Goudie Sandra: Sports Anti-Doping Bill — In Committee 
Goudie Sandra: Sports Anti-Doping Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:634;Page:6142] 
SANDRA GOUDIE (National—Coromandel) 
: 
 My colleague has raised some very interesting issues. Perhaps the Minister might like to take a call and elucidate what he thinks will happen in terms of District Court rules applying to overseas athletes here in New Zealand and how that will be addressed. I commend yet again my colleagues Shane Ardern and Brian Connell for their sterling efforts at the Government Administration Committee to ensure we have something that we can at least manage to some degree. [ 
Interruption 
] What is the bleating over there from that member? He cannot even get himself to a select committee. 
In relation to this bill the issue of the sharing of information about positive drug tests has been raised a number of times in the House. I would like to share with members a report that came to the select committee with additional detail on the implications of amending the Sports Anti-Doping Bill to require Drug Free Sport New Zealand or the Sports Tribunal to share information with the police about the results of blood or urine tests if the test results indicate that an athlete has used a substance that is classified under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975. 
The select committee asked Sport and Recreation New Zealand officials to consider whether the bill should require Drug Free Sport New Zealand to share drug-testing results with the police. These officials advised the select committee that Drug Free Sport New Zealand should not be required to share information about alleged criminal offences with the police the Customs Service or any other agencies. Under the bill Drug Free Sport New Zealand will not be prevented from sharing the information and the decision on whether to share it will be made on a case by case assessment. Drug Free Sport New Zealand will have the ability to share the information if it feels it is a serious issue. I know that my colleague Brian Connell was particularly concerned about this point. He took a very strong position on this and I commend him for that. 
The select committee asked Sport and Recreation New Zealand officials to provide further advice on this issue and to canvass this matter with the Minister for Sport and Recreation and other interested agencies. They discussed the issue with the Minister for Sport and Recreation and perhaps he might like to take a call and explain his view. They also discussed it with Drug Free Sport New Zealand the New Zealand Police the Office of the Privacy Commissioner and the Ministry of Justice. Based on these discussions the view of the officials remained that it would be undesirable to require Drug Free Sport New Zealand to share with the police the results of blood and urine tests. It is good to reiterate this point to settle people’s minds about the reasoning for not including mandatory sharing of information. 
The World Anti-Doping Agency has a code that sets out a decision-making formula which can be found in some of the reports. When an athlete is subject to a doping test under the World Anti-Doping Code the blood or urine sample is divided into an “A” sample and a “B” sample. At step two in the diagram the “A” sample is where the sample has tested positive for a prohibited or specified substance under the code and for the purpose of this example has also tested positive for a substance that is classified under the Misuse of Drugs Act. That is what is in the “A” category. 
The Sport and Recreation New Zealand officials considered it was premature for Drug Free Sport New Zealand to share information about the test result with another agency at step two in the process because Drug Free Sport New Zealand would not have had an opportunity to review the testing process to ensure there had been no testing error—which can of course occasionally happen when there is a laboratory malfunction or there has been a confusion of the samples. Step two was also a point where Drug Free Sport New Zealand would not have had an opportunity to check whether the athlete had used the substance illegally or legally as a prescription medicine and where the athlete had not been given an opportunity to have the “B” sample tested. Also Drug Free Sport New Zealand is obliged under the World Anti-Doping Code not to publicly release the name of the athlete until after there has been an administrative review. That of course is all part of the process; it is actually step three. Drug Free Sport New Zealand would undertake an administrative review to see whether the athlete has a therapeutic-use exemption.