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The Federal Government has announced that it is strengthening the safety of sport in Australia, investing more than $36.3 million over a five year period to tackle abuse, bullying, discrimination and sexual misconduct in sport.

The funding package to Sport Integrity Australia (SIA), covering the years from 2023/24 to 2027/28, aims to enhance the body’s capabilities and enable the delivery of new initiatives, including:

• The development of the Empowering Women and Girls in Sport program which will have a primary focus on safety and integrity issues facing women and girls;
• A new First Nations skills program to deal with disparities in participation and administration;
• The establishment of an Advisory Committee to support Sport Integrity Australia’s Culture and Safety Advisor Patrick Johnson address racism in sport;
• The enhancement of the Safe Sport Hotline and triage referral and reporting service;
• The provision of wellbeing and psychological services for staff, athletes and support personnel; and
• An enhancement of Sport Integrity Australia’s existing education services to be gender and culturally sensitive.

In a further demonstration of our desire to protect the integrity of sport, the Australian Government has also announced its commitment to the ratification of the Macolin Convention and the establishment of National Sport Integrity Offences.

The Macolin Convention is the only international convention aimed at combating competition manipulation in sport. Australia played a leading role in drafting the Convention and became a signatory in February 2019.

Explaining that, from playground to podium, Australians have the right to be safe while participating in sport, Federal Minister for Sport, Anika Wells stated “I am committed to ensuring the safety of everyone involved in sport in Australia, from playground to podium.

“We must do more to make sport safer and this $36.3 million dollar investment significantly improves Sport Integrity Australia’s capacity to protect all Australians involved in sport.

“This funding initiative builds upon my Safety in Sport Division announcement in October and provides Sport Integrity Australia with the capability to address issues such as abuse, discrimination and mistreatment across all levels of Australian sport.

“We have made substantial inroads in terms of integrity capability this year with 85 National Sporting Organisations signing up to Sport Integrity Australia’s National Integrity Framework.”

Image credit: Shutterstock.

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