Ms Hall asked the Minister for Sport and Tourism, upon notice, on 10 February 1999:

(1) Did ministerial responsibilities prevent her attending the International Olympic Committee World Conference on Doping in Sport; if so, what responsibilities.

(2) Is she satisfied with the outcome of the conference.

(3) What strategies will she implement to ensure that Australian sport and the Sydney Olympics are drug free.

(4) Will responsibility for the outcome referred to in part (3) be delegated to another person.

Miss Jackie Kelly (Sport and Tourism; Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Sydney 2000 Games) —The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows:

(1) The International Olympic Committee World Conference on Doping in Sport was a meeting of anti-doping experts from around the world regarding Olympic sports. It was not an inter-government conference on all Australian sports. Australia's senior anti-doping official attended the meeting after a thorough briefing by me.

(2) There were a number of positive outcomes, but more work needs to be done to achieve uniformly strong sanctions for doping across all international sporting federations.

(3) and (4) The Government's strong anti-doping policy, which provides for a broad range of strategies, is laid out in our sport and recreation policy—A Winning Advantage. The implementation of these strategies falls to a range of organisations, including the Australian Sports Drug Agency (ASDA), through its testing and education programs, the Australian Sports Commission, through its management of doping policies of national sporting organisations and the Australian Sports Drug Testing Laboratory (ASDTL), through its research into drugs in sport issues.

In 1998-99, $4.9 million has been provided to ASDA to undertake its drugs testing and education responsibilities.

In addition, since 1997-98, the Government has provided $3.8 million specifically for the purposes of sports drug testing and research associated with the Sydney 2000 Games and the period leading up to the Games. This will be enhanced by the use of ASDA and ASDTL services by the Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games, ensuring the Sydney 2000 Games has access to state-of-the-art technology and world's best practice in sports drug testing.