The Olympic Games have always offered a platform for people wanting to protest, to make a statement and boycotting the games offers an opportunity for countries like Australia that have grievances with China to stage a boycott on the Beijing Winter Games, is it likely to happen.

It does provide a great platform, but I my personal view and this is just me is Adam Gray, I don’t see it and for a couple of reasons. One, we spoke the other day about I the last time that’s really happened, it was 1980 with Moscow. And that’s probably the last time that that the world collectively has got together and made a statement. You know 40 years on from that I just don’t know, I don’t know whether the world’s prepared to do that again. I think the environment is probably right for it in terms of the rise of China and the concerns around that the silk road initiatives and the sort of the soft politics seemingly through economic help. I think there’s enough going on with Taiwan, with Hong Kong, human rights with the Uighurs and all of that stuff. I think the settings probably right for it, but I just don’t know that the world has appetite to do that. 

Article 50 of the Olympic Charter governs the expression of political aspirations by athletes during the Games.

At the Tokyo Olympics, the American women shot putter expressed her appeal for black equality when receiving her award. How does the Australian Olympic Committee and the Australian government view this? I mean it could be an Australian athlete next?

I think that any response would be from the AOC and I think their view would be that the games are about sport and the games shouldn’t be politicized. I think that’s the view of the AOC. I don’t know what undertakings, but I know the athletes do need to sign a code of conduct when they get nominated for the Australian 

Are the AOC completely separate and independent from the Australian Government?

Yes, and they deal with the athletes and part of that code of conduct, and I haven’t seen it, but I’m sure part of that code of conduct would be about actions that would detrimental to the image of the games or bring the games into disrepute, whatever that might be. And I just think the AOC would say that we’re here to compete. And it’s a distraction for the team. And I think that’s what happens. When an individual athlete makes a statement, it does tend to detract from the performance of the team. So, I think that’s where they would come from. For athletes, too I think the Olympics, maybe the appeal of the Olympics, maybe the fact that it’s once every 4 years, I think there’s a personal cost. It comes to the athlete that the athlete has to pay.

I think most of them would think it’s not worth it on here to compete on here to try and get a medal. I don’t want the distraction of that and it takes a pretty unique individual to want to do that. I you don’t see that at the Olympics. 

So you are saying the AOC is completely separate from the Australian Government?

It’s self-funded, the AOC is self-funded and they are separate entities but they are competing on behalf of Australia so the AOC or the national federation will nominate athletes in each of their sports and then based on the qualification standards in hockey or tennis or whatever sport, the same thing and then each national federation submits the list of athletes that have qualified or met the qualifying standard. They submit that to the IOC who then ratify for the team and then that becomes the Australian team. So, that’s the process, the Australian government doesn’t have anything to do with that, other than when it becomes political and when it tends to drag Australia into political or potentially political incidents.

The reality is the Australian Government has been very critical of China on a number of fronts including Jinyiang, Honk Kong, trade and a number of other issues – how then would the Government react if an athlete were to make some kind of political statement on one of these issues, would they applaud the athlete?

No, I don’t see them doing that. I’m just not sure that the Australian government is in a position or wants to be in a position where they were they take a very strong stance against China. I just don’t see that happening and I you only have to look at the behaviour of the Australian government towards the Chinese government now and what they’re prepared to do and the statements that they’re prepared to make. Which largely has been words, I think. And the Australian government’s looking at different markets overseas when the tariffs and trade embargos have been placed by the Chinese on Australian products. But really, I haven’t seen anything by way of behaviour from the Australian government that would indicate that they’ve got any sort of an appetite or interest in in making a meaningful sort of statement, and which would include not sending an Australian team.

It is true though that there would be some members of the Government who if an athlete protested about something the agree with, say Hong Kong or the Uighurs, might smile privately but not back it publicly?

No, I don’t think so when you got to look at the stance that Matt Houghton, the Australian swimmer took against Sun Yang, the Chinese swimmer that was to do with doping violations, or alleged doping violations. But what did the government do regarding that? It was largely left to the individual and he suffered for that, I he got death threats online from the Chinese community members or the Chinese community. What did the Australian government come out and say? well, they came out and they made a statement that’s sort of didn’t condone doping it or in any form. And they just came out and made some political statements, but they supported the right of the athlete to make some statements. But other than that, what did they do? Probably not much.

