AUSTRALIAN Olympic Committee president John Coates has called for criminal sanctions for drug cheats trying to evade punishment as authorities claimed last month's drugs in sport bombshell had improved the reputation of codes. Mr Coates told a parliamentary committee that sweeping new coercive powers for Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority were welcome to help force athletes to cooperate, provide information, attend an interview or fail to answer questions. Amid Opposition and Greens scepticism over the need for the laws, ASADA told the hearing that 45 per cent of the people it had obtained evidence on during investigations in the past 12 months had refused to co-operate. ASADA chief executive Aurora Andruska said another 10 cheats would have been caught on top of the 30 for the period if the body had the powers. But Mr Coates said the proposed fines for failing to comply totalling only a few thousands dollars were not enough given the amount was hardly a disincentive to cashed-up professional sports stars. In our teams, we have professional tennis players, professional soccer players, football players, now professional rugby, basketball... what is a penalty of $5100 to these people? His comments came as Australian Crime Commission chief executive John Lawler defended his handling of the announcement of the ACC report not naming athletes with ministers and sports chiefs. Mr Lawler said the point of the high profile announcement was to provoke the response from sporting bodies to introduce new measures. "In one sense, people have been saying 'because I haven't been named or because people having been identified my reputation is damaged', and I concede that," Mr Lawler said. But he noted the new policies and measures implemented since by codes would "actually enhance their reputation, not sullied it." Shadow attorney-general George Brandis said the ACC had not presented one case showing how the laws would have worked. Ms Andruska said in one of the cases of athletes rebuffing them, two investigators had travelled across Australia only to find the person would not co-operate.