Disability Sport Integrity Management
Ensuring the fairest and safest environment’s for the participation of people with all abilities.
What is sport integrity?
Sport is an Australian way of life. It brings people together, transcending differences in language, ability, culture, and beliefs, and provides physical, social, and economic benefits.
Sport should be a safe and fair place for all participants. At ASAPD, we offer a safe place for people to raise concerns about behaviour they’ve witnessed or experienced in sport as well as find more information if they have an integrity question.
Staying Safe
Your safety is our first concern. If you are in Australia and in immediate danger or at risk of harm, call your local law enforcement agency or dial triple zero (000).
What is Sport’s Integrity?
Threats to a sport’s integrity can include competition manipulation and sports gambling, doping, the improper use of drugs and medicine, and behaviours that impact people’s positive experience of sport, such as discrimination or abuse, including against children.
Integrity in sport means that participants, officials, supporters, and fans can participate in and enjoy sport, confident in the knowledge that they are part of a safe, fair, and inclusive environment.
All of our members and participants have an obligation to protect and maintain the integrity of sport, as well as the health and wellbeing of everyone involved.
We work closely with Sport Integrity Australia (SIA), the national coordination agency for sport integrity threats. For more information visit www.sportintegrity.gov.au
Australian Sporting Alliance for People with a Disability (ASAPD) together with the eight Australian National Sporting Organisations for Disabilities (NSOD) takes sport integrity seriously and in September 2023, ASAPD adopted the National Integrity Framework.
All our members and participants have an obligation to protect and maintain the integrity of sport, as well as the health and wellbeing of our athletes
The Integrity Rules
The National Integrity Framework is essentially a set of rules that all members of our sport need to follow when it comes to their behaviour and conduct in sport. There are five core policies which make up the National Integrity Framework. These are:
Reporting Integrity Issues
Everyone from athletes, officials, parents, support personnel, administrators and supporters play a role in protecting the integrity of our sport.
If you see something, hear something, or sense something, say something!
Australian Sporting Alliance for people with disabilities (ASAPD) has opted-in to the complaints handling process for integrity-related issues run by Sport Integrity Australia.
Issues to report to Sport Integrity Australia
Concerns or complaints about alleged breaches of our National Integrity Framework relating to Doping, Child Safeguarding, or Discrimination based on features including race, disability, sex, age, sexual orientation or gender identity and religion can be reported directly to Sport Integrity Australia through the form available on the Sport Integrity Australia website.
You can view a more detailed flowchart outlining how the complaints and reporting process works.
If people just want to share their story about integrity issues they have experienced, they can call the Safe Sport hotline on 1800 161 361. This service allows for anonymous reporting and covers wider racial and cultural issues in sport for people who feel they have been discriminated against.
Issues to report to your National Sporting Organisation for People with Disability (NSODs)
For all other integrity matters such as alleged breaches of our National Integrity Framework relating to Non-Discrimination Member Protection matters (i.e., bullying), Competition Manipulation & Sport Wagering matters
Improper Use of Drugs and Medicine matters, and non-National Integrity Framework matters such as Governance matters, Selection/eligibility disputes, Personal Grievances, Employment disputes etc please report directly to the specific NSOD Complaint Manager/Integrity Manager for your sport as listed below:
- Blind Sports Australia –Felicity Wilkeson –felicity@blindsportsaustralia.com.au
- Boccia Australia – Ross Ashcroft – integrity@boccia.com.au
- Deaf Sports Australia – Phil Harper – phil.harper@deafsports.org.au
- Disability Wintersports Australia – Rick Hatie – rhastie@disabledwintersport.com.au
- Riding for the Disabled Australia – RDA EO – eo@rda.org.au
- Special Olympics Australia – Brad Mitchell – bradm@specialolympics.com.au
- Sport Inclusion Australia – Garry West- Bail – admin@asapd.org
- Transplant Australia – Emmy O’Neill – emmy.oneill@transplant.org.au
Education, Resources, and Awareness
When it comes to sport integrity, it is critical for everyone who is involved in sport, from grassroots to elite-level athletes, parents, teachers, coaches, sport administration staff and support personnel, to be aware of their rights and responsibilities. There are a range of tools and resources available to help keep everyone informed.
Safeguarding
The Safeguarding Children and Young People Policy is designed to protect children and young people in sport by putting in place rules and processes to ensure sporting environments are inclusive, positive and safe for all children and young people, all the time.
