Locke Keith: Sports Anti-Doping Bill — Third Reading 
Locke Keith: Sports Anti-Doping Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:634;Page:6197] 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 The Green Party of course supports the Sports Anti-Doping Bill but I want to talk in its third reading on why sports doping itself is more prevalent now than it was in the past and why people have such a desperation to win that they will affect their own health so dramatically. Of course some of them die very young and we need just to see examples of that like Robin Tait and Graham May in New Zealand sport or Florence Griffith Joyner the American woman athlete. The suspicion is that the drugs they took had some impact on their shorter lives. 
I think there are four reasons—although there has been change over time—why people are motivated to win at all costs and to take drugs to do so. The first is the simple reason of the personal gratification of winning. That has been unchanged over time but I do not think that it alone pushes people into drug taking very much. 
The second factor is public acclaim which has been with us for a long time too but I think its nature has changed. New Zealand’s great winner in the 1500 metres at the 1936 Berlin Olympics Jack Lovelock got great public acclaim—domestically in New Zealand and internationally. But the nature of the acclaim athletes win has changed as we have become a more globalised world. The era of global communications television coverage etc. means that an athlete’s victory is more immediately seen by billions of people around the world particularly if it is at an Olympic Games. Athletes can travel around the world much more easily live in the aura of their victories and be acclaimed by people in many lands. There is quite a difference I think between a Jack Lovelock and what he could do following his 1500-metre victory in 1936 and what for instance Carl Lewis was able to achieve in the athletics world in terms of public acclaim. The latter became not just a victor but a celebrity on a world stage. 
The third factor that pushes people towards drug taking is national pride. That motivates individuals to do well; they want to do well for their nation. But there is a bad side to it as well particularly in terms of the people behind the athletes—the people pushing the athletes. Sometimes national pride in relation to the activities of national sports organisations can lead to drug taking. We have seen that particularly in the more authoritarian countries that want the glory of sports success to shore up their reputations both domestically and internationally. We saw it with the Nazis back in the 1930s. They wanted to win a lot of medals etc. at the Olympics to gain domestic support and to try to reduce the criticisms of their policies internationally. 
The practice carried on in the post-war years in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe where there was a huge amount of drug taking by athletes. Some of the world records on the books today particularly in respect of women’s athletics were attained by Eastern European athletes whom everyone now recognises were into wholesale drug taking. Drug taking was organised by the sporting authorities. In fact sportspeople would not get into teams unless they took drugs. I think the same thing occurred in China for a period particularly when women distance athletes were breaking world records some of which are still on the books. The women’s world record for the 1500 metres is an example. Beyond the authoritarian countries some other countries turned a blind eye to drug taking in sports for a period. The United States athletic authorities turned a blind eye to some of their country’s sprinters in particular taking drugs but those people were subsequently caught out by drug tests. It does not happen so much in the US today because a better sporting regime is in place. 
The fourth factor that is becoming more and more important in terms of pushing people into drug taking is the money involved in sport as we have moved not only to professional sports on a more universal basis but also to global sport where a huge amount of money is available to teams that win. Sportspeople in those teams or individuals in global sport particularly soccer tennis golf and basketball can become multimillionaires very quickly if they win. Their winning attracts global sponsorship such as has happened for people like Michael Jordan Tiger Woods and Carl Lewis etc. 
So all of those four factors put great temptation in front of sportspeople to take drugs and the sporting bodies to encourage or somehow allow that to happen. It is good that this bill is part of an international movement to establish proper processes to reduce the possibility of that although it is a battle between those who are involved in doping and are well-financed because of all the rewards I have just talked about and the sporting authorities which sometimes have less funds to keep up. 
As there is always a bit of a delay between the development of the method of doping and the development of the testing regime I think it is important to try to get around that by keeping blood samples for a while so that new tests can be applied to them. That would mean that people who cheat by using drugs can perhaps be caught out a year or two later and have their medals taken off them. Also I think the penalties have to be very strong. In professional sports there needs to be much more banning for life rather than for just a 6-month or year suspension. I think that a serious penalty is needed. 
It is incumbent on every sports body and agency in New Zealand to try to change the culture as much as possible in terms of the four factors I have mentioned so that drug taking does not take place. Perhaps in one respect the Government and Sport and Recreation New Zealand need to have another look at their practices. I support most of what the Government and Sport and Recreation New Zealand are doing in terms of funding sport. Sport and Recreation New Zealand has two funds: one for high performance sport and one for generally encouraging more participation in sport. Unfortunately with the high performance grants that Sport and Recreation New Zealand gives there has been some debate of late in terms of the latest round of funding. In its choice of sport it seems to be encouraging the concept that winning is all. That has been to the disadvantage of high-participation sports like soccer. The soccer people have been a bit critical of Sport and Recreation New Zealand in this respect. Even though more kids play soccer it is very hard for the New Zealand soccer team to win internationally—that is to win the World Cup—so the high-performance grants tend to be given to other sports. 
I am not against these sports getting money but I think we should recognise a difference between team sports like soccer and other team sports like rugby which fewer people play internationally giving New Zealand a better chance of winning. That is not to take anything away from the All Blacks or from individual sports such as rowing where New Zealand has a greater chance of winning because fewer countries fully engage in those sports and a greater number of medals are on offer compared with team sports. I think there has to be a balance. 
We need to take up the calls of basketball and soccer to also be part of this high-performance grants system. Even though they may not necessarily win at an international level we want to reward high performance and to reward teams getting to international events such as the All Whites did in the World Cup in 1982 even if they do not go beyond the first round. Achievements such as that should be equally rewarded. Although Sport and Recreation New Zealand is very much involved in trying to stop sports doping if it adopts too much the “winning is all” philosophy then it will against its intentions help keep the culture going that encourages sports doping—the very thing that this bill is against.