Lecture - "Let's Play!" Sport, Identity, and Inclusion

The 2025 Chief Minister’s Governance lecture was held on the 1^st of December 2025.

The event was MCed by ABC Radio Host Emma Bickley with a Welcome to Country delivered by Ngunnawal Elder Serena Williams.

Lecturer

The lecture was delivered by Dr Catherine Ordway. Dr Ordway is a lawyer and academic, who has specialised in sport integrity and anti-doping policy for more than twenty years. She has degrees from several universities, holds a PhD and consults with a range of sporting organisations.

She has also competed for Australia as a squad member in the Olympic sport of handball, competed for the Australian Capital Territory in rugby union, and fenced at intervarsity

In 2021, Dr Ordway instigated the evacuation of the Afghan Women’s Cricket team, their administrators and families to Australia following the takeover of the country’s government by the Taliban.

Listen to the Lecture

Panel Discussion

The Lecture was followed by a discussion with panel members Dr Catherine Ordway, Geoff Dudley (Pink Tennis) and Natalee George (ACT First Nations Netball) and facilitated by Emma Bickley.

Listen to the panel discussion

Lecture Transcript

Lecture Slides

Thank you for that kind introduction, Emma, and thank you Chief Minister for the opportunity to deliver your 10^th Governance Lecture.

Over the past two decades, monumental shifts have taken place in sport across the ACT - indeed - across the whole sporting world. And particularly for women’s sport.

I would like to acknowledge all the people in this room who have been - and continue to be - involved in creating these positive changes in sport.

I would particularly like to acknowledge the CEO of Cricket ACT, Olivia Thornton, and the members of the Afghan women’s cricket team - you can see pictured here at the Cricket ACT 100th anniversary celebration in 2023.  The Afghan families here since 2021 were able to be identified and brought to Australia only thanks to accurate and reliable records management. So, my first call to action is for you all to get your archival house in order!

Thank you to Aunty Serena Williams for your generous Welcome to Country.

[Can I add my joy in knowing that in years to come, anyone reading the transcript for this sports governance lecture will see we were welcomed by Serena Williams!]

A Welcome to Country serves to remind us that the majority of people living in Australia have benefited - directly or indirectly - from colonisation, from racism, from slavery, and from sexism.  We have a responsibility then, to use our platform within our sphere of influence, to try to improve the world; to redress the balance, to give voice to the voiceless, and call out injustices.  One of the research projects I have been involved with has identified that racism is the leading integrity issue for Australian sport - and it must stop.

We stand on the shoulders of indigenous people, who have not only cared for this country for more than 60,000 years, but who have also been instrumental in building sporting communities - as athletes, coaches and administrators.  And I know we will hear more from Natalee about this on the Panel.

I’ve been asked to examine the achievements of the past 20 years, particularly in relation to diversity and inclusion. Inspired by the release of material relating to the hosting of the Australian Masters Games in Canberra in 2003, and again this year, which of course celebrates sport and physical activity for older Australians, we have chosen the title of “Let’s Play: Sport, Identity and Inclusion”.

In 1997, when Canberra first hosted the Masters Games, led by the formidable Sue Baker-Finch, more than 10,000 competitors took part in around 40 different sports.  This included many members of FIT - Females in Training Inc - a grassroots, non-competitive, all abilities club established here in 1993, that continues to actively support women in Canberra.  Perhaps buoyed by this enthusiasm for the new sport of triathlon making its debut at the Sydney Olympics, at the same time both ACT Veteran’s Cycling and Veteran’s Athletics Clubs were actively recruiting women over 30, with the added incentive of childcare (imagine!), to boost their participation numbers.

Lawyers love to define their terms

In this instance, I’d draw on the advice of my friend and sports law colleague, Khayran Noor, who has published a framework for Safeguarding Sport in Kenya.  Her LinkedIn post [pictured] outlines her first Principle - “Dignity and Inclusion”.  Dignity means being treated with respect.  Inclusion means feeling that you belong.

Dignity means being treated with respect.

Inclusion means feeling that you belong.