Learn more here.
Our Child Safe Contact at ASAPD is:
Name: Dr Phil Hamdorf
Position: CEO
Email and/or Phone: CEO@asapd.org
Member Protection Policy
The Member Protection Policy is designed to protect the welfare, wellbeing and health of everyone involved in sport. It provides clear definitions of abuse, bullying, harassment, sexual misconduct, discrimination, victimisation and vilification in sport, along with information on how to report these behaviours.
Learn more here.
Improper Use of Drugs and Medicine Policy
The Improper Use of Drugs and Medicine Policy is designed to protect athletes from harm caused by the improper use of medicines, supplements and illegal drugs.
Learn more here.
Complaints, Disputes and Discipline Policy
The Complaints, Disputes and Discipline Policy (CDDP) provides sport and its participants with a best practice complaint management process that can be run by either Sport Integrity Australia or the sport.
Learn more here.
Integrity eLearning
Sport Integrity Australia eLearning offers online courses relating to sport integrity, including doping, match-fixing, illicit drugs, and ethical decisionmaking. Specific anti-doping courses are also available for coaches, support persons, medical practitioners and parents.
Play by the Rules
Play by the Rules provides information, resources, tools and free online training to administrators, coaches, officials, players, parents and spectators to assist them in preventing and dealing with discrimination, harassment, child safety, inclusion and integrity issues in sport.
eSafety Commissioner – eSafety Sport Hub
Online abuse can significantly impact sport members and organisations. The eSafety Commissioner is Australia’s national independent regulator and educator for online safety. eSafety provides guidance on online safety issues including cyberbullying, adult cyber abuse, image-based abuse and illegal or restricted content. eSafety can help to get harmful online content removed if it meets the legal threshold for investigation.
The eSafety Sport hub provides resources to help the sports community, including information on how to recognise online abuse and deal with online abuse in sport, as well as tailored advice for sport administrators, coaches and officials, and athletes and competitors.
Stay Up to Date
Keep up to date with all that’s happening in sport integrity by following SIA on Facebook, X, Instagram, YouTube and LinkedIn and listen to On Side, the official podcast of SIA.
You can also download the Sport Integrity app, which is available for free from the Apple App Store and Google Play
Anti-Doping Education and Resources
When it comes to anti-doping, it is critical that our athletes and their support personnel are aware of their rights and responsibilities. There are a range of tools and resources available to help keep participants informed.
Integrity eLearning
Sport Integrity Australia eLearning offers several online courses relating to sport integrity, including doping, match-fixing, illicit drugs, and ethical decision-making courses. Specific anti-doping courses are also available for coaches, support personnel, medical practitioners and parents.
Sport Integrity app
The Sport Integrity app is a one-stop shop for all sport integrity needs, designed with athletes in mind. The app allows users to check whether their medications are banned in sport, find low-risk supplements to reduce their chance of testing positive, and check whether they need a Therapeutic Use Exemption (TUE). The app also provides direction on how to raise concerns about things like doping, child safeguarding or discrimination. It features further information on eLearning modules, whereabouts and testing information, and gives users the opportunity to provide feedback to Sport Integrity Australia.
The app is free and can be downloaded from the Apple App Store and Google Play.
Prohibited List of substances and methods
The Prohibited List outlines the substances and methods that are prohibited in sport. It is updated annually by the World AntiDoping Agency. Remember that individual products or brands are not named on the Prohibited List. Athletes should check the status of all medications on Global DRO before they use them.
Checking your substances
Global DRO allows users to check whether the most commonly prescribed and over-the-counter medicines in Australia are permitted or prohibited in sport.
If an athlete requires use of a prohibited substance to treat a medical condition, the athlete needs to be aware of the TUE requirements. For more information on a TUE visit the Sport Integrity Australia website.
Policy Information
What is doping?
Doping is the use of substances or methods that are banned in sport. Doping is cheating because it gives one athlete an advantage over others. Doping is also extremely dangerous to your health and can destroy your reputation.
What is anti-doping?
Anti-doping is a set of rules designed to protect athletes’ rights to participate in sport free of performance enhancing drugs. It’s anti-doping that keeps sport fair and keeps the playing field level. When athletes choose not to dope, we say they compete clean.
