Integrity Sport and Recreation Bill

I move, That the Integrity Sport and Recreation Bill be now read a third time.

I want to begin by thanking a large number of people who have been involved in the development of this legislation. We undertook a piece of work over the course of the last couple of years around integrity in sport, and that involved a wide range of stakeholders, beginning with a piece of work that delved quite deeply into integrity issues, consulted very, very widely. We in turn then developed the integrity transition committee, that’s being chaired by Don Mackinnon—not to be confused with a former member of the House—who is a well-known lawyer and sports lawyer, and supported by a range of other experienced people. I do want to just note the role here of Tim Castle, who is the current chair of the Drug Free Sport New Zealand board, because obviously they are being brought in here and other members of that committee. I particularly want to acknowledge the work of the Executive Director of that group, Rebecca Rolls, who has played a truly significant role in shepherding this legislation forward and working with all the officials from agencies across the board, including Sport New Zealand. I want to thank all of them for their work. I want to thank every member of the sporting and recreation community of New Zealand who took the time to submit, and who took the time to care about the issues that are in front of us today.

What we are creating here, I believe, is something that will ultimately improve the experience of a range of New Zealanders when they go about sport and recreation in their community. I think it’s going to mean that some people stay in sport when otherwise they would have left. I think it’s going to mean that some people, and I do not say this lightly, some people’s lives will be saved by this piece of legislation that we are passing tonight. On that note, I want to—and I did this, I believe, in an earlier reading—I want to acknowledge Olivia Podmore and the family of Olivia Podmore. While I can’t speak directly to issues that are currently before the coroner’s investigation, I do want to acknowledge Liv and her family and the tragedy that surrounded that.

I equally want to acknowledge all of those people who have courageously come forward to blow the whistle about things that have been happening in their sports, often women, often people who have been placed in quite difficult and vulnerable circumstances, who have put their hands up and said this is not right and it needs to change—sometimes at the elite level of our sports and other times just at the grassroots. This bill creates an entity where those people can go. They’ll be heard fairly, they’ll be heard independently, and they’ll know that something will happen. I don’t want to raise too many expectations on the body, they’re going to have a lot of work when they come together, but I do believe that place, that independent place where things can be handled well and transparently, will make sport better, will give people confidence, and, as I say, I ultimately believe it will also help save lives as well.

It’s also worth noting at this point the issues that have been raised by the select committee again, one more time. This is a situation where the committee has added real value to what we’re trying to do here—picked up some of the more challenging issues around definitional matters, around the way that the codes will be worked on, and made sure that we have a better bill, and that review clause that allows us to be able to come back and look at whether things are working, particularly when it does come to the codes.

I also want to acknowledge Drug Free Sport New Zealand again. Drug Free Sport New Zealand has been an extraordinary organisation to keep New Zealand sport clean. It’s also members of the Drug Free Sport New Zealand family, those who’ve been on the board, those who’ve been on the staff of it, that have played an extraordinary role internationally, at the World Anti-Doping Agency in particular, and I think here about the likes of David Howman who played such an important role in its establishment. Drug Free Sport New Zealand has done a great job and from this bill’s enactment onwards they become a critical part of this commission.

I want to acknowledge the current team there. As I said before, Tim Castle is the chair of the board, but also Nick Paterson who is the reasonably long-serving chief executive, who has done a tremendous job. Their work will carry on, and Mr Woodhouse raised this earlier, that the education piece is important. That’s what Drug Free Sport New Zealand has been doing really well over the last few years, is actually getting out there among competitors, even starting with senior secondary school students who are at the elite level saying, “Hey, this is what’s expected of you as you move through sport.” That education piece now becomes part of the wider commission’s work. But Drug Free Sport New Zealand, even if their name will disappear, what they’ve done and the path they’ve blazed on this is important, and I wanted to acknowledge that today.

I also wanted to acknowledge the issues that the committee dealt with around children’s rights. I absolutely agree with the work there and I want to acknowledge members of the committee who have supported us bringing that forward. Children in certain sports are made very vulnerable—I think it was Penny Simmonds who said it before, you reach the elite level quite quickly in a number of sports, and they are the ones where we really do need to look out for children’s rights as we go forward. So I think that work and the way in which the committee brought that forward is important.

