in, and that was it. He was relying on his coaches not to put him in a situation that was illegal. That is what he said in an interview that I watched, which I think was a CNN interview.
The problem is that today many of the young people coming through sports training probably do not realise the level of education they will require to be good, effective, competent, and competitive sportspeople in today’s world. There is the possibility that if they do not educate themselves, or if they are not educated as well as they should be, firstly in the law and secondly on the enhancements and supplements available to them out there, they could put themselves into a dubious situation.
It is not just about supplements and it is not just about enhancing products; it is also about simple things like medicines. I am one of hundreds of thousands of people in New Zealand who suffer from asthma and eczema. What do I use? I use
Ventolin, and
Betnovate—a steroid-based cream, is it not? The question I guess one would have to ask if one were an athlete is whether athletes are allowed to use
Betnovate. Does that have an effect on their testing regime? Can they use
Flixotide? Can they use
Betnovate? What types of prescription medicines or treatments are they taking that can have an effect on their testing regime?
Professional athletes of the likes of Sarah Ulmer and the people who successfully represent New Zealand today on the Olympic circuit are well educated and well informed, and they have good staff and a good management team to keep them on the straight and narrow and help them. But today as young people see a career in professional sports, and as they look at their heroes winning the Rugby League Tri-Nations in the United Kingdom or competing and blitzing the northern hemisphere on the rugby circuit with the grand slam tour, they aspire to be like them. Many of them look at sport as a possible option for a professional career.
The challenges and attractions of taking supplements that young people should not take will always be there, and one cannot help but reflect that possibly what the select committee needs to look at is the sort of educational processes that exist in our schools. I know that Aranui High School in Christchurch set up the first sports academy, in order to take in a bunch of kids whose only real interest in life was sport; they were not interested in academia. Those young
Māori and Pacific Island kids who flooded into Aranui High School—some came from St
Bedes College and some came from St Andrews College; those are the top schools of the district—and moved across to a school that was too brown and too bad for anyone to consider previously, were in search of a sports academy training regime that hopefully would put them either into the services, the military or the uniformed police, or give them a shot at sport somewhere,
competitively. And those kids have done very, very well over the years. I wonder whether those schools will be considering including educational initiatives in their syllabus in order to better inform young people of the dangers surrounding the enhancement of their performances by the use of drugs or medicines.
This is a good bill. I have only a little time left to speak, so I will wind up by simply saying again to those new members of the National Party that when they participate in these debates they should think carefully about how what they say might reflect on them personally when they go back to their districts and face the constituents who voted for them. They should ask themselves one question: “Will I be proud of the speech I just made when it’s played to my constituents by an opposing party candidate on the hustings at the next election?”. [Interruption]
Anne Tolley cannot help herself. She is chipping in again. That is why she lost her seat the first time, and it is probably why she will lose it again.
KEITH LOCKE (Green)
: The Green Party will be supporting this bill. I want to look at the question from a number of angles. My colleague Eric Roy said that the desire to win can cloud the judgment of sportspeople, and I do agree. We have to look at the pressures on athletes to do that sort of thing nowadays, as they know that they are going to hurt their health by taking such drugs in order to win.
I think there is a problem in society with winning being everything. In the past, participating and doing one’s best was what people aspired to. Now winning has become everything. The glory comes to the winner, and in the international sports setting there are so many rewards for being No. 1. We can see that in the performances of our own athletes, and in the attitude of the public, both in New Zealand and around the world, to our athletes’ performances. I am thinking of someone like Ben
Fouhy, our kayaker in the Olympics, who came second in his race. He was subject to some criticism: “Oh you’ve been world champion and you didn’t win at the Olympics.” The pressure on him to win was so great, even though he gave a fantastic performance and came second to a Norwegian who was really at the top of his game.
Also, the financial rewards internationally in terms of sponsorships and everything else have grown so much that to win means one can perhaps be a multimillionaire and live in comfort for the rest of one’s days. If one happens to come second at the Olympic Games, then all of those rewards do not come one’s way. So there is the social pressure combined with the pressure of commercial sport, which is not good. The pressure is also driven by the attitudes of the public and media in New Zealand.