Anti-doping and ASAPD
ASAPD takes a position of zero tolerance toward doping in sport and works closely with Sport Integrity Australia (SIA) in Australia to ensure a drug-free environment in our sport. Anti-doping rules apply to all participants of our sport from elite to grassroots. All members must be aware of, and have a basic understanding of, their obligations regarding anti-doping. The Sport Integrity Australia Website has a range of information and resources to assist, including:
- Information about supplements.
- Applying for a Therapeutic Use Exemption.
- Submitting Whereabouts information.
- Information about athlete testing.
ASAPD’s anti-doping policy is the Australian National Anti-Doping Policy, effective 1 January 2021, and can be found on the Sport Integrity Australia website. To report a breach of anti-doping rules, submit directly to Sport Integrity Australia here.
Improper Use of Drugs and Medicine
The improper use of drugs and medicine in sport, including the use of supplements and the provision by unqualified and unauthorised people are a risk to the health of athletes and the integrity of sport.
To counter these risks, we have put in place an Improper Use of Drugs and Medicine Policy which ensures:
- medical practitioners working in our sport are accredited and qualified to fulfil their duties.
- medicines are used in appropriate ways.
- safe use of supplements, which comply with the World Anti-Doping Code.
- illegal drug use is prohibited in our sport.
For more information, check out the Improper Use of Drugs and Medicines Fact Sheet
To help 13 to 17-year-olds to understand the Improper Use of Drugs and Medicines Policy visit Protecting your sport from the Improper Use of Drugs and Medicine factsheet.
Competition Manipulation and Sports Gambling
Manipulating sports competitions, commonly known as ‘match-fixing’ is when someone alters a sporting competition to remove the unpredictable nature of the competition to obtain an undue advantage, or benefit.
People are motivated to manipulate competitions for a variety of reasons such as to get a better draw in a round-robin tournament (often referred to as tanking), or to avoid relegation to a lower competition. Another reason people manipulate competitions is to profit through betting markets by underperforming intentionally.
In most Australian states and territories, the manipulation of sporting competitions can result in a criminal conviction and up to 10 years in jail. Participants of a sport involved in manipulating competitions will also likely face a long ban from sport. More information can be found on the Sport Integrity Australia website.
For more information, check out the Competition Manipulation and Sports Gambling Fact Sheet.
To help 13 to 17-year-olds to understand Competition Manipulation and Sports Gambling Policy visit the How we keep your competition fair and honest factsheet.
Safeguarding
Participation in sport should be safe for all. We are committed to ensuring that people in sport, including children, are treated with respect and dignity, and are protected from bullying, discrimination, harassment or abuse.
The following policies highlight the important legal and governance responsibilities in relation to child safety and member protection.
For more information on Safeguarding, check out the Safeguarding Children and Young People Fact Sheet.
To help 7 to 12-year-olds to understand the Safeguarding of Children and Young People Policy visit the How your sport looks after kids factsheet.
To help 13 to 17-year-olds to understand the Safeguarding of Children and Young People Policy visit How your sport looks after you factsheets.
For more information on Member Protection, check out the Member Protection Fact Sheet.
To help 7 to 12-year-olds to understand their rights in sport visit the Learn about your rights at sport factsheet.
To help 13 to 17-year-olds to understand their rights in sport visit Your rights at sport factsheet.
To help 13 to 17-year-olds understand the Member Protection Policy visit How your sport looks after all its participants factsheet.
Breaches of Integrity Policies
All alleged breaches in relation to our National Integrity Framework and associated integrity policies will be managed under the Complaints, Disputes and Discipline Policy.
Complaints, Disputes and Discipline Policy
Our Complaints, Disputes and Discipline Policy sets out the process for resolving complaints arising from a breach of an eligible policy.
The organisation responsible for managing the Complaint will depend on the type of behaviour that has been alleged.
Complaints in relation to breaches under the National Integrity Framework relating to Safeguarding Children and Young People, or Discrimination based on features including race, disability, sex, sexual orientation and gender identity, will be managed by Sport Integrity Australia. All other complaints (such as selection, bullying among adults, governance, social media behaviour) are managed by the specific NSOD for your sport.
For more information check out the Standards and Prohibited Conduct Fact Sheet.
National Integrity Framework
The Australian Sporting Alliance for People with a Disability (ASAPD) is committed to ensuring the fairest and safest environment’s for the participation of people with all abilities. The ASAPD has been working with Sport Integrity Australia and the nine National Sporting Organisations for People with a Disability (NSODs), to ensure their adoption of Sport Integrity Australia’s National Integrity Framework.
