Victorian basketball runs on layered codes. Basketball Victoria publishes a Codes of Conduct document covering administrators, coaches, officials, players, parents and spectators, and Basketball Australia's National Integrity Framework sits above it with member protection, child safeguarding and complaints policies. Registering a child usually binds the whole family to all of it, including how you behave on the sideline.
Written by Cameron James, founder and head coach at Liddicoat Basketball. Over a decade coaching junior basketball in Melbourne, including at Big V level, and rep teams from Under 12s through to Under 18s.
Last updated August 2026.
The bottom layer is local. Your club and your association have their own rules, and the venue has conditions of entry. These are the ones enforced in real time by a duty manager or a stadium supervisor, and they are the ones that get you asked to leave a game.
The middle layer is Basketball Victoria. Its association resources policies page carries a Codes of Conduct document, Member Protection By-Laws, Integrity By-Laws and Membership Obligation By-Laws, along with more specific policies covering concussion, photography and social media. Basketball Victoria also has a Child Safeguarding Policy, which is published separately from that page.
The top layer is national. Basketball Australia's National Integrity Framework, effective from 16 December 2024, is the umbrella term for a suite of policies and applies to all competitions and events conducted under Basketball Australia or a member state or territory association, including the NBL.
You almost certainly agreed to all three when you registered. Basketball Victoria publishes terms and conditions of participation written for participants using the PlayHQ platform, which is the platform its own registrations run through. Nobody reads it. It is worth ten minutes once, because the sideline rules are the part parents get caught by.
Basketball Victoria's Codes of Conduct document lists expected behaviour by administrators, coaches, officials, players, parents and spectators. Six audiences, six separate codes, one document. That structure is worth noticing, because parents and spectators are treated as two different roles even when they are the same person.
The coaches code is the longest and the most specific. Its clauses reach into how much of a game each child actually gets on court, how squads are put together so that size and maturity count rather than age alone, how a coach handles a player who is sick or hurt, where the line sits on touching a player, why friendships with players are treated as a risk, and an expectation that a coach keeps learning.
The players code is short and written to be read by a child. It asks a player to learn the rules and stick to them, to leave the officials alone, to keep a lid on their temper, to put in as much for the team as for themselves, to extend to opponents the treatment they would want back, and to play because they want to rather than to satisfy an adult.
The officials and administrators codes cover the other side of the whistle and the desk. It is a useful thing to know exists, because parents rarely realise that referees are bound by a written standard too, and that the pathway for a genuine complaint about officiating runs through the association rather than through shouting.
The through line in both is that the game belongs to the child. Let them take part because they want to, not because you do. Rate a genuine effort as highly as a scoreline. Clap the good passages of play whichever team produces them. Save any criticism of a child, yours or somebody else's, for a private moment.
Referees get their own clauses in both codes, and for good reason. Both ask you to take a decision as having been made fairly and to the best of that official's ability, which is a lower bar than agreeing with it. Neither code gives a parent a licence to relitigate a call from the sideline.
Then there is conduct at the venue. Language is covered, and so is violence, which both codes ask you to speak against rather than tolerate. Both also ask you to back the wider effort to get verbal and physical abuse out of sport, and to supervise any child you have brought with you, which takes in younger siblings running the baseline. Looking after the venue and its gear is in there too.
None of this is unusual, and most parents clear it without thinking. The reason it is written down is that a code gives an association something concrete to point at when someone does not, rather than relying on a volunteer to invent a standard on the spot at 9am on a Saturday.
Basketball Australia's National Integrity Framework covers child safeguarding, complaints, member protection, gambling and match fixing, courtsiding, improper use of drugs and medicines, and codes of conduct for elite participants and good administration. It applies to member organisations, authorised providers, participants and clubs, which Basketball Australia defines to include players, coaches, support staff and administrators.
The individual policies underneath carry their own effective dates. Basketball Australia lists its Child Safeguarding Policy as effective from 1 August 2024, its Member Protection Policy from 1 October 2024, its Complaints Policy from 1 March 2025, its Improper Use of Drugs and Medicines Policy from 6 December 2024, and its Anti-Doping Policy, Gambling and Match Fixing Policy and Courtsiding Policy from 1 January 2023.
One distinction is worth drawing, because it confuses people. The Code of Conduct for Elite Participants and Good Administration, effective from 1 January 2023, is aimed at elite participants and administrators. An under 14 domestic player is not bound by that particular code. They are covered by the framework's child safeguarding and member protection policies, and by the Basketball Victoria codes.
Note too that Sport Integrity Australia does not manage formal complaints for basketball. As at 24 August 2026 its own page lists basketball among the sports that have not adopted its National Integrity Framework, and says complaints for those sports go directly to the sport. Basketball Australia's own Integrity Unit investigates alleged breaches, or oversees others doing so, and can impose a provisional suspension where circumstances are urgent or exceptional.
At the venue it is usually immediate and informal. A word from a supervisor, then a request to move away from the court, then a request to leave. Most sideline incidents in junior basketball end there and never become a formal anything.
Above that, associations run tribunals, and Basketball Victoria publishes Integrity By-Laws and Member Protection By-Laws that set out how conduct matters are handled once they escalate. We have not reproduced sanction ranges here, because they live in those by-laws and in each association's own rules, and quoting a number that turns out to be from the wrong document would be worse than useless. Those are the documents to read if you need specifics.
At the national level, Basketball Australia states that anyone subject to a complaint is dealt with under principles of natural justice, is given the opportunity to respond, and is kept updated and offered support. That cuts both ways, which is a fair thing to know before you make a complaint about another parent.
Basketball Australia also states that participants and clubs are required to report suspected breaches of the policies within its framework. In other words, for people inside the sport, reporting is framed as an obligation rather than an option. Liddicoat Basketball is not a reporting body and takes no reports, so anything you need to raise should go to your association, to Basketball Victoria or Basketball Australia, or to the police, and not to us.
On basketballvictoria.com.au, under Resources and then Association Resources and then Policies. The Codes of Conduct document sits there alongside the Member Protection By-Laws, Integrity By-Laws and Membership Obligation By-Laws.
Yes. Basketball Victoria publishes a spectators code as one of the six, separate from the parents code, and venues have their own conditions of entry. Being a spectator rather than a registered participant does not put you outside it.
Not the elite one. Basketball Australia's Code of Conduct for Elite Participants and Good Administration, effective 1 January 2023, is aimed at elite participants and administrators. A junior domestic player is covered by the framework's child safeguarding and member protection policies and by the Basketball Victoria codes.
Most incidents end at the venue with a word from a supervisor or a request to leave. Beyond that, associations run tribunals and Basketball Victoria publishes Integrity By-Laws and Member Protection By-Laws that set out the process. The specific sanctions live in those documents.
Yes. Coaches are also covered by Basketball Victoria's Child Safeguarding Policy and by Basketball Australia's National Integrity Framework, and adult coaches generally need a Working with Children Check. The code of conduct is the behavioural layer, not the whole set.
Next questions parents ask
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Facts on this page were compiled from the official sources below and written up in our own words. Dates, fees and venues change every season, so confirm anything you are relying on with the association directly.
This page was last updated August 2026. Spotted something wrong? Tell us.
Liddicoat Basketball runs skill development for junior players around Melbourne. Cameron coaches the sessions himself, and the plans are built to sit around a normal domestic or rep season rather than compete with it.