IN LITTLE MORE THAN A DECADE, Don Dunstan turned South Australia into a laboratory for social change. Electoral reform, Land Rights legislation, anti-discrimination laws, environmental protections – reforms that other states were still debating, South Australia was enacting. From late September 2026, Across the Desk of Don Dunstan: Leading Political Change in the 1970s at the Centre of Democracy puts you inside that decade – free, and open until December 2027.
Don Dunstan served as South Australia’s Labor premier twice: briefly in 1967–68, and then again from 1970 to 1979. It was during that second, longer tenure that he left his most indelible mark. In an era when social and cultural norms were shifting rapidly across the Western world, Dunstan moved with purpose and speed, introducing reforms that were not just progressive for South Australia, but firsts for Australia as a whole.
The exhibition traces that extraordinary period in detail. Electoral and social reforms. Consumer protections. Heritage and environmental legislation. Land Rights laws. Anti-discrimination protections that were decades ahead of their time nationally. And woven through all of it, a genuine belief in the arts and cultural life as central to what a city – and a society – could and should be. Dunstan’s vision for Adelaide as a modern, culturally alive place to live and visit didn’t emerge from nowhere; it was policy, pursued with intent.
For South Australians who lived through those years, the exhibition will carry a particular resonance. Many of the freedoms and protections that feel unremarkable today, the kind that simply form the backdrop of daily life, were hard-won during this decade, often against fierce opposition. Across the Desk of Don Dunstan makes that visible, connecting the legislation of the 1970s to its lasting effect on the lives of South Australians right through to the present.
For those who came later, it offers something equally valuable: a vivid sense of how political leadership, at its best, can reshape the texture of ordinary life. The exhibition doesn’t just catalogue what Dunstan’s governments did – it invites visitors to understand how change happens, and what it takes to pursue it.
The timing is significant. The exhibition coincides with events planned by the Don Dunstan Foundation to mark the 100th anniversary of Dunstan’s birth, as well as a companion exhibition at St Peters Town Hall, Don Dunstan: 100 Years. Together, they make for a rich season for anyone with an interest in South Australian history, politics, or the longer arc of social change in this country.
Across the Desk of Don Dunstan opens at the Centre of Democracy on 21 September 2026 and runs through to December 2027. Entry is free.
Across the Desk of Don Dunstan: Leading Political Change in the 1970s
21 September 2026 – December 2027
Centre of Democracy, Institute Building, corner of Kintore Avenue and North Terrace, Adelaide
centreofdemocracy.sa.gov.au
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