The other unfortunate pressure is the pressure of national interest, and Eric Roy talked about the East European Governments of the past who were so desperate for national glory through getting a lot of medals at an Olympic Games—East Germany in particular—that they were engaged in doping on a substantial scale. In fact, as I understand it, if a person was in an East German or Czechoslovakian team, he or she was ordered to take those drugs. People had to take those drugs or they were not on the squad. That has led to great problems, and not only in Eastern Europe.
American authorities seemed to be under similar pressure to make sure that their athletes won. A couple of years ago we heard of a whole pile of athletes, including Carl Lewis, who seemed to be caught up in this pressure to take drugs. Carl Lewis was deemed to have taken not just one type but three types of banned stimulants. When the international agencies—the International Olympic Committee and others—looked at the United States Olympic Association and what it had done they were rather horrified that the defence of people like Carl Lewis was that they did not have any intent to take a drug.
The World Anti-Doping Agency chairman, Dick Pound, dismissed the no-intent defence. He said he had seen copies of US documents, and that there was almost what
he called “automatic forgiveness” by US officials. They were so desperate to have a lot of their people win gold medals that they tended to look the other way. The International Olympic Committee’s medical commission chairman, Arne
Ljungqvist said that the US Olympic Committee documents fitted a pattern of failure to report positive drug cases. So we can see that a perceived national interest can blind authorities to the dangers of that. Tim Montgomery, the 100 metres world record holder, has now been banned for a couple of years, and perhaps he should be banned for life, for being caught up in drugs. In all possibility his partner, Marion Jones, who also won gold medals at the Olympics, was also taking drugs.
What does this do to athletes who are really trying to do their best? One of the problems—and I refer back to the East European doping in the past—is that some world records date from that period, when there was almost universal doping of East European athletes. Women in particular gained an advantage out of it. Some of those athletics records are still on the books. The problem for athletes today is that they can excel at the very top of their sport and be at world record - holder level but those world records are still on the books and in their way.
Flo Jo’s—Florence Griffiths Joiner’s—records for the 100 metres and 200 metres are still, I think, on the books in spite of the fact that most people recognise that they are likely to be drug-induced world records. That is very bad. It is also bad for the fans as well. We all took great pride in Carl Lewis’s performance. He was a hero to many, and it does tarnish the public’s identification with sport and with the progress of the athletes if they later find out that the athletes are involved in drugs. The performance of Robin Tait, who was mentioned by Eric Roy, is a similar example. We had a lot of pride in his performance in the shot-put and discus and in his gold medals and records. We then found out—he openly admitted it in later life—that he had been involved in steroid taking. Graham May, our Christchurch weight lifter, who was also a medal winner, was also found to have taken drugs. People’s interest in sport is deflated, as is their identification with the athletes and their performances, if they find that out in later life.
I am glad that the Minister, in his introductory speech, talked about out-of-season testing. There is a problem in that some athletes get around drug testing by taking drugs as they are leading up to a performance, and then when they know the testing regime is going to kick in, closer to the competitive athletics, they stop taking the drugs. The drugs disappear from their systems but they have had the benefit of them by that time. So there is out-of-season testing and random testing, and another thing that can help is holding blood samples for later testing. Sometimes athletes are at the front edge of scientific experimentation in drugs and they can get away with taking drugs because testing has not caught up with a particular drug. So holding blood samples for later testing can help to avoid the situation of world records by the Florence Griffith
Joyners, the Tim
Montgomerys, or the East European athletes in the past. Their world records cannot be taken from the books because there was no system to check drug testing at the time.
I conclude by saying that this is a serious issue. As Tau Henare mentioned, sport is a part of our national identity. We want to make sure that we in New Zealand are a model in this respect. Even if we know that some other nations might be cheating and getting the edge, we just have to have confidence that our own athletes are performing to their highest ability. There has been no suspicions around Sarah Ulmer, who performed fantastically in cycling, or most of our other athletes, and I think we can be proud in that respect.
HONE HARAWIRA (Māori Party—Te Tai Tokerau)
: Madam Speaker,
tēnā koe.
Ngā mema o te Whare
Pāremata,
tēnā hoki
tātou katoa.
[Greetings to you Madam Speaker and to us all as well, members of Parliament.]
