Now lawHealth & Care Introduced in the House of Representatives, 17 Sep 2026

New sport drug law: appeals and fewer public names

A new law signed on 26 October 2026 updates Australia's sport drug rules. Most changes start on 1 January 2027. They change who punishes athletes, how they appeal a refused medicine, and when names go public.

Official name: Sport Legislation Amendment (World Anti-Doping Code Implementation) Bill 2026

Who it affects

• Athletes who need a banned medicine: If your request to use it is refused, you can take the refusal to an independent body.
• Athletes accused of doping: Your ban comes from the head of Sport Integrity Australia. Your own sport still carries it out.
• Children, people who cannot fully understand the rules, and weekend sport players: You are not named on the public list of rule breakers by default. The head of Sport Integrity Australia weighs what is best for you and for the public.
• Sports bodies such as the national groups that run each sport: You no longer hand out doping bans to your own players. You still carry them out.

Why it exists

Doping means using banned drugs to do better in sport. Every few years the World Anti-Doping Agency updates the rules on it. This agency is the world body that fights drug cheating in sport. Its rules are called the World Anti-Doping Code.

The world agency approved a new version of the Code on 5 December 2025. It starts around the world on 1 January 2027.

Australia has signed a United Nations treaty called the International Convention against Doping in Sport. A treaty is a formal deal between countries. It says our rules must follow the Code. Sport Integrity Australia is the government agency that tests athletes and chases doping cases. The National Sports Tribunal is an independent body that hears sport disputes. A tribunal is like a court but less formal.

Most of the new rules go into the government's detailed rules and each sport's own drug policy. The detailed rules are written by the government without a new vote in Parliament. Some changes needed a new law, because the main law on this is the Sport Integrity Australia Act 2020. This law makes those changes. The Minister for Sport, Anika Wells, brought the bill in. A bill is a proposed law.

Appeals over banned medicines

Some athletes need a medicine that is on the banned list. Asthma medicine or medicine for attention deficit disorder can be examples. They can ask for permission to use it for a real medical reason. The permission is called a therapeutic use exemption.

In Australia, a group of doctors decides these requests. It is called the Australian Sports Drug Medical Advisory Committee. Until now, if the doctors said no, you could only ask the committee's own review panel to look again. The committee was checking its own decisions.

The first part of the bill ends that review panel. The National Sports Tribunal takes over. It is separate from the people who made the first decision. The government says this is fairer. This covers athletes below international level. The sources do not say what happens for international-level athletes.

Say you are a rower refused permission for a heart medicine. From 1 January 2027, you can ask the tribunal to hear your case. If you asked the old panel before that date and had no answer yet, the old panel still deals with your request.

Who hands out doping bans

When an athlete is caught, there can be results. These include bans from playing, losing results and medals, and fines. Until now, the athlete's own sport handed these out, under its drug policy.

The new Code says sports should not judge their own players. That could be a conflict of interest, because the sport has a stake in the result. So the second part of the bill moves the job to the head of Sport Integrity Australia. It covers athletes, support people and others who agreed to follow their sport's drug policy.

The head of Sport Integrity Australia can hand out a short-term ban while a case is decided. This can happen if a banned drug was found, or if the athlete agrees to step aside. The head can also lift the ban in some cases. One case is when the athlete has already been banned for longer than the likely final punishment.

The sport still carries out the ban, for example by keeping the athlete off the team sheet. If the athlete disagrees, they can ask for a hearing. They can go to the National Sports Tribunal. They can also go to another sport court named in their sport's drug policy, such as the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

The tribunal law changes to match. In most doping cases, the two sides must be the head of Sport Integrity Australia and the athlete. The sport no longer has to be one of them. In a medicine refusal case, the two sides are the athlete and the chair of the doctors' committee.

Who gets named publicly

Sport Integrity Australia keeps a public list of rule breakers. It names people who broke the drug rules and says what happened to them.

The third part of the bill adds a new rule for athletes who were found to be not at fault. These are athletes who did not know, and could not reasonably have known, that they had used a banned drug. They are no longer named by default.

The head of Sport Integrity Australia must now weigh up three questions before naming them. Did the athlete agree? Is their name already public? Is naming them in the public interest? Public interest means what is good for the community as a whole. These are things to weigh. They are not three tests that must all be passed.

Children, people who cannot understand the rules because of their mental capacity, and people who play sport for fun are also not named by default. This means the name is not put on the public list unless the head decides it is in the public interest. The head weighs what is best for the person and for the public.

The list also names people who play or train while they are banned.

Smaller changes

Until now, a person counted as an athlete for six months after their last game. The fourth part of the bill drops that rule, because the Code does not have it. Someone who stopped playing under six months ago is no longer an athlete just because of that.

The law also adds technical letters to the world standards that Australian law recognises. The world agency issues the standards to set required technical steps for anti-doping work. Technical letters are short notices that add detail to those standards.

A few other small changes tidy up wording to match. One removes the same six-month words from another part of the law.

Law since October 2026

Parliament is the group that makes national laws. It has two houses. The House of Representatives is the main house, where elected members sit. The Senate is the second house. A bill must pass both.

The bill went into the House of Representatives on 17 September 2026. Members debated it in a side room for extra debate on 13 October 2026. The House passed it on 14 October 2026.

The Senate passed it on 15 October 2026. That means it passed both houses that day. On 26 October 2026 the Governor-General, who stands in for the King, signed it. It is now Act No. 104 of 2026.

Here is what starts when. On 26 October 2026, the name of the law and its first few sections started. Everything else starts on 1 January 2027. That means the appeals, the ban changes and the naming changes. The law says the later of 1 January 2027 and 28 days after signing. That is 23 November 2026, so the date is 1 January 2027.

The Parliamentary Library gives research to all members and takes no side. Its guide to the bill does not report any comments on it from other groups.

Its journey through Parliament

Official sources

• Bill page on aph.gov.au
• Text of the bill
• Explanatory memorandum
• Bills Digest

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