It's Time
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- For other uses, see It's Time (disambiguation).
It's Time was a successful political campaign run by the Australian Labor Party (ALP) under Gough Whitlam at the 1972 election. Campaigning on the perceived need for change after 23 years of conservative (Liberal Party of Australia) government, Labor put forward a raft of major policy proposals, accompanied by a television advertising campaign of prominent celebrities singing a jingle entitled "It's Time".[1] It was ultimately successful, as Labor picked up eight seats and won a majority. This was the first time Labor had been in government since it lost the 1949 election to the Liberal Party of Australia.
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[edit] Themes
The campaign concentrated heavily on the mistakes made by the prime minister of the day, William McMahon, with a special focus given to the areas of the national economy, health care, city planning and the Vietnam War, as well as the liberal policies for which the Australian Labor Party (ALP) has traditionally stood such as social justice and relaxed immigration laws.
[edit] Policies
[edit] Economic policy
Whitlam put forward an economic plan as part of his It's Time speech that advocated strong, productive relationships between the public, industry and employees. He contended that only if strong economic growth was maintained, would policies in other areas be feasible. A restoration of genuine full employment along with a projected 6-7% growth of industry were predicted. He argued that his government need not increase taxation to achieve their goals.
[edit] Health care reforms
The Labor party planned to introduce a universal health insurance scheme, to which contributions would be made according to income, thus turning the old system on its head.
Gough Whitlam declared that the Labor party would set up an Australian Hospitals Commission to promote the modernisation and regionalisation of hospitals. The Commission would be concerned with more than just hospital services. Its concern and financial support would extend to the development of community-based health services and the sponsoring of preventive health programs. Labour encouraged sponsoring public nursing homes, and development of community health clinics.
[edit] City planning
Labor under Whitlam proposed co-operation with the States, local government and semi-government authorities in a major effort to reduce land and housing costs, and to retard rises in rates and local government charges. To this end they advocated the establishment of a new Ministry of Urban Affairs to analyse, research and co-ordinate plans for each city and region and to advise the Federal Government on grants for urban purposes.
Whitlam claimed that the average cost of housing could be reduced by up to 20% by merely standardizing the reticulation and building and lending authority regulations. He also sought to lower interest payments by making them tax deductible. Labor committed itself to reducing the waiting time for a commission home to under twelve months.
[edit] Vietnam War
Whitlam promised an end to Australian involvement in the war in Vietnam and an end to conscription into the Australian armed forces. He underscored the relevance of treaties such as ANZUS to the defence of Australia, but also noted that beginning serious relations with China was in the country's best interest.
It was also announced that all of those previously imprisoned under the National Service Act would be released.
[edit] Social justice
Whitlam asserted that education was to be the fastest growing public sector in Australia, should Labor gain power. In furtherance of this goal, he proposed the establishment of an Australian Schools Commission to examine and determine the needs of students in Government and non-government primary, secondary and technical schools. He promised to increase funding to schools, and to allocate it based on need, accusing his predecessor of having neglected some schools in favour of more prestigious ones.
Whitlam announced that pre-school education would be paid for by the state, and that child care would be heavily subsidised under a Labor government. He also said that university fees would be abolished from 1974.
The ALP saw a great weakness in Australian social welfare in that it relied almost wholly on the provision of cash benefits. Whitlam said he would establish an Australian Assistance Plan with the emphasis on providing social workers to provide advice, counselling and above all the sheer human contact that the under-privileged in the community needed. He also sought to unify the different social justice systems that were at the time in place. Under Labor the pension rate would be raised to 25% of the average Australian male's earnings.
[edit] Political climate
[edit] Leadership
By 1972 Australia had been governed by the Liberal-Country coalition for twenty three years. The Prime Minister of the day, William McMahon, was indecisive, had made major mistakes and his party had failed to deliver on several issues pivotal in its successful 1969 election campaign. Internal strife had plagued the coalition. McMahon had only come into the Prime Ministership through the resignation of his predecessor, John Gorton, in 1971 after a tied vote of no confidence. His skills as an orator were no match for Whitlam's abilities. One of his own most cited quotes pointed out his indecisive nature.
[edit] Foreign relations
The Coalition had focused heavily on relations with the USA since the Second World War to bring Australia under their defence umbrella. Under the auspices ANZUS, Australia had sent over fifty thousand troops to Vietnam in support of the South Vietnamese forces. The Australian government did not recognise the sovereignty of several communist bloc states including the German Democratic Republic and the Peoples Republic of China.
Apartheid in South Africa was becoming a huge source of controversy, and there was wide public support in Australia to increase sanctions against the white government there, particlularly with respect to their sports teams.
[edit] Economy
Unemployment was 2.5% and inflation was sitting on 6.1%. The Australian Dollar bought 1.93 US Dollars, 362 Yen or 1.97 Pounds Sterling. A general downturn in the western economies of the world, and the rising price of oil were contributing to a poor financial situation for Australia.
[edit] Launch
The It's Time campaign was first launched in Blacktown, New South Wales in 1972. According to Whitlam himself, Blacktown was chosen because it "represented – symbolised even – the new outer suburbs of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane where we were building a new constituency. It typified all the urban policy failures of the time, through lack of planning and misallocation of resources at both Federal and State government level." [2] The launch at Blacktown is generally seen as the beginning of the end for the Liberal party under William McMahon.
The speech that Gough Whitlam delivered to the audience in the Blacktown Civic Center was written for the Labor party by Graham Freudenberg, the advisor and speech writer to several successive Labor governments.
[edit] Success
The Labor party received 49.7% of the vote, leaving the Liberal-Country party coalition with just 41.4%¹. Labor, with sixty seven of one hundred and twenty eight seats in the House of Representatives, now controlled Australia's lower house of parliament by a margin of nine seats. The overall swing to Labor on 2 December was 2.5 per cent. Labor lost four seats while gaining twelve.
The 1972 election was the first Australian Labor Party (ALP) victory since 1946. Its success is usually attributed to both the It's Time campaign, and Whitlam's skills as an orator, though it should be remembered that Graham Freudenberg had a major influence on many speeches given by members of the ALP during the It's Time campaign. The campaign helped the ALP to establish new voter constituencies, particularly in outer lying areas of Australia's major population centers, who were, before that time, to large extent marginalised by the major parties.
On his first day in office as Prime Minister of Australia, Whitlam declared an end to conscription and began arranging for those imprisoned for avoiding the draft to be released and compensated. During the next few weeks he implemented a range of new legislation including the establishment of an Australian honours system and the banning of racially selected sporting teams, a move intended to impede the South African Apartheid policy. East Germany and the People's Republic of China were also recognised for the first time by an Australian government.
[edit] Legacy
The words It's Time have become an important contribution to the lexicon of Labor's constituency since their first use in Blacktown in 1972. An updated version of the It's Time song was used in advertisements for the 'Yes' vote in the republic referendum in 1999, which ended with Whitlam saying: "Yes. It's time." In 2000, after another period of Liberal dominance, the phrase had an unsuccessful short-lived recurrence, with Whitlam speaking on behalf of the Leader of the Labor Party, Kim Beazley.