The bill also acknowledges the diversity of our communities and I’m very pleased, as I said earlier on in the committee stage, that we’ve got a piece of law now that gives a good solid definition of our rainbow people that can be used to help guide the consultation that’s there. It’s important that those who are often marginalised are there, can see themselves, and see their place in there. Equally that we’ve got a focus on making sure that we’ve got people who have an understanding of tikanga and Te Ao Māori within the commission as well.

For me, this is a really important and significant day. As the Minister for Sport and Recreation, I’m immensely proud of what we do in New Zealand in sport, as we’ve seen in recent weeks and as we often see—what this does is give me confidence that we’re setting up a system where everyone gets a chance to be involved. No one should be excluded from sport and recreation in our communities. No one should feel unsafe when they are involved in sport and recreation in our communities. Everybody should have been included and have a pathway to resolving issues that they do not feel are fair, or that they do not feel they have been treated well, or their wellbeing has been looked after.

Sport, as I said before, brings communities together. What this bill does, I believe, is allow everyone to be a part of that community, and for that reason alone, I commend the bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, the Minister for Sport and Recreation’s speech has knocked several minutes off mine and I don’t need to prolong the debate, except to say that I endorse all of the acknowledgments and the thanks that he has given and a great deal of the reflections that he’s made.

One of the things that I have strongly supported is his efforts and his Government’s efforts to improve participation and success of women and girls in sport, and it’s been an appropriate thing to do, but, goodness me, he’s been a bit lucky. He was very lucky that Caroline Drouin missed the penalty at the end of the world cup semi-final last year, and he was very lucky that Hannah Wilkinson didn’t miss and set up the circumstances for what has been a spectacular showcase of women’s sport in Australasia. We are now 72 minutes away from kick-off in the in the women’s football Ashes—

Hon Grant Robertson: This has not escaped me!

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: —don’t worry, I won’t be going for 72 minutes, Minister—and we will see that showcase again. It’s just been a brilliant example of how, when a product as good as that is is brought to the attention of the public, the public will support it. I think there’s a salient lesson for all of us in that. I mean, for sports nuts—you know, I’ll watch dog long jumping. I don’t care what competitive endeavour it is; I’ll do that.

Hon Grant Robertson: I’ll just see whether that’s in the code!

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: It used to be a thing, apparently, in the 1990s. But we do need to bring, particularly, elite women’s sport, obviously, to the forefront, and I think those two tournaments have gone a long way to doing that.

But there’s no candy coating the reality that for too many of our athletes and our participants in sport, there have been times when events have fallen well below the standard that we would expect, and this integrity framework will do a number of things, not the least of which will prevent—and I appreciate the Minister’s comments about that. Now, he talked about the education piece particularly in the context of Drug Free Sport New Zealand, but there’s no doubt that the fear of getting caught and the serious consequences of getting caught with illegal substances has had a significant moderating behaviour—maybe not for Tour de France, but, you know, everything else; I should say that under privilege, but for everything else I reckon there’s a certain deterrent element there. So, education, yes, but deterrent is important, and I think that I would like to see that with the integrity codes for non-drug issues, because if I reflect on some of the anecdotes that have been provided to me and to Mark Mitchell when he was the spokesperson, there did seem to be a downplaying or a denial or a contextualising of unacceptable behaviour.

Also, we’ve seen incidents where individuals who were perpetrators—for want of a better term—popped back up again in what is a very narrow ecosystem in New Zealand sports organisations. I think it’s really important that as we implement our integrity codes and work hard to prevent, there also has to be a significant consequence for those who breach those codes. Now, for sport that might be a life ban—you know, it doesn’t actually need to be monetary or punitive in the traditional sense. People in this country love their sport, and if they knew that their errant behaviour, that fell below the crimes level that the Minister was talking about, may lead them to not being able to participate in the future, either as athletes or as coaches or volunteers, then I hope that would have a moderating behaviour.

But I agree with the Minister—I said it in my second reading speech—prevention; education; coaching, effectively, of what are appropriate standards; and then processes for dealing with disputes and breaches, as we aspire to, will I think, see a much, much higher level of integrity in our games. As Mr Robertson said, there is a lot of work to do. This isn’t the beginning of the end; it’s the end of the beginning, to quote a famous politician, and I wish him all the best for the seven or eight weeks he has left in that role before there may be a change, but whoever—whoever—is in Government after 14 October and whoever is the Minister after then, the Government can be assured that this is a framework and a bill that has, I think, widespread support and will continue to be implemented whatever happens in October.

