AFL players had grounds yesterday to challenge federal ministers Peter Costello and Christopher Pyne to undergo drug tests. Circumstantial evidence says that both are on some mind-altering substance.

Whether or not the AFL drugs policy is flawed, it was not drafted unthinkingly, but only after exhaustive research. On one level at least, it demands more of its players than other sports do.

It has been widely debated for two years, yet only now has the Government joined in, while the Ben Cousins affair is still in the public consciousness and is therefore a convenient high horse upon which uppity ministers can climb and shout: "Soft on drugs", it is a slogan — not an argument.

Another agenda can be discerned here. Two years ago, AFL boss Andrew Demetriou made an Australia Day speech in which he questioned whether Australia was now as tolerant and generous as the country his parents migrated to 50 years ago. The Government took it personally. The distance has remained. Demetriou at least spoke with authority on multiculturalism. Costello and Pyne have on drugs in sport the authority of the jailer: a set of keys to jangle, but nothing else.

There is more history. Two years ago, the AFL and Cricket Australia were resisting government pressure to sign up to the World Anti-Doping Authority (WADA) code, believing their own codes to be more stringent.

Angered, the Government threatened to withhold funding. Typically, this was funding used in development programs. The Government was prepared to make hostages of innocents to keep face on the world stage.

The AFL backed down, signing up to the WADA code, but keeping its own, too, making its drugs-testing regime notionally more rigorous than any other. For two years, this appeared to satisfy the Government. Now, suddenly, it does not.

Why now? If the ministers were tested, it is certain that the result would be positive. It would show that they were on a well-known concoction, with a high street value, but likely to cause desperation, paranoia and in extreme cases, oblivion. It would show that they were on the campaign trail.