ABSTRACT
In 2011, Australia established a National Policy on Match-Fixing in Sport whereby all governments within Australia’s federal structure agreed to institute a range of measures to combat match-fixing, including specific criminal offences, adoption of codes of conduct by peak sports bodies and legislative regimes to enable those bodies to authorise betting on their competitions. While the framework has been decisively and comprehensively implemented in some Australian jurisdictions, in others there has been limited progress. This chapter considers the achievements of the Australian legal framework for countering match-fixing, including the swift adoption of specific legislation, the beginnings of betting approval pathways by Australian sports and the generation of greater awareness of this issue within sporting and law enforcement communities. Significant challenges remain, however, such as a lack of legislative consistency between jurisdictions and difficulties with enforcement, including limitations on sharing match-fixing intelligence. Further efforts to extend and refine the framework are necessary to defend Australian sport from match-fixing.