Given the member’s comments on the Tour de France, perhaps it’s fortunate he’s not attending the Rugby World Cup with the parliamentary team this year!

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m going to take a very short call on this bill, but I want to acknowledge the Minister for the shepherding of this bill through the House and our officials for all the support they have given us. I have to say that this has been a very important piece of legislation to work on. I do agree this will save lives. It will also prevent, I believe, so much harm.

I think back to when I was a little sportsgirl playing soccer, and then I played hockey, and I did surfing, and I did diving, and I had a whole pile of sports. One of the things that we do in this country as Kiwi kids is we play sports, and I’m delighted that we are going to put the grassroots protections in place as well as the elite sports. No longer is it going to win at all costs, now it is going to be about making sure we win and we win well, and our people are taken care of. I commend this bill to the House.

I will be brief, in the acknowledgment that there is a game that people want to get to tonight. But, look, I only worked with the Minister for a short time when I had the portfolio, but there was no question, and you cannot doubt not only his passion for sport but his passion for making sure that our codes, our sports, our sportspeople, the families involved, and the community have got a framework that actually makes it a safe place for everyone, and I think that he has been committed to this.

He has brought a piece of legislation to the House that he has found broad party support for, and although he got up and he said—and he alluded to the fact that he feels like this piece of legislation could save lives. And that may seem funny in the context that it’s an Integrity Sport and Recreation Bill, but he is absolutely right. He’s absolutely right that this is going to provide a safe place and a backstop for someone to be able to engage with—and we talk about high-performance sport, and we know how much pressure comes to bear on these high-performance sportspeople. A lot of it they put on themselves, because that’s why they’re there—they want to be the best—but there’s pressure and issues right through all of our codes, whether it’s grass roots right through to high performance.

So I just have to say that we haven’t spoken about it that much in the House tonight, but a lot of the social issues that we deal with as a country—if we could get an increased engagement in young people, particularly in sport, then we could actually provide strong role models and mentors, we could give them somewhere where they feel a part of something, and it could actually go a long way to getting them on to a positive track and not a negative one.

And so I just want to acknowledge the Minister. I want to acknowledge the Minister for staying committed and focused on getting this bill through and being willing to listen to and engage in cross-party discussion and debate on the bill so that we can stand in this House tonight, and I’m very happy to support the third reading of this bill. Thank you.

Thank you, e te Mana Whakawā. It’s always an honour and a privilege to make a contribution in this House, but especially in the Integrity Sport and Recreation Bill. This bill is about setting up the Integrity Sport and Recreation Commission and sets out its powers and functions. I thought what I would do is I would actually describe what the bill defines as “threats to integrity”. So threats to integrity include competition manipulation; corruption and fraud; use of prohibited substances, which is doping; abuse, including abuse of children; bullying; violence; harassment; intimidation and racism; and all other forms of discrimination. So what the commission will do—I felt that that needed to be said, because that’s the focus of this bill, and that’s why a commission is set up to do that.

So the commission, their roles and responsibilities—their seven to nine members, which will have two people who have knowledge and experience of tikanga Māori—are to, one, promote, advise, and educate on integrity issues and threats to integrity within sport and physical recreation. It will engage with participants in the sport and recreation sector on integrity issues. It will develop and issue integrity codes, including to set a minimum standard of conduct. Of course, it would prescribe policies and procedures for complaints management and dispute resolution. And, of course, it will implement the World Anti-Doping Code and facilitate our compliance to it as a country. With the bill, as we’ve spoken about before, it will review codes in three years, and the Minister for Sport and Recreation will review it within five years.

We’ve just finished the Netball World Cup, and I can’t finish my contribution without acknowledging the Silver Ferns who, unfortunately, came fourth. But Tonga, the Tala—the Tongan netball team—came eighth, and I just want to congratulate the Tongans on that. And the Fiji Pearls were 14th in the in the Netball World Cup. And I look forward—

Hon Grant Robertson: Oh, so the Tongans beat the Fijians.