You’ll all know the famous quote by Vernā Myers that “Inclusion” is “being asked to dance” as compared with “Diversity” which is being invited to the party. To encourage people to feel that they belong, Culture Coach, Daniel Juday goes further and argues that “inclusion” is not just choosing the music, but “being a member of the party planning committee.”

To go back to our Afghan cricketers for a moment, inclusion would require the International Cricket Council to not only create a “dedicated task force aimed at supporting displaced Afghan women cricketers”, but to actually include Afghan women cricketers on that taskforce! AND for the sporting community and the International Olympic Committee to take action in support of the women and girls subjected to gender apartheid in Afghanistan - where they are not permitted to get educated, play sport, or even sing!  That is my 3rd Call to Action - we each have a role to play in calling out Gender Apartheid - and demanding more for the women and girls of Afghanistan.

It is timely that we are meeting together during the United Nations’ 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence [pictured]. As many of you know, these 16 Days of Activism were established by the Women's Global Leadership Institute in 1991.

In 1991, 34 years ago, Gender-Based Violence was recognised as a global human rights crisis.  You only have to look at Afghanistan, and to the women killed every week here in this country, to know the situation is getting worse.  Each year, from the 25th November, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, through to the 10th of  December, which is International Human Rights Day - and including the International Day of People with Disabilities on Wednesday - the UN aims to increase awareness, support advocacy and share knowledge and innovation to end violence against women and girls.

As our colleagues at the Global Programme Sport For Development express: “We truly wish there was no instant connection between sport and the 16 days of activism against gender-based violence. But in fact, there is.”

This year, the UN Women theme is: #NoExcuse for online abuse.  Ahead of the curve, and inspired by Canberra’s own powerhouse Ginger Gorman, author of the bestselling, award-winning non-fiction book Troll Hunting, the University of Canberra and Sport Integrity Australia teamed up in 2023 to conduct a an 18-month research project into Preventing Gendered Online Harm in the sports industry.  We interviewed a range of staff across 19 different sport organisations to understand how they responded to online abusers.

A special shout out to Defina Shakespear, who is here tonight, as she wears two hats in this context - as Program Lead for the Empowering Women and Girls program at Sport Integrity Australia, and as an award-winning football Match Official and advocate for gender equity and match official rights.

Another footballer, New Zealander Rebecca Sowden and her team of heroines, worked with the UN to create the "Correct the Internet" campaign.  The initiative highlights how search engines often incorrectly favour male athletes, even when female athletes have better statistics, and the tool works to increase the visibility of sportswomen by correcting this imbalance.

Canberra’s long-serving sports historian, Greg Blood, who is also here tonight, has been working away quietly to also correct the imbalance online - increasing the visibility of Australian women sports administrators and athletes, including as part of the Paralympic history project, through creating Wiki pages - many examples of which you can see here.  A big round of applause for Greg!

Once we knew that the Afghan cricketers, the administrators and all their families were going to be given Australian Emergency Humanitarian Visas, they were asked where they wanted to live.  Reflecting upon my choice to live in Canberra 30 years ago, and again in 2006 after time in Norway and Qatar, I persuaded many of the families to choose the ACT as their forever home.

As a young lawyer, recently graduated from The University of Adelaide, I found it challenging to land a full-time position.   As neither my father nor grandfathers were lawyers, I was told in interviews that I was therefore unsuited for a legal role in Adelaide firms. A friend from home had recently moved to Canberra, and he urged me to apply saying, “They employ people here on merit!”. What a novel idea!

Starting my law career in the Personal Injuries Division of Snedden, Hall and Gallop in Canberra in 1994, I was encouraged to support sport organisations through presenting information sessions on various risk management topics. It was after one of these sessions that I was approached by Heather Reid, who will be known to many of you, and was recently anointed as the ACT 2026 Senior Australian of the Year.  Back in 1994, Heather invited me to join the ACT Women's Sport & Recreation Association board.  It would not have occurred to me to nominate for a board role without the support of Heather.

