Criminal Code Amendment (National Sport Integrity Offences) Bill 2026 - Preserving the Unpredictability of Sport
Preserving the Unpredictability of Sport
A sentence in the explanatory memorandum (Memorandum) to the Commonwealth's new match-fixing Bill, the Criminal Code Amendment (National Sport Integrity Offences) Bill 2026 (Bill)warrants close attention. Sporting-motivated corruption, the Memorandum observes, “is a form of conduct that works against the public interest in preserving the unpredictability of sport.”[1] The choice of object is deliberate. The interest to be protected is the unpredictability of the contest itself, not the integrity of the wager, nor the position of the bookmaker. That orientation is a significant feature of the Bill, and it will shape where the law is contested.
The Bill was introduced on 20 August 2026 by the Attorney-General, the Hon Michelle Rowland MP, and the Minister for Sport, the Hon Anika Wells MP.[2] It seeks to insert a new Part 10.10 into the Criminal Code Act 1995 (Cth) and to create seven new offences with maximum penalties of ten years' imprisonment for the most serious conduct. The government describes it as the Commonwealth's strongest integrity legislation to date.
A commitment fifteen years in the making
The Bill is the culmination of a policy sequence that has remained incomplete since 2011. In that year, every Australian government adopted the National Policy on Match-Fixing in Sport and undertook to pursue a “consistent approach” to criminal offences.[3] Consistency did not follow. Certain jurisdictions criminalised betting on inside information while others did not. For example, Tasmania and Western Australia continue to rely upon general fraud provisions.[4] The 2018 Review of Australia's Sports Integrity Arrangements (the Wood Review) found the threat of organised-crime infiltration to be “real and growing,” and recommended both that Australia ratify the Council of Europe's Macolin Convention and that it enact Commonwealth offences to remedy the inconsistency between the States and Territories.[5] The government accepted that recommendation in 2019. Australia signed the Convention in February of that year as the first non-European signatory.[6] The Bill gives effect to that undertaking.
The departure from the betting nexus
The Wood Review recommended that offences be “linked to wagering outcomes.”[7] Most State legislation is framed accordingly, criminalising the corruption of the betting outcome of an event. The Bill departs from that model. In what the Memorandum expressly characterises as “a departure from recommendation 3,” the offences are “generally not linked directly to betting,” and instead address conduct that undermines the integrity of sport “regardless of the motives for undermining it.”[8]
This represents a change in the theory of the offence. Under the betting-linked model, the protected party is the wagering public and the harm addressed by the offence is a species of fraud. Under the model the Bill adopts, the protected interest is the integrity of the sporting contest, and the wrong is properly characterised as corruption. The penalty structure reflects that characterisation: the offence of corrupting a sporting event carries the same maximum penalty as bribery of a Commonwealth public official, rather than being benchmarked against fraud.[9]
Two established matters illustrate the practical consequence. The first is the Memorandum's anonymised account of a 2016 Olympic boxing semi-final, in which a senior official demanded payment to secure a result, the bout concluding in a loss recorded with “identical scores… across every round.”[10] The independent investigation conducted by Professor Richard McLaren subsequently identified approximately eleven suspicious or manipulated bouts at the Rio Games, the conduct motivated by medals and institutional politics rather than betting.[11] An offence tied to a wagering outcome would not reach that conduct; the offence as drafted does. The second matter concerns events on which no lawful bet may be placed (betting on under-18 competitions is generally prohibited) with the consequence that, under a betting-linked model, the manipulation of a junior fixture is more difficult to prosecute than that of a professional one. Severing the betting nexus resolves that anomaly.
Two limiting principles
Because the offence is broadened, the Bill incorporates two limiting principles to prevent it from capturing legitimate competitive conduct. The first is the definition of “benefit,” which is confined to an advantage that is not “ordinarily due” by reason of participation, and which expressly excludes wages, prize money, trophies and favourable draft selections.[12] The distinction is well drawn. A coach who fields players out of position to secure a higher draft selection commits no offence, because the advantage sought is one ordinarily due; a coach paid by a rival to lose does commit an offence, because the inducement originates outside the sporting economy.[13] The operative line is not between honest and dishonest play, but conduct motivated by incentives inherent in the sporting system and conduct influenced by inducements from outside it.
The second limiting principle is the definition in section 495.9, which asks whether the conduct departs from “the standards of integrity that a reasonable person would expect,” a question reserved to the trier of fact.[14] This will differ from sport to sport. The Explanatory Memorandum explains that dictating that team orders in motor racing to favour one team member over another are an example of where the reasonable-person standard accommodates the accepted norms of each sport.[15]
The seven offences and their antecedents
The offences form a graduated hierarchy of culpability, each with an identifiable Australian antecedent. The most serious, corrupting a sporting event, and inducing or soliciting that corruption, carry a maximum term of imprisonment of ten and five years respectively.[16] Their antecedent is the Southern Stars matter of 2013, in which a Victorian Premier League club was supplied with imported players under a fictitious sponsorship arrangement and instructed to concede and lose. More than $2 million in winnings was traced; the Australian organiser was imprisoned and subsequently deported, and several players received lifetime bans from FIFA.[17] It remains the most significant match-fixing prosecution in Australian history, and it proceeded under State law.
