Off the wire
• Almost 40 percent of Aussie grandparents want payment to care for grandchildren  • 2nd LD Writethru: Japan urges DPRK to refrain from satellite launch, calls plans threat to national security  • Brazil's industrial output down 8.3 percent in 2015, automotive sector hit hardest  • Market exchange rates in China -- Feb. 3  • S. Korea warns harsh price against DPRK's satellite launch  • China treasury bond futures open lower Wednesday  • Chinese yuan weakens to 6.5521 against USD Wednesday  • China Hushen 300 index futures open lower Wednesday  • 1st LD: Japan strongly urges DPRK to refrain from planned satellite launch  • Chinese shares open lower Wednesday  
You are here: 　 Home

Aussie sporting organizations forced to adopt "gender-neutral" travel policy

Xinhua, February 3, 2016 Adjust font size:

Australian sporting bodies which hope to receive government funding will need to prove they are enforcing gender-neutral travel allowance policies, the nation's sports minister has said on Wednesday.

Sports Minister Sussan Ley, alongside the chair of the Australian Sports Commission (ASC), John Wiley, has written to 30 of Australia's highest-funded sporting organizations in order to express their changed expectations for them to receive government funding ahead of the the Rio Olympics in August.

The letter was penned following revelations from the 2012 Olympics, in which Australia's men's basketball team traveled to and from London in business class, while the women - who won the bronze medal at the event - flew coach.

Ley said it was "indefensible" for major national sporting organizations to be displaying discrimination in this day and age, and said she was "prepared to tie the funding to compliance" with the new gender-neutral policy.

"In 2016, we can think of no defensible reason why male and female athletes should travel in different classes or stay in different standard accommodation when attending major international sporting events," the letter reads.

"The ASC is now proposing to make gender-neutral travel policies for senior major championships a condition of investment by the ASC in a sport."

In 2016, the ASC will provide around 100 million U.S. dollars to Australian sporting organizations, in the lead up to the Rio Olympics.

Ley said she wouldn't "name and shame" poor-performing organizations, but said both she and the ASC believed the sporting bodies would get on board with the new gender-neutral policy.

"Quite frankly I was shocked and surprised to find that in every sport it isn't always the case that the guys and the girls fly and are accommodated at the same level of travel," Ley said.

"I don't expect (this new policy) to come to an argument." Enditem