ANAHILA KANONGATA’A: Just saying, you know. And I just want to acknowledge everyone that’s contributed into this bill, particularly the Minister, because integrity is saying what you’re saying and doing what you’ve said, and you’ve done that, Minister. I commend this bill to the House. Mālō.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I stand on behalf of the ACT Party and my two colleagues Karen Chhour and Damien Smith, who have been part of the select committee process going forward.

When I stood to stand for my—stood to stand! When I stood for my second reading speech, I spoke to one aspect of this bill and promised that in my third reading I would speak to other aspects within the bill as well. I’d like to start off with some of the positives that we can see in this bill.

All sports face some sort of doping or match-fixing issues and this bill is hoping to make those issues administratively tidy. I think that that is really quite important and a good aspect of this bill. We do have the World Anti-Doping League, and in fact I’ve been a part of having to comply with some of the rules and regulations around there. So being able to pull what is the drug agency right now into a new portfolio actually sounds like a really good idea.

We also like the idea about the addition of the word “people” and the removal of “communities”. So we’re no longer talking about rainbow communities, but rainbow people. It actually becomes that we do integrate everybody, not as a community as such but as individuals. And in a lot of our sports, that’s what we’re dealing with, individuals in sports rather than communities in sports. So we agree with that change as well.

Some sports also face challenges, such as being called out on bullying culture in some disciplines, and some disciplines are worse than others, especially when it comes to our children. Hearing, over the discussions tonight, that there was some expert commentary, especially from Emily Henderson, who has worked really hard with children, to be able to put that concept into the mind, to upgrade the bill to make sure that it is fit for purpose when we’re dealing with our kids—some of them in some of the disciplines actually do need to make sure that there is somebody looking after them, looking over them, and it looks like this will look to address that. But ACT still has concerns about the bill, hence our opposition at first and second readings and continued opposition as we come into this, the third and final reading.

While there are some aspects of the bill that we agree with in what they are trying to achieve, we do not believe that creating more Government bureaucracy is actually going to achieve what is needed here. The bill creates a central bureaucracy that writes integrity codes and then it acts as the investigator as well as the judiciary on those matters. It even decides penalty or redress and the costs of implementing their desires is also maintained by them as well. It reminds me of New Zealand Police in the firearms section where they write policy, they administer it, they enforce it, and we have issues there when you just have one agency trying to do all of that work. So we do have legitimate concerns around that.

If individual sports don’t want to participate in this, we’re told within the bill that they can opt out of participation. So that’s good to see that that’s in there. But we do note that there was a time when New Zealand Rugby was fined $280,000 and they actually look set to lose $600,000 of their funding because they hadn’t met the 40 percent gender diversity quota for the make-up of their board. So, again, we do have a little bit of concern that if people do not opt in to the code, there could be some sort of penalty—hopefully, not financial—for not doing so. ACT is sceptical that one-size-fits-all and centralised solutions do not always work. So ACT is sceptical of this approach, especially when it gives sweeping powers to the commission.

More importantly, it has not recognised the significance of women and girls in sport, especially at a time when we do have the women’s football world cup running here. It is strange that women and their plight for fairness in sport has actually been totally ignored in this bill. But we are pleased that women and girls have been included in the bill at select committee. But really? Just as stakeholders and that’s it? We could have gone further there and made sure that they have a representative on the board, but the Government has decided that women don’t need that place there. So it’s important that women are not left out and that’s our view there. ACT did recommend a Supplementary Order Paper that would include them, but, as I mentioned, Labour have turned it down. ACT also want to protect women’s sports. Hence our other amendment directly incorporating section 49 of the Human Rights Act into the bill. I say it’s for clarity; it’s actually for the parents of young girls out there in our community who are seeking the clarity.

The bureaucracy that is coming from Labour at the moment is just absolute madness. We do have integrity issues in sport, but we also have Sport New Zealand and we have High Performance Sport New Zealand as well. And rather than creating a whole new layer of bureaucracy there, why are we not just sending people in to teach, to learn, to be a part of these two organisations to ensure that integrity is well and truly embedded within those two organisations?

Instead, we’re just looking to create more bureaucracy, more taxpayer money being spent in areas where it could have been lightened if we’d utilise what we already have instead of creating this whole new centre to look at sports. We don’t need another bureaucratic arm. We don’t need another commission. We have so many of them. When we’ve put lots of costs, lots of taxpayer money into establishing a whole lot of commissions, and we have worse outcomes occurring for New Zealanders at the moment, I don’t see how spending more money is actually going to make a difference.

