ABSTRACT
Australia is an island continent that contains a population of 21 million within a landmass of around 7.7 million square kilometres, which makes it one of the least densely populated nations on earth. Most of its inhabitants live on the coastal fringes, and while it has been mythologised as a land of laconic bushmen (White 1981), in reality over 70 per cent of all Australians live in cities, making it one of the most urbanised countries in the world (Salt 2003). Australia is also an ancient nation, having been inhabited by aboriginals for at least 40,000 years, but it has only 220 years of permanent European settlement. It is an English-speaking country, having been established as a British penal colony in 1788, and given political independence in 1901 when it became a federated nation of six states and one territory. Since then it has evolved into a highly industrialised and cosmopolitan society governed by a democratically elected national parliament, six state parliaments, and two territory parliaments. Australia’s identity and how it sees its place in world affairs has always been problematic, and
is particularly apparent when it tries to define itself in relation to its surroundings (White 1981). It occupies a strategic place in the Asia-Pacific region but has a weak cultural connection to many of its Asian and Pacific neighbours. It is caught between its Anglo-Irish origins and a desire to integrate into the wider Asian community. At the same time, it has augmented its British colonial roots with millions of migrants from Continental Europe, and more recently from Asia and South America. However, the broadening of Australia’s migration base did not come easily, and for much of its early history Australia opposed migration from non-western European countries. During the 40 years immediately after its Federation in 1901, Australia had a white-Australia policy, which meant that Asian migrants were often denied entry (Rickard 1988). Australia’s economic development has also taken many twists and turns. It was traditionally
an exporter of primarily rural products and raw materials, and until the 1950s it was often said that Australia rode on the sheep’s back (Hancock 1961). However, in recent times Australia has relied extensively on its mining and service sectors to fuel its growth (Catley 2005). Primary industry has ended up supporting less than 10 per cent of the workforce and the most recent United Nations human development index ranks Australia as the third most developed country in the world. This high level of national wealth was achieved through a combination of
‘explosive productivity growth’, low inflation, a rapid expansion in the finance, business and communication industries, and growth in global trade (Edwards 2000: 10). Despite the chronic disadvantage suffered by aboriginal communities, Australia has also used a system of industrial conciliation and arbitration and progressive taxes to ensure an even spread of wealth and income, and ‘tangible equality’ between workers and households (Hancock 1961: 154). However, the income gap between rich and poor has been progressively widening in recent years, and the egalitarian myth that has been projected to the world is under threat (O’Conner et al. 2001). Australia’s enigmatic history has created a diverse society, but it has also produced many social fractures and cultural tensions. While Australia is divided in all sorts of ways, with the main tensions being economic, reli-
gious, racial, and gender-based (O’Conner et al. 2001), there are many occasions when Australians are strongly united, and for the most part this occurs when the nation is represented in major sporting events. Indeed, the one thing that defines Australia’s global image is sport. Sport has, more than any other cultural practice, the capacity to unite Australians, whatever their background (Magdalinski 2000). As a result, international sporting successes have been the primary means of securing a strong sense of ‘we-ness’, nationhood and national identity (Australian Sports Commission 1999a; Coakley et al. 2009: 415; Hancock 1961; White 1981). Whereas for the first 60 years of the twentieth century, Australia’s commercial sector rode on the ‘sheep’s back’, it is also fair to say that for the last 60 years Australia’s cultural identity has ridden on the back of its players and athletes (Blainey 2000; Booth and Tatz 2000). This is not to say, however, that Australia’s national government was always heavily involved
in sport. Indeed, for the first 80 years after Federation there was virtually no national government funding for elite sport development. Olympic and Commonwealth Games teams were given travel cost assistance, and the Australian national surf livesaving programme was heavily subsidised (Booth 2001), but beyond that it was expected that sport would not only run its own affairs, but also fund them (Stewart et al. 2004). While the institutional framework for the delivery of sport altered in 1972 with the election of the Whitlam Labor Government, and a mandate for it to change the political landscape (Crowley, 1986), it was not concerned with changing the elite sport development landscape. Although one of its first initiatives was to ban all racially selected sports teams from touring Australia, it was not interested in funding stadium construction, providing financial support to talented young players and athletes, training coaches, or using sports science to improve sporting performance. Its focus was on recreational sport and the delivery of community services (Stewart et al. 2004).
