Australian Sailing is committed to ensuring a level playing field for all those who participate in our sport. There are inherent integrity risks at all levels of sailing, and in recent months Australian Sailing has worked to identify those risks and to step up our focus on safeguarding the future of our sport.

Sport Integrity Australia (SIA) is a new Federal Government organisation that is the cornerstone of the Government's comprehensive sport integrity strategy. As part of SIA’s work, the National Integrity Framework was launched in March 2021 and national sport organisations including Australian Sailing have been asked to adopt the Framework by April 2022.

Australian Sailing has commenced work to adopt the framework of policies provided by Sport Integrity Australia.

The policies within the Framework include:

• National Integrity Framework – the overarching framework that includes requirements or processes that are common to all policies
• Member Protection Policy – this largely plays the same role as the current policy, excepting removal of child safeguarding and the complaints handling processes to new documents
• Child Safeguarding Policy + SA Addendum – this is the new policy that used to be part of the Member Protection Policy
• Complaints, Disputes and Discipline Policy – this is the new common complaints handling process
• Improper Use of Drugs & Medicine Policy – similar to the current anti-doping policies
• Competition Manipulation and Sports Wagering Policy – similar to the existing anti-wagering policies

One of the key objectives of the National Integrity Framework is to have a single framework for all levels of sailing. Adoption will mean that the Policies apply to all sport organisations and people involved in our sport. Whilst this is the intent and how existing integrity policies are currently applied, the adoption of the National Integrity Framework will streamline the approach.

By Australian Sailing adopting the National Integrity Framework, Sport Integrity Australia will manage the independent assessment and referral of complaints. This will reduce the burden on administrators and volunteers and provide athletes and participants with a consistent, fair, and independent dispute resolution process.

If you are interested in learning more about the Framework there is an online induction which explains the policies and how they work together.

For further information please contact glen.stanaway@sailing.org.au.