It was also during this period, together with former Australian men’s handball Captain, and ACT fire fighter, Ged Morrison, that we established the ACT Handball Federation, which is still going strong.

In 1996, the idea of having a full-time job in sports law was almost laughable.  I was told repeatedly by recruiters that it was “impossible”, and sports law jobs did not exist.  Instead, I submitted an entry into the 1996 Australian & New Zealand Sports Law Association (ANZSLA) Conference Paper Prize (now the Paul Trisley Award) in an attempt to impress potential employers.  In what turned out to be my first sport integrity and anti-corruption paper, I asked: Who will represent Australia at the 2000 Games in Handball .  I examined the definition of “Australian” under the Australian Sports Commission Act, which set off an avalanche of consequences - not least of which, landing me a job with the law firm working for the Australian Olympic Committee in the lead up to the Sydney 2000 Games.

This was one of the most brilliantly fun and exhausting periods of my career.  I had the chance to protect the Boxing Kangaroo and other intellectual property for the AOC.  I drafted the 32 anti-doping policies for the National Sports Organisations and ran cases for more than 30 anti-doping matters in the new Oceania division of the Court of Arbitration for Sport.  At that time, I had single-handedly done a third of the world’s anti-doping cases, which is mind boggling to think about now in scale. Then everyone working in anti-doping internationally could go out for dinner on the one table.  Today there are more than 1500 people attending the World Conference on Doping in Sport in Korea.

While preparing for the Sydney Olympics, and newly married, I took on the role of Secretary of the Albanian-Australian Association of NSW as Australia welcomed 4000 Kosovar Albanian temporary humanitarian visa holders (NOT “Refugees” you will note!) in May 1999, as a result of the actions of Serbian war criminals. This experience was crucial more than 20 years later when journalist, Tracey Holmes, urged me to “find a way” to assist the Afghan cricketers.

Heather Reid also supported me to join the Australian Women’s Soccer Association in 1999. After a series of reviews, this body was ultimately amalgamated with the men’s side of the game into one governing body, which is now Football Australia.

It is perhaps hard to imagine now, but governance processes requiring greater accountability, transparency and integrity over the last 20 years, including amalgamations, movement from federated to unitary models, and incorporation, have often been painful, highly contentious, and took years to achieve.

This progress, however, cannot be allowed to ride rough shod over local community, cultures and practices.  Failures in representation - whether that is by sport discipline, geography, or age/ ethnicity and so on - creates disconnection and a loss of trust.  As sport lawyer and Commonwealth champion cyclist, Olympian Chloe Hosking, who is in the room, has highlighted in response to this week’s Request for a Special General Meeting of AusCycling, “If clubs are calling for structural change, it’s because they don’t feel reflected in the national system.”

One area where national systems have created positive change is in female representation in decision-making.  My board experiences inspired a conversation with experienced board member, Ruth Medd in 1999 which led to establishing the organisation Women on Boards to encourage and facilitate opportunities for women; firstly, on sports boards but later, across every industry.

The key-game changer however, both nationally, and in the States and Territories, did not come about until gender equality was tied to funding.  The percentage of women on boards, including in the ACT, had stagnated at around 20% for decades. The ‘carrot’ approach of targets and training up women to ‘lean in’ more wasn’t working.  From 2013, the Australian Sports Commission threatened, but did not deliver, funding cuts to the top seven funded sports if they did not increase the number of women on their national boards.

The ACT followed suit in 2016.  Now I am pleased to see that the ACT is in line with the National Gender Equity in Sports Governance Policy, in meeting 50% representation.

Of course, from an integrity perspective, having the RIGHT people in sport governance remains a challenge.  It is more crucial than ever that decision-makers are fully representing the community in all its diversity - well beyond the gender binary.

But Board governance is only one of the structural inequities we need to address

Despite what you might hear in screaming headlines and polarising social media posts about the need to SAVE WOMEN’S SPORT, the threat to women’s sport does not come from including transgender women in sport.  Of course, people in the ACT know that - the Canberra sporting community has embraced Hannah Mouncey’s journey in handball and Aussie Rules.