Integrity in sport absolutely needs help, and we have two foundations that are already set up at grassroots level. If we offered assistance to those foundations, we could actually have an impact because they already know the business. We’ve done quite well on the world stage in all of our sporting codes without having to have a centralised commission telling us what to do, how to do it, when to do it, and what the punishment is if we don’t. We have been successful in our own right.

What we need to do is protect the people, protect the sportsmen, sportswomen and people out there and especially our children. On the issues determined to be too hard, like the transgender participation in women’s sports that I mentioned, the answers throughout the select committee report actually shows that it was an issue. If we are to have a commission, then we need to deal with the issues and stop shying away from being able to talk about them; not doing something about them and placing the emphasis back on to international settings. If we’re going to have a commission deal with the issues and stop referring back to those international codes, we need to, if we’re going to use a commission, actually look at New Zealand regulations for New Zealand sports.

I started this third reading speech by commenting on some of the good things that this bill can achieve. But the reality is it’s just another bureaucratic arm of this Government telling New Zealanders what they can and cannot do, how they conduct themselves in sport, and how to cause dysfunction among existing agencies. We cannot support this bill on that basis.

Every now and then, a representative from each party gets up and congratulates our sporting bodies for their successes overseas.

But if we scratch the surface of our speeches, there are massive underlying issues with high-performance athletes coming to us as representatives, and to our Government bodies, highlighting that there is a crisis when it comes to the wellbeing of our athletes. I want to acknowledge Olivia Podmore and her whānau for their advocacy and bringing this to Parliament, and for the many other athletes and sporting bodies that have advocated for this bill to finally—almost—come to fruition.

So I find the ACT Party’s comments to say things like that we’ve done well and have successes overseas, and to then brush off the need to have a unit to look at threats to integrity, frankly, dismissive of the voices of the athletes who have been calling for Government to act on this. This is about setting a unit that will look at ensuring that we have fit-for-purpose standards and regulations to look after our athletes. To call it things like “bloated bureaucracy”, as ACT often calls it, is completely out of line with what this bill is trying to do. More than anything, it really shows that they’re guided, more often than not, by headline-catching sound bites that have nothing to do with the bill.

If the ACT Party was so concerned about representation of women in the board of this unit, they could have supported our Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) to actually have gender balance in the board rather than just throw out sound bites for social media.

But I want to commend the Minister for bringing this bill forward. I want to also acknowledge our officials who worked really constructively in the select committee—our Social Services and Community Committee—who worked in a really, really constructive spirit to improve this bill and of the submissions that we’ve heard. I want to also thank the Labour Party for supporting my SOP to ensure that the rights of rainbow people were being considered as part of the make-up of the board.

I think this will ensure that a broader range of perspectives and rights are considered, particularly when we’ve seen how anti-doping provisions have been weaponised against trans people—which ironically end up then disproportionately impacting cis women—it’s really, really important that we get these provisions right. So I want to thank the Labour Party for their support and ensuring that we have great protections to get this right.

Finally, I also want to acknowledge that as this bill passes, we’re going to need to resource the unit adequately to ensure that this unit’s able to consult with the stakeholders that are listed in this bill. That will be key to ensure that we get it right. I particularly want to acknowledge that with the e-sports scenes, this will be critical because it is a growing scene. It is one where we have literal stadium-sized audiences watching e-sports athletes, but massive challenges in terms of substances that are being used by the athletes that are not currently actually considered by the public as substances that would have performance-altering effects. Having a unit that is well resourced will ensure that this is tackled.

Because, as the National Party members talked about, sport can play a huge role in improving social cohesion and bringing us together as communities. So therefore we need to consider the wide range of sports that are out there.

Threats to integrity, as defined in this bill include racism, and I wanted to pay tribute to the Manukau United Football Club, who released a report recently on racism in football. I think there’s been many bodies that have talked about threats to integrity in many different ways, and it’s great that those bodies will now be able to engage with those threats to integrity now with the unit that is going to be set up.

So I think if we all continue working constructively, based with evidence, and guided by the people affected by this bill, we’re going to have a brighter future and improve the wellbeing of our athletes. So the Green Party looks forward to commending this bill and seeing its passage.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Um, the member—

Dr Anae Neru Leavasa: Anae.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Anae Neru Leavasa. Thank you.