The alleged activities of the Chinese swimming team is an issue that doesn’t seem to go away, do you think the AOC will be calling for more doping tests?

Oh, I don’t think so. You know I think you’ve got WADA, the world anti-doping agency and ASADA, so, I don’t think so. There’s a pretty stringent doping program that’s in place that. There’s really rules around the number tests an athletes got to do and they’ve got to declare their whereabouts so that they are available for testing and they can’t duck it. I think the view would be that, the programs that are in place as sufficient and I think that’s what you see with you know, the position of the Russian national term and how they’re not an official delegation that come because they’re still banned from the Olympics and yet the athletes still come. So, you look at examples like that and its still Russia that’s coming, but they’re just called the Olympic athletes from Russia it’s not the Russian national team and it’s a bit of semantics so I don’t see things changing.

The Johnson Government in Britain has said its reluctant to over-politicise the games by getting involved in a Boycott, what is the attitude of the Australian Government? Have you seen or heard anything that would suggest they would be interested? 

No, I haven’t. And I’d be really surprised. I’d be really surprised. I just don’t see it happening. 

There have been a couple of right wing fringe coalition members suggesting a boycott but no serious politicians have said anything, have you heard anything?

No, I haven’t I think you get the usual the usual suspects that will be calling for something. And there’s the usual MP’s that will be railing against whatever it might be. But usually these are not people that have got, they’re not in any position to have any really substantive effect any sort of change and unless it’s Morrison coming out or the opposition coming out and saying now is the time to make a statement and to take a position. But I think there’s two things it would need for the government to make that sort of statement and secondly, I think before they made that sort of statement, they would want to make sure that they are supported in that position by some of the countries that are allied to Australia and that’s the US and that’s the UK and that’s Canada and New Zealand.

Are these countries communicating about the possibilities of a boycott and about their plans for the games? 

I imagine they’d be chatting about the games in a general sense but I think they’ve got some other things that are distracting them. I just don’t think it’s front of mind. My view, is and the sense I always have, is that the games will continue. It’s not perfect but I don’t see any appetite for a boycott, I just don’t. I mean it’s not something that you hear about in the press and with government, it doesn’t seem to be occupying their minds too much. They’re talking about the human rights issues, but they’re not taking a step further and issuing some hard ultimatums, they’ve never done that and until they start doing that and saying, by such date, we want to have these reforms in place, I mean the IOC is doing that with world weightlifting and to try and change the governance and there’s some hard and fast rules around that, but I don’t see that with the games, generally, I think. Yes, it’s a topic of discussion, but I think that’s all it is.

So the next thing that happens then is a grand opening ceremony for the Winter Games in Beijing. Do you think the government might seek to make a statement by which Government people attend or don’t attend?

Well, it’s hard because I think with covid and the restrictions, that puts a different lens on everything. It’s not games as usual and we saw that in in Tokyo. So, it’s a bit hard to make a definitive statement about the impact of the games by covid or other things. My view is they’ll proceed, they’ll go ahead, there will still be some talk around the opportunities, I mean the Olympics provide a stage for comments, for commentary and statements so, yeah, I think there’ll be some of it, but I just don’t see it being taking up a lot of space.

While it appears there is no serious appetite for a boycott, the countries we’ve spoken of earlier, the US, the UK, Japan and other will be talking about at what level their government’s will send people to attend, for example the Prime Minister not turning up is a statement, the Government perhaps staying away and so on – does you think these countries will co-ordinate at the level of who goes to Beijing?