I rise today to support the Sports Anti-Doping Bill. I do so because the
Māori Party is committed to the notion of fair play, and supports the principles of people competing on a level playing field. We also support the values embodied in the International Charter of Physical Education and Sport of
Unesco. While this discussion is about principles in sport, I note also that they are principles that apply to all situations in our society—honesty, fairness, respect, courage, commitment, and unity. Ki a
mātou o te ao
Māori me
pono, me
tika, me
tūturu, me
pakari, me
whakawhāiti.
[To us of
Māoridom one must be honest, correct, genuine, mature, and to the point.]
We also support activities that encourage
whānau to take part in community activities, that encourage healthy, active lifestyles, and that recognise national
Māori sports organisations. There are many sporting activities in which
Māori have gained international recognition, including
Māori golfers Philip Tataurangi, Michael Campbell, and now Bradley Iles; surfers like Daniel
Kereopa; the whole of the New Zealand basketball team; and waka
ama as well. In fact, we are privileged to host the world waka
ama championships at Lake Karapiro in March 2006. Every 2 years, countries from all around the world unite to determine who are the best waka
ama paddlers in the world, and next year it is being held here.
Darren Hughes:
Ōtaki will win this time. They are ready to go.
HONE HARAWIRA: I say to Darren Hughes that if that happens, it will be a laugh. I wish them all the best, but I suspect that the winning teams are probably going to come out of the Tai Tokerau. All these sporting activities encourage healthy living in an environment without those substances that enhance performance. Indeed,
Māori have a proven record of achievement at the highest level of international sport, competing and winning on the world stage. The Aotearoa
Māori women’s sevens team, for example, have won the Hong Kong Sevens on the three occasions they have participated. The Aotearoa
Māori rugby team beat the British Lions and everybody else in the world. There are also the Aotearoa
Māori women’s and men’s touch teams. None of them needed performance-enhancing drugs to achieve their goals. They did not need to cheat on themselves, let alone the opposition.
It does concern me, though, regularly to hear our sporting commentators referring to people who cheat and get away with it, condoning the behaviour because they simply were not caught. It is kind of an irony, that this game of rugby, which our nation reveres so much, has its origins in a classic legend of cheating, dating back to before the Treaty of Waitangi was signed. A young man by the name of William Webb Ellis, at a school called Rugby, broke the rules, cheated, picked up a ball, and ran with it. We have even named a world cup after him. Yet here I am, speaking about integrity and honesty in sport when our national sport traces its origins from a cheat. It makes me wonder, albeit just briefly, whether I should withdraw our request to host the Rugby World Cup final in 2011 in
Kaitāia.
Seriously though, the
Māori Party is, of course, committed to the game of rugby and indeed we look forward to our own Te Ururoa Flavell captaining the 2006 parliamentary rugby team, which will also, no doubt, be dope-free although probably not free of dopes if Darren Hughes chooses to play.
I come back to the bill and say that it is good to see that cheats are starting to get the message that it is not worth it and that they will get caught. I congratulate the Government on introducing this legislation and signing up as part of the international coalition of the willing opposed to the use of illegal performance-enhancing drugs and prepared to implement the Copenhagen Declaration on Anti-Doping in Sport.
We in the
Māori Party also compliment the New Zealand Sports Drug Agency, its board and its staff, on being so resolute in advocating the apprehension of those who aim to cheat their way to success through the use of performance-enhancing drugs.
Sport is a
megamillion-dollar business, as is the manufacture of illicit drugs. Mix the two and you see the ends to which greed will go to avoid detection. I disagree with the Minister for Sport and Recreation and I agree with the Executive Director of the New Zealand Sports Drug Agency, Graeme Steel. He wants the World Anti-Doping Agency to take cannabis off its prohibited substance list so it can concentrate on catching cheats who use performance-enhancing drugs, such as steroids, human-growth hormones, and erythropoietin. We also agree that the Sports Drugs Agency, with its limited resources, should not get sidetracked away from its primary role of being focused, efficient, and quick to respond to the key doping issues. We do not agree with sportspeople being stoned or drunk while participating in sport, but we also recognise that neither of those drugs enhances performance. Much time and resources can be wasted on policing the use of recreational drugs, whereas the use of performance-enhancing drugs is not getting the attention it should.