Focusing on transgender participation is a deliberate strategy to create division and divert attention from the real problem - the entrenched dominance of the PMS - Pale, Male and Stale brigade clinging onto structural inequities.

Gender-Based Violence and gender apartheid is not caused by transgender women.  The real threat to women’s sport isn’t the inclusion of one of the most marginalised and vulnerable cohorts in our community.

Can we instead focus on fixing the following:

1. Pay – Equal salaries, match fees, and prize money compared to men.
2. Sponsorship – Access to commercial deals and brand partnerships at the same scale as men’s sport.
3. Coaching – More women in high-performance coaching roles, and equal investment in coaching pathways.
4. Officiating – Gender balance among referees, umpires, and technical officials. [Delfina knows all about that]
5. Broadcasting – Equal airtime, production values, and promotion of women’s competitions.
6. Facilities – Equal access to training grounds, stadiums, and medical/rehab resources.
7. Media Representation – Coverage that treats women athletes seriously, not as novelties or stereotypes.
8. Pathways & Development – Structured opportunities for girls and women to progress from grassroots to elite.
9. Scheduling & Visibility – Prime-time slots, not relegated to off-peak hours or secondary venues.

If we were serious about trying to make up for the 100 years of inequality between men’s and women’s sport, we would be focused on addressing all these factors. I would like to be able to say that the ACT is a leader in here, but sadly, I cannot.

I promoted Canberra as an ideal place to live for the cricketing Afghan families because, like Afghanistan, it is inland, has access to mountains, and snow, a similar (and warmer!) climate, excellent schools, healthcare - particularly mental health care for people who have experienced severe trauma.

The ACT has also always had a reputation for social justice, equity and inclusion. We were proud to see that play out in both the vote for Marriage Equality, and in support for the Voice Referendum.  Last month, the ACT was the first jurisdiction in Australia to pass legislation making sporting and other groups liable for the sexual abuse of children in their care, even if the perpetrator was a volunteer.

Women’s sport has traditionally thrived in Canberra’s socio-political environment and geographic accessibility to high-level facilities, child-care and public transport.  Residents of the ACT tend to be wealthier, better-educated and left/ democratic leaning which translates to a gender, age, religion, race and abilities inclusive, gay-friendly, sporting environments.  Participation rates are high, and both individual women, and our women’s teams, have been extremely successful.

Yet, I struggle to get my head around how easy it seemed to be to sign off on a multi-million-dollar decade-long deal, including significant facilities upgrades, to bring the multi-billion-dollar sport of AFL, through the GWS Giants, who have no connection to Canberra, to Manuka Oval 4 times a year.  Meanwhile, while our most pre-eminent sporting teams, the Canberra Capitals (basketball) and Canberra United (football), remain on the brink of survival.   It seems more than a bit ironic that the Caps were even given the Keys to the City three times and still remain homeless!

While I note, and welcome, the ACT Government’s August announcement committing some financial support for these teams, (although Chief Minister, if we are seeking parity - I think there is a ZERO missing!)

I am extremely concerned about how we reached this point for women’s sport in ACT. My final Call to Action is to demand full financial transparency from our sports - and our governments - so that equal funding, at a minimum given the inequities of the past, is given to women’s sport.

To wrap up then, my Calls to Action are:

1. Get your paperwork in order- records and information management is everyone’s business.  The Afghan cricketers would not be here without reliable paperwork
2. Speak Up - silence is complicity. Call out racism and injustice and support marginalised and vulnerable people, including our rainbow family.
3. Take Action Online and Use Your Platform to prevent Gender-Based Violence. The International Criminal Court has recognised Gender Apartheid as a crime. Demand better for our women and girls and for the women and girls of Afghanistan
4. Financial transparency - demonstrate gender equality through complete transparency in funding to right past inequities

The Afghan families love living in Canberra and are very grateful for the welcome they have received from the cricket and broader community.   Let’s work together on these Calls to Action so that we can give everyone the opportunity to enjoy the benefits that sport and physical activity can bring!

I look forward to the next 20 years!

Relevant Records: