Sport Integrity Australia (SIA) today held its annual CEO Sport Integrity Forum, bringing together sport leaders and integrity experts to accelerate safeguards, capability and connection across Australian sport.
The forum focused on strengthening safeguarding, supporting athlete wellbeing on the road to Brisbane 2032, complaint management processes, and shaping the future of Australia’s integrity framework.
Opening the forum, SIA Advisory Council Chair, Sarah Kenny highlighted that the focus of today’s forum was practical collaboration, sharing effective approaches, addressing ongoing challenges, and strengthening a safer integrity system that supports all participants.
Minister for Sport, the Hon Anika Wells MP attended the forum to officially launch the findings of SIA’s inaugural Hear me play: youth perceptions of safety in sport study.
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SIA’s CEO, Dr Sarah Benson, said the agency is firmly focused on responding to the rapidly evolving threats across the sector, noting that a united and adaptive response is essential.
“Our commitment is simple, to stand alongside sports, athletes and communities so that integrity isn’t something people have to think about, it’s something they can rely on; my goal is to make integrity invisible,” said Dr Benson.
Protecting Australian sport is a shared responsibility, and together we can ensure it remains a source of pride, unity and inspiration for the nation.
— Dr Sarah Benson PSM, CEO, Sport Integrity Australia
The forum opened with a session on safeguarding sport, providing a briefing on current behaviours in sport and exploring collective actions to strengthen safeguarding initiatives.
Attendees then heard athlete reflections and spoke about integrity on the road to 2032, where athlete leaders Mack Horton OLY OAM, Alison Bai, Telaya Blacksmith PLY, Tomysha Clark and Jonathan Goerlach PLY shared lived experiences and their aspirations for integrity, wellbeing and performance.
The day continued with a practical session on enhancing capability and resilience in complex complaint management processes.
Other topics covered included the essential role of leadership, governance, resourcing and organisational culture in building and sustaining integrity capability across the sport system.
This is the second annual CEO Sport Integrity Forum and is a collaborative platform for CEOs to share insights, challenges and best practice, building collective capability to embed integrity in every aspect of Australian sport. It strengthens connections across the system to protect participants, uphold fair play and sustain community confidence.
The 2026 forum reaffirmed that safeguarding and integrity are shared national priorities, with SIA and sport leaders committed to working side-by-side to ensure every participant can engage in sport safely, fairly and with confidence.