What is more, there is no evidence of widespread use of cannabis amongst New Zealand’s elite athletes; and we congratulate them because there have been no positive cannabis tests in our top-level professional sports teams, like the All Blacks, the Warriors, the Kiwis, and the Silver Ferns. Resources are best put towards the catching of those cheats who use sophisticated means and sophisticated substances to escape detection.
The
Māori Party does not believe that the use of illegal performance-enhancing drugs is rife in sport in Aotearoa. We also believe that more would be gained by encouraging athletes to not use recreational drugs, rather than use punitive measures against them. But we note too that society must always be vigilant. The Sports Drug Agency is a small body, and I note that it is expected to draft the rules, once the bill becomes law. Although I am advised there is a high degree of cooperation between the Sports Drug Agency and organisations like Sport and Recreation New Zealand, I would support consideration being given to extra resourcing to help the agency in drafting those rules. In conclusion, I again commend those responsible for this bill. The
Māori Party will be supporting it.
Nō reira
hurinoa,
tēnātātou katoa.
GORDON COPELAND (United Future)
: I rise on behalf of United Future to signal that we will support and vote for the Sports Anti-Doping Bill. I thought that the previous speaker, Hone Harawira, was a bit tough on William Webb Ellis, in classifying him as a cheat. I think there is actually a distinction between an innovator and a cheat, and I think that what William Webb Ellis did by picking up that ball and running was actually to bring a new innovation into sport—one that has become the backbone of our national game.
Hone Harawira: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. William Webb Ellis was actually caned for what he did. He cheated.
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley): I remind the member that that may be interesting, but it is not a point of order.
GORDON COPELAND: That does not surprise me at all, because I am sure the teachers at Rugby School were a bunch of stuffy old—I could use a word that I am not allowed to use in the House, which has been used by the previous Speaker of the House on a couple of occasions, I seem to recall—people who would not have recognised an innovator if they had seen one. Many, many great innovators and great people were caned at school, and I have a few notches on my belt to prove that I am one of them.
Performance-enhancing drugs are the enemy of true sport. Only a dope would take dope. I remember that in the year 2000, when Peter Snell was declared to be the New Zealand sportsperson of the millennium, he was asked about performance-enhancing drugs and whether there were any around in his day. He said: “No, we did not need them.” I think that encapsulates the true spirit of the proud sporting tradition of this
country. We have produced a disproportionate number of great sportsmen and great sportswomen, and, for the most part we have done that without having to rely on performance-enhancing drugs.
New Zealand has a simply fabulous sporting history, and we should all be very proud of it. I remember that in the mid-1960s
Sports Illustrated, an American sporting magazine that most members will have heard of, did a worldwide survey on sporting ability, related to the population of a country—in other words, a per capita analysis of sporting greatness in the world. The big headline, which shows the time was the 1960s, was: “Man for man, it’s Australia”. However, Australia got there because, in the world rugby rankings—this was in the mid-1960s, would members believe— had ranked the No. 1 rugby-playing nation of the world as being South Africa, the No. 2 rugby-playing nation as being Australia, and the No. 3 rugby-playing nation as being New Zealand. If the magazine had got it right, New Zealand would have been in second place, and the headline of that magazine would have read: “Man for man, it’s Kiwis”.
A huge dispute erupted. In fact, in subsequent copies of
Sports Illustrated, which I remind members is an American magazine, several pages were devoted to letters from New Zealanders, stating it had got the rugby call completely wrong, and they provided all the statistics to prove it. The response of
editors, which was in the fine print at the bottom, was that the figures showed that Australia had had a better overall performance against South Africa than New Zealand had, and on that basis they concluded that Australia was No. 2. Of course, that completely overlooked the record between Australia and New Zealand, which at that stage was about 75 to 25 in our favour.
