http://www.theaustralian.com.au/spo...cc-investigation/story-e6frg7mf-1226578247263
Drugs inquiry 'amateur hour' - former senator John Black slams ACC investigation
JOHN Black, the former Labor senator who in the late 1980s chaired the first government-appointed inquiry into drugs in sport in Australia, has labelled the present Australian Crime Commission investigation as "amateur hour".
The Senate inquiry headed by Black, which ran concurrently with the Dubin inquiry set up by Canada after Ben Johnson tested positive at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, pioneered drugs-in-sport reform not just in this country but globally. It led directly to the establishment of the Australian Sports Drug Agency - the forerunner to the present Australian Sports Anti-Doping Agency - and indirectly to the creation in 1999 of the World Anti-Doping Agency.
The Black inquiry, conducted nearly a quarter of a century ago, covered virtually the same ground being explored by the ACC, including the possibility of organised crime infiltrating sport through the supply of drugs, the danger associated with athletes being administered drugs intended for veterinary use and the involvement of corrupt doctors and sporting officials.
Ironically, Black recommended the creation of not just a drug-testing authority to come under the control of the health minister but of a separate investigative body - much like the ACC - that would be subject to a law-enforcement minister.
A "reform weary" Hawke government set up only the drug-testing body and although the Howard government in 2004 rebranded ASDA as ASADA and gave the new body broader investigative powers, Black is convinced the original plan for two separate bodies would have served Australian sport better.
He argued that the problem of drugs in sport warranted constant and ongoing supervision and called for the establishment of a new Senate inquiry or the creation of a standing royal commission.
"That need clearly still exists and, if anything, it's made all the more urgent by 20 years of people sitting on their hands," Black told The Australian yesterday.
But he has little regard for the way the present investigation has been handled and sympathises with innocent athletes and sports angered by the fact they have been embroiled in what he views as a fairly cynical political exercise.
"Well, why the hell wouldn't they (be angry)?" he asked. "It was just amateur hour. You looked at it and you thought, 'Oh my god, this is going to end in tears.' But it kept the Eddie Obeid (ICAC) inquiry off the front pages for a week, so that was the purpose of it.
"It was clearly some kind of media diversion but it was at the expense of sport. It's had a melancholy and predictable conclusion, that very little is going to get done, I think, out of this. And unfortunately, people are going to be much more wary of people crying wolf next time.
"Next time there is a problem, they will be that much more reluctant to act on it. I think it has been poorly handled, the whole thing. If you've got intelligence, almost by definition you sit on it and you use it. You don't tell the world."
Yet even the earth-shaking revelations to emerge from the orchestrated press conference given by Justice Minister Jason Clare, Sport Minister Kate Lundy and the ACC - with the heads of Australia's major sporting bodies in attendance and lending weight to the occasion - surprised Black not at all.
"Nothing I read or heard about the ACC report was anything we weren't familiar with 23 years ago," he said.
"Why wouldn't organised crime be involved with sports drugs because traditionally the police don't do anything about it? It's just money for jam."
The one issue the ACC had investigated that was left untouched by the Senate inquiry in the late 80s was the extent of gambling in sport.
But since the sports are willing participants in that gambling and, indeed, profit from it while punishing any of their athletes who get involved in it, he had little sympathy for them.
"I am just appalled at the advertising for gambling in sports programs, the current exotic betting odds ... I'm repelled by that. I think it's appalling and I think the sports that do it should be condemned for it.
"The emerging problem that has come up has been gambling and sport has embraced it.
"I don't get how a government can get all wowser-ish about tobacco and then turn a blind eye to this.
"And I don't know how sport can embrace it either, bearing in mind what has happened on the subcontinent. It's sitting up and begging for trouble."
Black, too, believed the AFL had reaped what it sowed when it rejected his recommendation that any player found guilty of taking drugs should be banned for two years for a first offence and then for life for any subsequent offence.
"Well, the AFL has circumvented its way around that with its three-strikes policy," said Black, who worked with both the AFL and the then NSWRL, the precursor to the NRL, in setting up their drug-enforcement policies. "We recommended against that 23 years ago!" He revealed he had strongly cautioned the NSWRL against adopting an interchange rule because he feared it would lead to the creation of a drug culture in rugby league but had been politely ignored.
"You're asking for trouble because a guy who is chemically enhanced can come on, perform like a battering ram for 10 minutes, come off, rest up and come back and do it again and I don't think that's fair on guys who can play 80 minutes of football, for a start.
"But knowing what I know about what can bring up that sort of condition, I don't like it."
Black also regrets that his committee's recommendation that any sport that experienced three drug positives within a 12-month period should los its government funding for a year was not implemented.
Asked if such a proposal was still viable, he replied: "Absolutely. Chuck them out. You've got schoolkids, you want to send them along to school and you don't want them to be involved in a sport that is peddling dope."
