Sydney Law Review - now online: Whistleblower Protections in Sport
Whistleblower Protections in Sport: The Missing Element in Australia’s Sports Integrity Framework?
Abstract
Whistleblowers play a central role in exposing organisational wrongdoing. However, many potential whistleblowers stay silent for fear of the risks involved in speaking up. To encourage whistleblowing, governments and authorities have enacted whistleblower protection laws and created whistleblower support and incentive schemes. The potential utility of these mechanisms in sporting contexts has been insufficiently considered by researchers and policymakers. Given increased national and international attention on integrity in sport, including in Australia following the establishment of Sport Integrity Australia in 2020, consideration of the application and limitations of whistleblower protections in sport is timely. In this article, I identify critical gaps in Australia’s whistleblowing framework as it applies to sport and offer recommendations for reform to ensure sport-related whistleblowers can speak up safely and lawfully. The sporting context also offers a valuable case study to consider wider limitations of Australian whistleblowing law amid an active federal law reform agenda. Whistleblowers make a meaningful contribution to integrity in sport and elsewhere, and it is vital they are empowered to expose wrongdoing and protected when they do.