As others have mentioned, performance-enhancing drugs bring to mind some very tragic images, such as
Flo Jo. From the moment I set eyes on
Flo Jo, I thought to myself: “I don’t think so. I don’t think the female body, pumping as much iron as it can over a period of time, could ever quite look like that.” To my eyes her body was obviously unnatural, and sadly that was proved to be the case by her untimely death. Members will remember the images of the Chinese swimmers who came to one of the Olympic Games. Again, they were women. Some of them had shoulders that I think would have made any All Black prop happy. One of them was almost, would members believe, 1 metre wide across the shoulders. Those young women, of course, have all gone to early graves, as well. So the whole area of sports doping has a tragic history. It is all driven by national ambition, and so on. Those things are good, but they are not good when they go over the line into cheating and using artificial substances and steroids, which are thoroughly bad, not only for the human body but for sport itself.
Performance-enhancing drugs are actually an evil. They undermine sport itself by removing from it honesty, ethics, fairness, health, respect, courage, commitment, and solidarity. As a nation we should be proud to take a lead in this area, and make sure that we do all we can to eliminate any thought of a culture ever developing in this country that regards winning by any means as being, in any circumstances, remotely acceptable. It is not. As a previous speaker mentioned, and I agree with the point, at a certain age young men and women—I am not sure of the age at which they do this—make up their minds that they want to be an All Black, a Silver Fern, an athlete, a swimmer, a triathlete, a marathon runner, a cyclist, or whatever it is. At that level we must ensure that we get the point across very, very clearly that it is certainly not sporting—in fact, it is the opposite—to take performance-enhancing drugs. Otherwise, our country will have let loose a virus that will have tremendous long-term negative consequences for us. Performance-enhancing drugs, in short, have no redeeming features.
We support the bill, and we hope that, if necessary, the tribunal and others will come back to us if they need additional powers in the future.
CHRIS TREMAIN (National—Napier)
: Athletic competition relies on a basic premise: one man’s best against another’s, one woman’s best against another’s, or one team’s best against another’s. The entire phenomenon of sport rests on that simple idea. When someone cheats, the value of victory becomes worthless. That is a key part of the very culture of this great sporting nation. Although we may push the rules—even test them to the limit—we are a nation that plays hard but fair. Fair competition is not a moral ideal; it is a basic principle, which is directly tied to the enjoyment of competing and the value of victory. The contest has more value when athletes compete cleanly. When there is a winner in clean sport, it means something. With doping, someone merely crosses the line first.
As a result, the National Party supports the introduction of the bill. We believe that it will seek to preserve what is intrinsically valuable about sport, which is characterised by values such as honesty, ethics, fairness, health, respect, courage, commitment, and solidarity. The Sports Anti-Doping Bill will provide the legislative framework under which New Zealand can implement the World Anti-Doping Code, thereby playing its part in addressing the global problem of doping in sport. The bill will continue the role of the New Zealand Sports Drug Agency as the national anti-doping organisation, and it will be responsible for ensuring that New Zealand complies with the code.
Today I would like to examine the need for such a bill. I want to explain exactly why doping is a real threat to sport. Let me break it down into three categories: firstly, fraud; secondly, the “If you can’t beat them join them.” phenomenon; and, thirdly, the health risks that are associated with doping.
First, let me talk about fraud. What I find unacceptable about doping is the fraud that it perpetuates. When I watch a game or a race, it is with the assumption that I am watching a clean contest. And it is not just me; sponsors pay millions of dollars to be associated with supposedly pure athleticism. It is a let-down, then, when I discover that drugs are involved. Do I personally care whether Tim Montgomery covered 100 metres in 9.78 seconds at the Grand Prix de Paris in 2002, if he had to inject himself with something first? No, I do not. But I am awestruck and inspired to see a clean athlete do it in a time of 9.8 seconds. What I am trying to get at is that the end does not matter as much as the means. Doping is an ethical issue, a scientific issue, and a health issue, but it is first and foremost a philosophical issue, and it is that analysis that has been neglected. As I have said previously, athletic competition relies on a basic premise: one person’s best against another’s. The entire phenomenon of sport rests on that simple idea. When someone cheats, the value of the victory becomes worthless; it is a fraud.
