A historic agreement was reached last month to introduce uniform anti-match-fixing laws across the country. The agreement was made after Federal and State Sports Ministers met to discuss combating corruption in sport.

The Coalition of Major Participation and Professional Sports (COMPPS) have been the driving force behind getting this agreement off the ground. The agreement came about after four months of negotiations that concluded with a meeting of both federal and state ministers on the Gold Coast earlier this month.

The move towards a national uniform approach is expected to provide consistent national laws to police the integrity of all major sporting codes. Chief Executives of the AFL, Australian Rugby Union, Cricket Australia, Football Federation Australia, Netball Australia, National Rugby League and Tennis Australia are all in favour of stronger laws against corruption and agree that jail terms for very serious forms of corruption is acceptable.

Under the new regime it is expected that sports will have to adopt the uniform codes of conduct and meet all anti-match-fixing and anti-corruption standards in order to receive government funding.

The agreement comes in the wake of an AFL betting issue with stars Heath Shaw and Nick Maxwell facing fines after "inside information" was allegedly used.

A working group will be established to report to the Sports Ministers in three months on how to implement a National Policy.

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