Yeah, that’s an interesting take on that. It’s an interesting position to think about what governments will do. I don’t know what the appetite of the Australian government. So, if Morrison doesn’t go if the foreign Minister doesn’t go, Coates will certainly go, he’s the president of the AOC and in his capacity as vice-president of the IOC so, he’ll definitely go. I don’t see anything happening on the strong Olympic team delegation front. Politically. Does Morrison go? I mean they’re gonna have to judge any statement that they make through attendance or non-attendance against their broader issues. And with the geopolitics that are happening, who knows what’s gonna happen in the next few months about trade and my personal view is, that’s what it’ll come down to. I think that they will overcome any personal impediments they might have about human rights in China and will come down to trade. Like it always does. Yeah, and that’ll be a backroom deal that’s done by someone. And then all of a sudden, if you do come and maybe we can reconsider the tariffs on wine and lobster and coal and all of this sort of stuff. Then all of a sudden, the issue goes away and everyone’s happy and that’s politics.

What do you see as the security implications for the Beijing games in terms of Covid?

It’s makes it a lot easier, it really does. Having come out of at Tokyo, there’s a couple of things when it comes to sort of major event security. Tokyo had no spectators. So, all of a sudden you don’t have in the Olympic stadium, you don’t have 50 or 60,000 spectators is in there, so you don’t have all the security apparatus and the bag searches that you need for the spectators. Japan is different, it’s a bit unique in the sense that their low levels of crime, low levels of terrorism. So, it’s a pretty safe country to do a major event. China’s in a similar boat, but for different reasons, they’ve got a system of government a, form of government that controls the behaviour of the population, so the facial recognition, the social scores that they’re developing now set the controls. So, I think with covid the likelihood now is that there will likely be a reduction of spectators or potentially none, as we saw in Tokyo and the Chinese government to my knowledge, has not made a decision regarding that yet. But once you take spectators out of the equation It really takes away a lot of the opportunity, certainly for something to happen at games venue. Not to say something wouldn’t happen elsewhere and still have the same effect, which is what terrorism is all about.

It terms of the protection of Australian Athletes will the AOC be making certain demands?

The way it works is that each country when they send their delegation on behalf of the country via the national Olympic committee, obviously Australia’s is the Australian Olympic committee, but each country has their own national Olympic committee and those committees will get a briefing from the games organizers through the organizing committee through a chef de mission seminar that will be a chef de mission, guide book that gets published for each games and that is developed in consultation with each of the national committees from around the world, for, the summer games, it’s about 204 countries and for the Winter Games, it’s around the 70 to 80 Mark. So that gets developed and that sort of puts details in front of the national committees about operational arrangements that will be in place for the delegation that comes from each country, including some detail and security and logistics and transport and the combination all that sort of stuff. So, there’s input in there, a little bit from the national committees but at the end of the day, the security for the games is a matter for the host city in the host country. They’ll put in place whatever measures they deem appropriate subject to the risk and threat that that’s current for them.

So you make your decisions based on those arrangements?

Yeah, and I don’t know that any countries ever said we’re not gonna go. Based on that, I think. When countries haven’t gone, it’s been about Moscow, and it’s been about a political decision. It hasn’t been about concern about the security apparatus and the arrangements that are in place. There is a standard protocol relatively that that transfers from games to games when it comes to major in security. The Olympic village were all the athletes stay, or the athlete’s villages as it’s sometimes called. There’s an expectation there. it meets certain requirement in terms of physical security elements, which is fences and you cctv and all of that sort of stuff and bag searches and x rays and those types of things. So, there’s an expectation that the games follow a recognized set of, protocols, policies and procedures, and infrastructure and countries would expect to see that and vehicle searches and all of that sort of stuff. So, and each national committee will have a security expert that will probably advise them to say that makes sense. But it comes down to threat and risk too. So, what’s happening in the world globally about terrorism? And what’s the likelihood of something happening in China? So that’s where it starts. The athletes are the heart of the games and the covid measures that were put in place for Tokyo, that’s where it started. The protection of the athletes is paramount as the most important stakeholder of the games and everything’s done to make sure that they’re safe and secure. But at the same time, you want to have, the Olympics is shouldn’t be a security event with sports, it should be a sporting event with security and there’s a bit of a difference there that you want to make sure that the security overlay is effective but it’s discreet.

Ok, earlier, last year, The Australian Government through DFAT warned Australians not to travel to China because they could be arbitrarily detained, is that a consideration?