Secondly, I will talk about the “If you can’t beat them join them.” phenomenon. A second argument says that if so many athletes are doping, why do we not just let them do it? Then the playing field is level again—game on! Well, that would obviously get rid of the fraud, but it would be hard to explain to New Zealand kids why the All Blacks were dropping dead on TV from cardiac arrest, or for one parent to explain to another that little Jimmy died because he took something to make the under-60-kilogram Ross Shield rugby team. He had to, of course, because everyone was doing it. If sports are allowed to become a pharmaceutical free-for-all, I no longer want anything to do with them, and not just because the drugs are unhealthy. There are, of course, plenty of outlets for cheap entertainment in our culture; there is no need to turn sport, which has the potential to be so much more, into one of them.
Thirdly, let us look at the health risks. Of course, this is the most practical argument against doping concerns. Here is a statistic that has not received much air time: eight. That is the number of elite cyclists who have recently died suddenly from inexplicable heart failures. Cycling officials say those were freak tragedies. That is quite a coincidence, especially as most of the drugs popular with endurance athletes do more
than improve their endurance. The drugs also dangerously thicken the athletes’ blood. Death is the highest price to pay when one is willing to win at any cost, but even the lesser side effects of blood boosters and steroids range from inconvenient to horrific. Sadly, because of the shameful, secretive nature of doping, many of the most serious risks are unknown.
Here is a list of the current doping options available on the market, and some of their side effects. Firstly, let us look at stimulants, which have side effects that include increased blood pressure, aggression and anxiety, and increased and irregular heartbeat. Narcotic analgesics also have side effects. They are highly addictive, and can cause a loss of concentration, amongst other things. Anabolic agents have side effects of, in males, the development of breasts, premature baldness, and the shrinking and hardening of the testicles. In women they cause the development of male features, including facial hair, deepening of the voice, and a number of other things. Diuretics can cause dehydration, headaches, and kidney damage. Peptide glycoprotein hormones and analogues have side effects of the abnormal growth of the hands—which Eric Roy talked about previously—feet, face, and internal organs. Blood doping also has significant side effects, including blood clots and kidney damage.
I personally do not like the health risk argument. Of course, it is perfectly valid, but it skirts the real issues at the heart of sports. In addition, the health risks have not proven to be a deterrent. Some athletes—I am talking about a very small percentage—say that if they could take a pill that would guarantee they would win an Olympic gold medal or a world series but would die 5 years later, they would still do it. Of course, they still are doing it. Although the Sports Anti-Doping Bill is important legislation to ensure that New Zealand is part of the wider anti-doping code, there is still a wider issue to be addressed in terms of the athletes themselves. The main problem that keeps us from understanding the doping problem is our reluctance—or, in particular, the athletes’ reluctance—to talk about it. Two dozen athletes, seven of them medallists, were thrown out of the Olympics at Athens for failing or missing a drug test. That is a summer Olympics record. The world and US anti-doping agencies should be applauded for carrying out such an unpopular task. But let us not kid ourselves. Twenty-four dopers out of 10,500 athletes—or just 0.2 percent—is not something to gloat about, record or not. Even to the least cynical, the evidence from the
Balco scandal, which was once again highlighted in this morning’s paper in reference to Tim Montgomery, the recent Tours de France, and a few candid experts suggest that doping is far more epidemic than the 0.2 percent I have talked about today would indicate.
Doping received more media attention in Athens than at any previous Olympic Games. That drew a mixed reaction. The most alarming response came from the athletes themselves, many of whom appeared uninterested, uncomfortable, or ignorant. Some were even annoyed. Former sprinter Donovan Bailey said on CBC that he was sick of hearing about it. So that is it. The athletes are too focused to think about doping, or they are sick of it, and they are annoyed that the issue distracts from the moment of glory. That is fine—understandable. But the essence of that attitude is absurd—like dismissing the notion of crime while the burglar is still in the house. Athletes who train and compete clean should be furious, and they should not feel obligated to keep that to themselves. If a small percentage—whatever that percentage may be, and I suggest that it is probably a lot higher than 0.2 percent—of elite athletes are doping, the real question is why the other percentage is so silent while the cheaters steal their medals and sponsorship deals.
Whatever the reason, it is time for athletes to step forward and admit that doping is everybody’s problem, and that it is especially harmful to clean athletes. This bill will go
only some way to cleaning up the sector; the major responsibility still rests with the athletes themselves.
- Bill
referred to the Government Administration Committee.referred to Government Administration Committee