In adopting the Sport Integrity Australia National Integrity Framework, each NSOD has done so based on the need to ensure the following principles are followed by all who are a party to the Framework policies.
These principles are:
- To ensure education programs are in place which enable the people that the NSOD represents to be aware of the policies.
- To ensure communication tools are in place that will enhance the education of the people that the NSOD represents.
- To acknowledge that the people that the NSOD represents who are covered by the policies are potentially more at risk* of being affected, abused, manipulated, or used.
- To ensure all policies are written, presented and accessible in all forms in plain language and documents and programs are presented in a consistent and easily accessible format.
- To ensure that the Improper use of Drugs and Medicine Policy is clearly explained to all parties to take into consideration the special needs (e.g. medication) of the people that the NSOD represents.
*The following is the definition of people at risk:
- Persons under the age of 18; or
- Persons aged 18 or over, but are unable to take care of themselves, or are unable to protect themselves against harm or exploitation, by reason of age, illness, trauma or disability, or any other reason.
For further information on the Sport Integrity Australia National Integrity Framework, you can visit Sport Interity Australia’s website here.
For further information on the National Sports Tribunal, you can visit their website here.
Who Manages Complaints
As a member of a sport that has signed up to the National Integrity Framework, you can make a Complaint if you believe a fellow member has behaved poorly and potentially breached one of the policies.
If the Complaint is about an issue relating to child safeguarding, discrimination or anti-doping, you can make a report to Sport Integrity Australia.
All other integrity complaints should be submitted to and will be managed by ASAPD here.
Issues to report to Sport Integrity Australia
Anything that may constitute Prohibited Conduct under the Safeguarding Children and Young People Policy, or that may constitute discrimination based on a protected characteristic, should be reported to Sport Integrity Australia.
This includes conduct such as:
- Misconduct with a Child
- Sexual behaviour with or around a child
- Shaming, humiliating, intimidating or belittling a child
- Causing a child physical pain or discomfort
- Supplying of drugs or alcohol to a child
- Discrimination based on:
- Race or ethnicity
- Age
- Disability
- Sex or sexual orientation
- Religion
- Doping (managed under the sport’s Anti-Doping Policy).
You can also report any prohibited conduct under the Member Protection Policy, if it involves a child. To report Prohibited Conduct, visit Make an Integrity Complaint or Report.
Issues to report to your sport
ASAPD will manage complaints on all other National Integrity Framework (NIF) matters, as well as continuing to manage complaints on non-NIF issues.
This includes conduct such as:
- Bullying
- Abuse
- Harassment
- Victimisation
- Sexual Misconduct
- Match, race or competition fixing and other types of Competition Manipulation
- Supplying inside information for the purposes of gambling
- Betting by members on their own sport
- Unlawful use of over the counter or prescription drugs
- Inappropriate use or provision of supplements
- Use, possession or trafficking of illegal drugs
- Concealing information about Prohibited Conduct
- Selection and eligibility disputes
- Competition Rules disputes
- Code of Conduct breaches
- Social Media Policy breaches
- Governance misconduct
- Employment disputes
- Complaints that are solely a Personal Grievance
- Whistleblower disclosures
- Any conduct that occurred before your sports NIF commencement date
- Any other policies that your sport has.
To report any of the above, contact ASAPD.
Other support pathways
SAFE SPORT HOTLINE
1800 161 361
The Safe Sport Hotline is a place for anyone in sport to feel heard, seek support and guidance around integrity matters in sport.
CONNECT WITH SUPPORT
If you, or someone you care about, is struggling with an issue, it’s okay to reach out for support. Mental health or wellbeing support service providers. sportintegrity.gov.au/mental-health-and-wellbeing
BULLYING IN SPORT
Every person in sport, in every role, has the right to participate in an environment that is fun, safe and healthy, and to be treated with respect, dignity and fairness.
Learn more: Bullying in sport | Sport Integrity Australia.
ABUSIVE OR INAPPROPRIATE CONTENT ONLINE
If you have a concern about abusive or inappropriate material online, you can report it to the eSafety Commissioner for action. eSafety can investigate cyberbullying of children, adult cyber abuse, image-based abuse (sharing, or threatening to share, intimate images without the consent of the person shown) and illegal and restricted content.
SIA's Education Catalogue
Access Sport Intergrity Australia’s Education Catalogue HERE.