Thank you—thank you, Mr Speaker.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I was expecting Jamie Strange.

Dr ANAE NERU LEAVASA: It’s OK. I subbed in—on the field, so thank you, Mr Speaker.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Good sporting analogy.

Dr ANAE NERU LEAVASA: Ha, ha! So it’s great just to take a brief call on the third reading of this bill, and I just want to thank the Minister Grant Robertson for answering some of those questions during the committee of the whole House and, again, thanking my colleagues in the select committee for your awesome work and the awesome submitters that came through, through that process.

I just want to focus my brief comments on the sports anti-doping functions that will absorbed into the commission, and I just want to acknowledge the work of Drug Free Sport New Zealand—their tremendous work, not only with athletes, but also with health professionals.

During my years as a sports doctor, I’ve been very thankful to Drug Free Sport New Zealand for their work in training and education for us health professionals and providing the care to our athletes. When you’re looking after sports teams, you get athletes messaging you any time, 24/7, in regards to anything that they’re taking, whether it be medicines or supplements, so I thank Drug Free Sport New Zealand for providing those resources that we can always recheck and providing that resource for our athletes.

One other thing that I want to mention as well is the independence of the commission, because I’ve seen other teams, when players do make complaints, those players are dropped from the team. So having this independent avenue for our athletes will make a huge difference—and also to keep it confidential when integrity matters are raised.

It’d be pretty sad to see, whether it be grassroots sport or even elite sports—seeing some of our rugby teams and the countries that they represent make complaints and then get dropped and they’re not seen at the world cup. I won’t mention countries, but it’s really said to see, so having this provision in this bill will make a huge difference for our athletes. On that note, I commend this bill to the House.

It’s a great and glorious evening when I can stand to support a Government bill, and today is that evening. I’ve got time. But I’ve got to scaffold some of those comments, some of those tributes and congratulations to the Minister, noted athlete, for this Government’s support of the FIFA Women’s World Cup and many other successful events recently. Not just the best women’s world cup ever—so far, three games to go—but maybe the best world cup ever.

Over the past 30 years, there’s been a number of integrity issues across a wide variety of sports organisations in New Zealand—basketball, canoeing, cycling, rugby, even dragon boating in today’s news. We’ve collectively let a lot of people down as a country, especially with the management and resolution of complaints and integrity issues. But establishing a focused commission to raise awareness and engage and ensure integrity in my view is a very persuasive idea, subject to delivery in a fiscally, culturally, and socially prudent manner.

One issue that some people forgot to raise during the select committee process, but I think is absolutely necessary to opine on today, is an exemption, a retrospective application to a rugby match between the Te Aute first XV and Rotorua Boys’ High first XV in 1993, when a young Billy Weepu, brother of Piri, Karl Te Nana, and myself lost 23-19 to a Chris Grinter - trained team. Chris Grinter was the principal and coach of the Rotorua Boys’ High School that day, and continues to be the principal today, whereas my rugby career is a distant memory. We scored three tries to one, but still lost.

But I’ll remind all of those here in the House today of the absolute focus, integrity focus, in my whanaunga over there from Takanini and also Hamilton—great city. I know about the absolute focus on integrity in first XV rugby and the Maadi Cup, and this type of commission I hope will help to educate and help to grapple with some of those issues that are affecting the various schools but, more importantly, the young woman and men and their teams and coaches involved in those particular well-known competitions, the 1A in Auckland and the Maadi Cup.

Now, I appreciated the phrase “threat to integrity” enunciated in Part 1, and the careful definition of this, and I certainly hope that that sort of definition continues on to other pieces of legislation that the current Government promotes. The lack of support for athletes’ wellbeing is well documented, as is the need for change, and the select committee has worked hard to address some of the issues that our party has raised along the way, such as vague wording and set-up costs.

Perhaps a couple of conclusory and summary comments: No. 1, sports is a fantastic way to get kids engaged—young kids and old kids—and I think back to school and doing things after school. There’s plenty of examples throughout the world in far-flung places like Iceland, where the teachers were schooled up in how to teach music and how to teach kids, and maybe that’s something—no matter what colour we wear in this House—that we can support more of through teacher training programmes and teacher training colleges.