That’s probably gone away now because of covid and the inability to travel because it covid, and you physically can’t get there and if you do, you got 21 days a quarantine and that’s probably overtaken that sort of initial argument about don’t go because you might be subject to the detention. So, I think that probably the world’s moved on from that and the focus as you said earlier is that it was preoccupied with covid and what that looks like so, I think that’s probably more of the deterrent and probably has the same effect.

So the Australian Government can’t be really about that because if they were really worried about people being detained, they wouldn’t go?

No, you wouldn’t go and look, you know, the thing with China, China’s many things, but they’re also a, realist and they’re playing a long game here and the Olympics, what it does for, one of the things that it can do for a country like China and Russia was no different with Sochi in 2014, but what the Olympics can do for a country like that is that it demonstrates and it gives us the opportunity or the platform to demonstrate that it can compete on the world stage and it can do these mega events that involve the world. So they’re not gonna do anything. They’re really going to, be careful. Because anything untoward would negate all the benefits that come from staging the Olympics. So, they want to be soon as open and caring and welcoming and show China is a good place to come. And that’s in the context of that, they’re gonna look at everything they do through that sort of lens and test it against that sort of objective.

Where are Australian sponsors at, are they lining up to be part of the Beijing Winter Olympics?

Well they won’t be because the way that the sponsorship works, is the there are top sponsors that are aligned with the IOC so they’re the world-wide sponsors like Bridgestone, Coca Cola, et cetera, so, they’re the world-wide sponsors and then there’s domestic sponsors, which is the next level down. And the host city or the host country, has the right to do deals with domestic sponsors, as long as they’re not in conflict with the world-wide sponsor. So, the AOC won’t have sponsors for the games, but they’ll have sponsors for itself domestically in Australia. I’m like Qantas, as an example, So, that’s how that works.

So even if it wanted to, the Australian Government would be unable to influence them as to what they do or say?

No, I don’t think so. For so, all of the faults the of the Australian government system of democracy, that’s not one of them. I think companies are large and left to make a decision based on, I think, the vision of the values of their organization and then the commercial opportunities that come. And I think they’re probably the two tests and. And I think if you looked at someone and if you looked at Qantas, for example, as a sponsor of the AOC, would they make the decision not to fly the Australian term to China? I don’t see that happening because directly impacts the athletes they are there to support. So, I think company companies make a bit of a rational and practical decision on the balance of all of these sorts of things and we’re supporting the Australian team, we’re not necessarily supporting something else, but the services we provided to help the athletes.

Former Federal Sports Minister, Warwick Smith told the Australian that he had raised the issue of business representation at the Winter Olympics with Trade Minister, Dan Teham, suggesting that the Games could provide a “constructive incentive” for much-needed face-to-face meetings between the two countries. How does the Australian government see this and what is it going to do? Will it follow that advice?

I think if you if you look at things rationally, if you look at geo politics rationally and step back a little bit, you’re more likely to have a positive impact from dialogue and connection, rather than boycotts, and the code kof silence. I think it’s better to be at the table. It’s better to have a discussion, even though it’s a table that maybe you don’t want to be at, I think you better off. You’re more likely to affect and influence change if you’re there at the table through whatever mechanism that might be. So, I think that’s the reality. So, I think that’s the sensible and pragmatic approach to take. 

So you think the games represent an opportunity to get the differences sorted out?

When you look at China, I it’s a country on the rise. It’s got the largest population in the world. Which creates an enormous commercial opportunity to businesses. And business is generally pretty pragmatic and commercially savvy. And they look for opportunities where it might be and in whatever market they might be. And they’ll have to they’ll have to balance that against whatever visions they have and whether they’re contrary to their visions, but I think they’ll look for the opportunity and it’ll come down to money, it’ll come down to commercial opportunities and it’s better off being at the table to have a discussion about that and it’s pretty hard to give up an opportunity for $1 billion industry based on some values that may be misaligned and that’s pretty tough but I think that’s what comes down to. It’s like people that protest about something, you’ve gotta be in a position where you can afford to protest and make it up somewhere else. I think that’s probably the practical. reality of life.