Olympic gold medallists Natalie Cook, left, and Nova Peris with Layne Beachley at the women in sport conference in Canberra yesterday. Picture: Kym Smith Source: The Australian
TWO of Australia's former top female athletes have urged more women to take up positions on sports boards in an attempt to stamp out the bad behaviour rife in many codes.
Speaking at a women in sport conference in Canberra yesterday, Olympic gold medallists Natalie Cook and Nova Peris said issues such as drugs in sport, bullying in the Australian swim team and the controversy embroiling rugby league star Ben Barba could all be mitigated with greater female leadership.
"I think the women can ask the tough questions, I think the emotional questions," Cook told The Australian.
The five-time Olympian said camaraderie was at an all-time low at last year's Olympics in London and that could have been changed with more women at the top.
"We are seeing a lack of emotion from our team, our swim team, our Olympic team," Cook said.
Peris, who is running for a Labor Senate seat in the Northern Territory, said women "absolutely" needed more representation in sport administration.
"Having women at the table is imperative to getting it right with regard to social behaviour, drugs in sport, all that sort of stuff, and I think these major government bodies need to look at the gender equality," she said.
Sport has been mired in scandal in recent months with the release of an Australian Crime Commission report that highlighted doping and links to organised crime in many top sporting codes. Two reports into the Australian Olympic swim team also found a "toxic culture" was present, contributing to its dismal performance at last year's Games.
And rugby league poster boy Barba has fallen from grace after being stood down indefinitely from the Canterbury Bulldogs due to "behavioural issues" following his break-up with his long-term partner.
Former NSW premier Kristina Keneally, now chief executive of Basketball Australia, said it was encouraging that she had been chosen to head up basketball in Australia but that it was an "exception" to the norm. "We have a nation that celebrates sport, we have so many examples of strong female athletes who are rightly acclaimed in this country but we cannot have just a handful of celebrities that we point to and say we've achieved some sort of equality," Keneally said.
"At the end of the day, if women's sport is going to be seen and valued and if we are going to create true equity we need to ensure that our sporting bodies have women on boards; have women in senior positions."
Surfing world champion Layne Beachley was the only one to disagree and said that athletes themselves had to take responsibility for their actions.
"I don't think you can really point the blame at anybody, or saying that by having more women in administration roles would change the current dynamic of athletes or the choices that the athletes make," Beachley said.
"It comes down to the leadership they are surrounded by and also the choices the athletes make." Beachley last night was honoured as one of Australia's top sportswomen at a gala dinner at Canberra's Parliament House.
She came in at joint third place with tennis champion Margaret Court.
Multiple gold medallist Betty Cuthbert was second-best Australian sportswoman of all, with legendary swimmer Dawn Fraser claiming the top spot.
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