A Charles Sturt University (CSU) academic has described as discriminatory the Federal Government’s policy of targeting high profile elite athletes for illegal recreational drug use.

 

In an open letter to Senator George Brandis, SC, Federal Minister for the Arts and Sport, Dr Michael Gard, senior lecturer in the School of Human Movement Studies at CSU’s Bathurst Campus, argues the policy unfairly targets elite athletes for ‘special’ drug testing treatment.

 

“There is no evidence that the drug taking behaviour of young Australians is in any sense a product of the drug taking behaviour of elite athletes who are, in many respects, normal honest workers.

 

“Why should they have to endure constant surveillance that has little, if any, bearing on their ability to do their job?

 

“I suggest that the Federal Government has confused the concept of ‘role model’ with ‘celebrity’.

 

“Elite athletes are just celebrities, rather than ‘moral blue prints’, and there are grounds for asking whether the Government’s policy of testing athletes for illegal recreational drugs is likely to make any difference,” Dr Gard said.

 

“I recently heard Senator Brandis say that the plan to  test elite athletes for illegal recreational drugs is not about targeting athletes simply because they are athletes, but that athletes are tested because they are ‘role models’.

 

“But if elite athletes are role models, isn’t it because they are athletes? In other words, an athlete is a role model is an athlete, which means Senator Brandis is contradicting himself.

 

“I think the Government is creating the problem it’s trying to fix. After all, the idea of the athlete as role model is hardly more than a generation old. It’s really only since big business got its teeth into sport that the curious idea of athletes as symbols for moral conduct has been foisted upon us.

 

“The policy supposedly only requires athletes to follow the same laws as everyone else, so there is no obvious reason why elite athletes should be singled out. After all, safety is not the issue.

 

“But the plan is to test athletes all year round, not just when they are about to compete. So in effect, the Government is again saying athletes are the same, but different.

 

“The policy is based on a perception about the ‘compulsory moral responsibility’ of athletes, which makes it easier for people to feel self-righteous about the Ben Cousins of the world.