Fenton Darien: Sports Anti-Doping Bill — First Reading 
Fenton Darien: Sports Anti-Doping Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:628;Page:986] 
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 Of course with the 2003 code this situation has now changed which means our legislation is outdated.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.