Throughout most of his life Kennedy was apolitical. He did decide to support Gough Whitlam in the 1972 federal election, because he believed Whitlam would boost funding for the arts in Australia. However this support for Labor soured over cuts to funding local content and the television industry being flooded with cheap American programming. On 16 April 1975, Kennedy criticized the Minister for the Media, Senator Doug McClelland on the Graham Kennedy Show, publicly calling for McClelland to be sacked and the portfolio to be dropped. Producers decided to edit out his speech from final broadcast and Kennedy resigned in protest. Kennedy never voted for Labor again.