ABSTRACT
The institutional framework for the delivery of sport changed dramatically during the 1970s. In 1972, the Gough Whitlam Labor Government was elected with a mandate to change the political landscape (Crowley, 1986). It was both reformist and highly centralist, and believed that it should exert more control over both economic and cultural affairs, including sport. One of its first initiatives was to ban all racially selected sport teams from touring Australia. This was a significant policy shift since it overturned the Gorton and McMahon Governments’ view that politics had no place in sport.