The second one that I’d like to make a comment on, just in passing, is the physical head injuries that people in contact sports are suffering—it’s an absolute concern. It’s something that our health and social systems should carefully consider more of and support those athletes who are suffering from those quite damaging encephalitis injuries.

The third thing—and with a nod to this evening’s game—is the celebration of female athletes. No matter what the level, this is something that I’ve absolutely appreciated an increase of and encouragement towards and support, whether it’s the FIFA Women’s World Cup or the Saturday netball down at an Minogue Park in Hamilton West, which is the best place to grow up and also the home of the national secondary schools rugby and netball champions, Hamilton Girls’ High School. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

I apologise to the member for not reminding him it was a five-minute call, so thank you for adapting.

Kia ora e te Māngai o te Whare. I rise again to take a short call on this matter, and I too want to congratulate the Minister, whose championing of opportunities for women and girls in sport I have greatly appreciated, even though I am probably the last person of this House who will ever take advantage of any of them!

I want to speak briefly on the matters that were raised by my colleague from the ACT Party earlier, Nicole McKee. She commented that she sees this creation of a commission to deal with complaints and challenges to the integrity of sports that occur from time to time in sporting disciplines—that she considers this to be over-bureaucratic, if I can paraphrase, “nonsense” that is going to take up too much time and money, and the better approach would be simply to educate our sports organisations out of bad behaviour. Would that we could—

Simon Court: Tell me about the bad behaviour. Give us some examples!

Dr EMILY HENDERSON: We have had too many occasions unfortunately—

Simon Court: Give us one!

Dr EMILY HENDERSON: We’ve got a comment coming from across the House from a member from the ACT Party who appears unaware, so let’s talk about some of those behaviours. In any organisation where you have hierarchy, when you have big disparities in the power between those who are working, those who are young sportswomen—and in particular, I’m thinking of the young gymnasts that we have had worldwide and in New Zealand come forward to talk about the physical, emotional, and sexual abuse to which they were subject by coaches to whom they did not feel they could speak back. And we have had those examples again and again and again. Where we have well-meaning sports organisations which are largely run by volunteers, the risks that you are going to get inappropriate and unsafe behaviours develop over time becomes worse. Our sportspeople have said, “We need an organisation to independently review and assess what is going on and to police this behaviour”. This is what this bill sets up, and I am very happy to commend it to the House.

I too would like to put on record my sadness that the ACT Party have confused integrity with bureaucracy, and also to thank the Minister who has really shown great integrity himself in his approach to the sports portfolio in recognising that sports is another avenue for young people to be able to achieve excellence and fulfilment in their life, and particularly for young women. What we have seen with the FIFA success is the money, the pressure, and the opportunity. So an estimated $200 million worth of benefit to New Zealand, 20,000 extra tourists, but also we can see the pressure of high performance sports and the opportunities for countries like New Zealand when there’s already conversations about potential future Commonwealth Games. And certainly, as the MP for Taieri, I can see the opportunity around our upgraded sports facilities at Tahuna Park. So it’s very timely this bill is here tonight with the semi-final that we’re about to play, and ironic that ACT should suggest comments about not supporting women in sports when, in fact, the event funding that has led to us being able to host FIFA would be cut under an ACT-National Government.

My real point is that this legislation can’t come soon enough, because, when we’re looking at the nature of sports and young sportspeople, it’s inherently physical. There’s physicality. There’s also the influence of drugs or doping and the vulnerability. And the third element is that really intimate relationship between coaches and young participants. So it’s really important in order to keep the integrity of that and the safety of our young people that we need an independent commission. I’m so glad that we have the support from the other side of the House. The list of those codes that have experienced problems that Tama Potaka mentioned also includes gymnastics. This can’t come a moment soon enough. I want to thank the Minister for what he’s done for women’s sports and I commend the bill to the House.

Thank you so much, Mr Speaker. I’m pleased to rise in this final reading to speak in support of the Integrity Sport and Recreation Bill. Can I thank the Minister for Sport and Recreation for the very open debate that we had on the mandatory versus voluntary, in the committee of the whole House. It was something that we had flagged that, as a party, we had some concerns around, but I think that we were given a very full explanation and an ability to think a little bit further on that. And I think that in looking at this in hindsight, the fact that they have fallen on the side of voluntary rather than mandatory has been a sensible decision, particularly recognising the value of having buy-in from sports codes rather than mandating. So I thank the Minister for his openness on that particular point.

