This is a transcript of a discussion between Deakin University legal academic Martin Hardie and ABC journalist Mandy Presland broadcast yesterday on the ABC’s NewsRadio.

Martin Hardie: I really had no idea, given the history of this thing, what was going to happen, but I’ve always been of the belief since I first started looking at the evidence back in early 2013 that Essendon had not used any banned substances. So [I’m feeling] relief and I think vindication. We’ve had over two years now–someone said seven hundred and eighty-four days or something like that–of investigation and claim and counter-claim in the media and we now know that Essendon did not take any banned substances. Which raises a whole lot of questions of course.

Mandy Presland: So now that this finding has been handed down, where to from here?

MH: Well, who knows? ASADA [Australian Sports Anti-Doping Agency] – we’ll find out tomorrow morning whether they intend to appeal or whether WADA [World Anti-Doping Agency] intends to appeal but I think there are serious questions about the way this whole matter has been handled from day one, since the time that the Labor Party held that press conference on the sixth of February 2013, since the ACC [Australian Crime Commission] and ASADA – the way that it appears that people within the government and within the AFL [Australian Football League] have tried to manipulate the whole process. The AFL’s agenda, I think, in the long term was to try to get out of the ASADA system. They are all things that will have to be sorted out and discussed and hopefully be investigated properly now.

The other thing that I think is really important to think about is that in August 2013 we had James Hird, Mark Thompson, Danny Corcoran and the club sanctioned. The club accepted a sanction and the others agreed to a settlement – but the effect of that was that somehow these people at the club had bought the game into disrepute. It seems to me that that whole process, not that I think it can be undermined or undone, needs to be questioned. Because effectively what they were sanctioned for was documenting the use of substances that were not banned. So somehow these people are said to have bought the game into disrepute by doing something that was not prohibited, which is fairly Kafkian when you think about it.

MP: Stephen Dank – the sports scientist – where does this leave him?

MH: He is pleased. Dank obviously feels vindicated insofar as it has been found that he did not dope the players and that has been his position all along. But the Tribunal still has got to make up its mind on some other allegations regarding Dank which we will have to wait and see about.

MP: And as far as James Hird is concerned, what can he take from today’s ruling?

MH: Well, he can take a lot from it insofar as he has maintained all along that the club and the players didn’t use banned substances and he fought a fairly noble fight to try and test the legality of the whole process. The sad thing is that what we are left with–him not having gone on to the High Court–is a situation where the Federal Court has essentially sanctioned this kind of trial by media that has gone on for the last two and a half years.

MP: So does he have any recourse now?

MH: I don’t think that he has any recourse at the moment, not any easy avenues of recourse but I think the recourse will now have to be political. Somebody needs to look at the way ASADA operates and how major sports such as the AFL operate. Keep in mind that the reason we had the bringing the game into disrepute charges by the AFL was in order to head off any doping charges being bought against the players. Now that didn’t work and two and a half years later–after all of the character assassination–the players are now found not to have doped. Somebody in government needs to look at why this has happened and how can we ensure that it doesn’t happen again.

MP: And in fact the player’s names have been brought into disrepute …

MH: Oh, the player’s names and … before this case everybody understood that the ASADA legislation meant that these processes should be confidential until there has been a final hearing and when there has been a final hearing you can either say that someone has doped or that someone hasn’t. What we’ve had is that people’s guilt was determined back in February 2013 by the media and since then everybody has been presumed to be a doper or to be involved in doping. Even now there are people who are saying, “Well, who cares what the tribunal says, we knew they doped because we’ve been reading about it for years.”

MP: And this saga, as you’ve alluded to, has dragged on for a couple of years now and essentially there is nothing to show for it. What does it do for the public image for ASADA?

MH: Well I had a conversation with the Director-General of WADA, David Howman, in June 2013 where I that the way that this matter is being handled is going to setback anti-doping in Australia ten years. And I think that is what has happened. People have lost faith in ASADA and the processes and people have lost faith in the whole cause of anti-doping in sport–I think to a large extent–and a lot of people are pointing the finger at ASADA. But we have to remember the AFL played a big part in creating this mess itself, and so did other people within the then government and we need to sort that out so that it doesn’t happen in the future.

—————————————–

You can read more pieces by Martin Hardie and others on the Essendon saga and related issues here.