Bert Kelly, The Australian Financial Review, August 6, 1976, p. 4.

You have got to hand it to Mavis. She was delighted because Mr Hawke had helped my popularity by having that queer Medibank strike which neither he, nor anyone else, could explain.

But she was quick to point out that the credit was due to Mr Hawke and not me.

“It’s a long while since you’ve done anything worthwhile to get a vote for yourself, dear,” she complained. You should not rely on that nice Mr Hawke all the time.

“He’s not a fool and I guess he knows now that he was wrong to have that silly old strike. You must be watchful and ready to get on any popular bandwaggon that comes past. You’ve got to do something for yourself sometimes.”

It is always hard for me to pick a popular cause out of the ruck but Mavis doesn’t have that trouble.

We were watching the Olympic Games on TV the other night and listening to the commentator telling us before a race that the Australian competitor was certain to do well, and later explaining how he would have won if only he had run faster but he couldn’t do this because the Government wouldn’t pay him while he was doing his training.

I wasn’t following the program very closely because I was trying to remember the lecture which Eccles had given me that afternoon about “the caterpillar complex.”

He says that if you see a caterpillar marking time in a shuffling sort of way and wearing a worried frown, it is because it can’t get all its legs to work together.

Eccles says that Governments suffer from the caterpillar complex but it was the Government’s arms rather than its legs that get entangled.

I was thinking about this in a tired way while watching an Australian run an excellent, but losing, race when Mavis poked me in the ribs with her knitting needle.

“That’s it, dear,” she said eagerly. “We’ll start a campaign for the Government to spend immense amounts of money on training athletes. There will be no end of votes in it for you, particularly with our Olympic disappointments so raw.”

Now Mavis is no athlete, though she is keen on croquet, which she enjoys because she can make me go through hoops.

But she is no doubt right in her assessment of what is popular, so my new war cry is to be “more money for amateur sport.”

I have long known that the Government is blamed for the weather (Fred is very angry with me about this at present), but I was startled to find that it was also the Government’s fault that our swimmers were not as good as once they were.

But Mavis says it is the people’s wish that the Government gets into the sporting business in a big way, so let’s get on with it.

However, my heart isn’t in it and Eccles and Fred agree with me. They are particularly scornful about the plea that international sporting events are supposed to foster international goodwill.

“What about the murders at Munich,” they sneered? “What about the walk out at Montreal?”

They are right, of course. The so-called Games are no longer sporting contests — they should be regarded more as unarmed international combat.

If we wanted to create goodwill we would ban all Government-backed international sporting events, not encourage them.

I suspect that much of the pressure for more Government involvement in international sport comes from the commentators.

Some of these made fools of themselves, bragging so bravely before some events, particularly before Steven Holland’s tremendous swim, so when our competitor was eventually beaten they had to excuse themselves by blaming the Government.

And being a commentator at such Games must be exciting and good fun, keeping the Games going so that they can have a trip to Moscow in four years’ time.

I think that taking kids from the cradle and force-feeding them with iron discipline is not a nice way to behave.

If the kids want this and their parents will tolerate it, well and good, but I would be sorry to hear that Governments were bringing such pressure to bear.

Just one thing in conclusion. It is no good people complaining about the taxation burden and then asking the Government to spend more money on sport.

Governments have no proper place in the bedroom or on the sporting field either, no matter how popular such actions may be!

*****

[Bert Kelly also wrote about government funding of sport a year later in his “The sporting camel in the tent of the taxpayer,” The Australian Financial Review, September 16, 1977, p. 3.]