The information offences are more innovative. The offence of possessing corrupt conduct information with intent to use it is, as the Memorandum acknowledges, without State or Territory precedent.[18] It is a preparatory offence, enabling intervention before information is disseminated, regardless of the likelihood of the individual successfully using or communicating the corrupt conduct information.[19] The distinction between corrupt conduct information, knowledge of an actual manipulation and non-public information (inside information) capable of influencing a betting market, reflects a 2011 Australian Football League matter, in which a club captain informed family members that he would start in an unfamiliar position, those members wagered on him to score first, and the resulting plunge in his first-goal odds, from approximately $101 to $26, alerted the AFL's integrity unit, which followed the money trail. The Bill adopts its definitions of “inside information” and “generally available” from the insider-trading provisions of the Corporations Act, thereby regulating the participant on a footing analogous to that of a company director.[20]
Points of exposure
Three features warrant scrutiny. First, in respect of conduct occurring wholly outside Australia, the Bill reverses the evidential burden for certain defences; the accompanying Statement of Compatibility with Human Rights concedes that this engages the presumption of innocence under Article 14(2) of the ICCPR.[21] Secondly, absolute liability attaches to each constitutional connecting element, with the consequence that liability may turn upon a jurisdictional fact of which the accused had no knowledge.[22] Thirdly, the prosecution of a foreign national for conduct occurring wholly overseas requires the personal consent of the Attorney-General, a provision consonant with principles of international comity, but one that introduces an executive discretion into the prosecutorial process.[23] The Bill confines each offence within enumerated heads of Commonwealth power, and significant provisions remain dormant until ratification of the Macolin Convention engages the treaty-implementation aspect of the external affairs power.[24]
Comparative context
Australia legislates amid comparable activity elsewhere, as France, Kenya and the United Kingdom have each enacted relevant measures recently, and the Macolin Convention now binds more than a dozen State parties.[25] The Australian Bill is nonetheless distinctive. Most match-fixing regimes protect the integrity of the wager, whereas this one protects the integrity of the contest, that is, an assurance that, at the commencement of play, the outcome remains genuinely undetermined. A manipulated fixture is not merely a fraud upon those who have wagered; it is an injury to each person who consented to be surprised.
Next Steps
The Bill is currently before Parliament and has not yet been enacted; its terms may change during passage, and the commencement of significant provisions is deliberately tied to Australia's ratification of the Macolin Convention Until then, much remains to be worked out, not least how these Commonwealth offences will sit alongside existing State laws, sporting codes of conduct and integrity frameworks, and how the courts will construe concepts such as conduct that "corrupts" an event and benefits not "ordinarily due." These are questions of real consequence for national sporting organisations, clubs, players and betting operators alike.
Senet advises across the sports integrity landscape and will continue to monitor the Bill's progress, the ratification timetable and the first decisions to test Part 10.10. If you would like to discuss what the new regime means for your organisation, we would be glad to assist.
This article is legal commentary and does not constitute legal advice. The Bill was introduced on 20 August 2026 and had not been enacted at the time of writing; its provisions remain subject to amendment during passage.
[1]Explanatory Memorandum, Criminal Code Amendment (National Sport Integrity Offences) Bill 2026 (EM) [19].
[2]Attorney-General and Minister for Sport, 'New law introduced to criminalise match-fixing and strengthen the integrity of Australian sport' (Joint Media Release, 20 August 2026).
[3]EM [6]; National Policy on Match-Fixing in Sport (10 June 2011).
[4]EM [7].
[5]EM [3]–[5], [9]; Report of the Review of Australia's Sports Integrity Arrangements (1 August 2018) ('Wood Review') 6, 41, 68.
[6]EM [9]; Council of Europe, 'Australia signs the Convention on the Manipulation of Sports Competitions' (1 February 2019).
[7]Wood Review, recommendation 3, 13.
[8]EM [16]–[17].
[9]EM [9], [85]; Criminal Code (Cth) s 142.1.
[10]EM [21]–[22].
[11]R McLaren, Independent Investigation of the AIBA Boxing Competitions Prior to and During the Rio Olympic Games 2016 (2021); CBC Sports, 30 September 2021.
[12]EM [15]–[18]; proposed s 495.2.
[13]EM [56]–[57].
[14]Proposed s 495.9(1)–(2); EM [125]–[130].
[15]EM [128], [136].
[16]Proposed ss 495.7, 495.8; EM [82], [116].
[17]EM [77]–[79]; ABC News, 22 September 2014; BBC Sport, 17 March 2014; 2013 Victorian Premier League (FFA/FIFA sanctions).
[18]EM [200]; proposed s 495.12.
[19]Proposed s 495.12(7)–(8); EM [222]–[223].
[20]EM [255]; Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) s 1042C.
[21]EM, Statement of Compatibility [12]–[16]; ICCPR art 14(2); proposed ss 495.15–495.16.
[22]Proposed ss 495.7(5), 495.8(6), 495.10(5); EM [73]–[75].
[23]Proposed s 495.17; EM [279]–[282].
[24]EM [13], [286]–[290]; Constitution s 51(xxix); commencement table, item 3.
[25]Council of Europe Treaty Office (ratification status); Conventus Law, 'France — Act No. 2026-725' (August 2026); Sports (Amendment) Bill 2026 (Kenya).
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