Strong enough, for what it is worth i am for a national drug testing agency.
however, how it is funded would have nothing to do with how it functions. Recent drama in the NRL and AFL proves that. They pay, ASADA investigates.
Reality is that in 2011-2012, ASADA had '3,996 government-funded tests across 45 sports and 3,200 user-pays tests for Australian sporting bodies and other organisations'.
How it is funded has plenty to do with how it functions once you take into account capacity to pay. What we have is a distinction between professional sports and amateur ones.
In 2012 the AFL had revenue of $425 million. Of the 3,000 user-paid tests, the AFL bought around 1,000 of them. There were rumours that year that Dane Swan was using hGH around the time he went to Arizona to rehab from a mid-season injury. ASADA flew investigators over to Arizona and did surprise 6am testing over several days (presumably this was the hGH suite, as the test is most sensitive first thing upon waking). The AFL paid for this. Clearly as a multi-million dollar professional enterprise, it is in a position to do so. Not many others are...maybe the NRL, ARL, FFA and Cricket Australia.
PA or the AWF for that matter could fund
some level testing, but they would be ineffective programs. The difference between PA and other IPF affiliated national bodies that self fund is the standard of the programs. I would wager that ASADA does more athletes on the RTP and subject to round the clock out of comp testing than most other IPF countries. The guys I know on the RTP get tested pretty much every comp, and then maybe 2-10 times a year out of comp. When I trained at Melbourne Uni, I reckon the ASADA team dropped in for RTP testing maybe 4-5 times a year, testing an average of 3-4 guys each time.
I will give you a much more simple example to put into perspective whether PA has the capacity to self-fund their testing. I pay $140 annual membership. Let's assume I do three comps a year (average cost of $50 per year). My direct financial contribution to PA is at most $300 a year. Assuming perfectly random testing (with no targetting) not even taking into insurance, venue hire, and all the other costs, PA could afford to test me once in 3 years - for a urine test only, ie 1 in 9 comps. Once you look at the true cost, it's probably more like once every 6-8 years, ie more like 1 in 20 comps. If they did a blood test or out-of-comp test, the cost is blown out more.
How much confidence could I place in a system where I might be subjected to a single in-comp drug test once every 6 years, and if I reached a decent level, zero possibility of an out-of-comp test? About as much as ADFPA, a federation which, guess what, self funds its ASADA testing program.