I think too some of the points that he bought up reinforced that, while it will be voluntary, there will be some fairly significant mitigating aspects of that, not the least being that there is that public interest test where if it is deemed to be sufficient, regardless of whether you’ve bought in or not, there will be an ability for the Integrity Sport and Recreation Commission to be involved. So that’s certainly a mitigating fact. There is also the fact that around doping in sport there are aspects of that that are mandatory because of the international sporting body requirements. So that, and the fact that this can be reviewed in three years’ time to see how it’s working, all, I think, gives sufficient comfort to consider that falling on that side of voluntary was the right thing to do at this time. So thank you for that.

Just reflecting on how this encompasses and then broadens out from the Drug Free Sport New Zealand—disestablishing that, morphing it into this much broader commission—I was reflecting on what sort of secondary benefits we might get from this now being broader. I looked at things like collation of data, the ability to track trends across sporting codes, and the ability to share best practice. You know, I think there will be secondary benefits that come from this that we perhaps haven’t even thought of. That is not in any way diminishing the very good service that we have had from Drug Free Sport New Zealand and the functions that they have undertaken.

I was thinking back, as we were speaking on this, to just how long ago it was that I was introduced to this as a coach. I think it was when I was coaching an under-18 team, so it would have to be in excess of 15 years ago. It was an under-18 hockey team. That the drug-free aspects were brought into that level, on that age group, and normalizing it at that age group, allowed that education component of it. So I am a great believer in things not being compulsory to be mandatory, and to put the emphasis on the education and prevention.

I’m not going to go on at length with this, but there is one point I do want to make—and I know we’re all very keen to be able to watch, perhaps, the semi-final across the ditch. At the risk of jeopardising trans-Tasman relationships, I have to say that I am rooting for the English team, and for one particular reason: they are the only team left with a head coach that is female. In fact, even at the eight team part of the tournament, they were the only team with a female head coach left. I remember that we had these challenges in hockey of being able to progress female coaches through, and I’m not sure whether it’s heartening or disheartening to see that, actually, this is something that’s obviously on a global scale. I know we’re speaking a little bit broader than this bill and a little bit broader in matters of integrity, but it is nonetheless a very important matter of women’s coaches being valued and progressed in women’s sport. So for that reason, when we are able to watch the semi-final in about 20 minutes’ time, I will be cheering for the English team. With that, I support this bill.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to take the final call tonight on the Integrity Sport and Recreation Bill, and can I thank the Minister for his work, particularly to promote women and girls in sport. I want to just note my wonderful sister who actually could have ended up playing football for New Zealand if it wasn’t for the fact that she did one of her knees while playing in America. She didn’t have the opportunities as a youngster than so many of our girls do today, so I’m so pleased to see that progress.

I want to pay particular attention in my short call tonight to the importance of protecting children in sport and acknowledge one of the submitters, a wonderful organisation based in my electorate of Nelson called Safeguarding Children. I want to acknowledge their founder and leader, Willow Duffy, who does remarkable work with sports organisations across New Zealand to address their child protection policies and ensure that they are doing everything they can to protect child in sport.

We have seen, unfortunately, incidences in previous years and decades where historical issues have come to light that are unacceptable in terms of their treatment of children. There are a couple of changes in the bill that I do want to note that specifically resulted from their submission.

One is around amending the Children’s Act to ensure that the new commission has to adopt and report on a child protection policy. So I want to give a shout-out to Willow Duffy tonight, because this is the policy that she is always in my ear about for every organisation that works with children, and I know that she will be very pleased to see this change.

The other change in the bill that came through that I also want to acknowledge Safeguarding Children for was ensuring that there are age-appropriate dispute resolution processes involved and if young people do bring allegations that there is child-friendly processes. Having worked in this area myself, alongside people like Willow, I know how important it is that when young people raise allegations that these are taken seriously and in a sensitive way to ensure our young people are supported.

This is an excellent bill. It will help progress the importance of sport in our country in ensuring that integrity, that safety, and that appropriate mechanisms for keeping people involved and engaged in sport are adhered to in years to come. I commend it to the House.