It's Time (Australian campaign)

For other uses, see It's Time (Australian campaign) (disambiguation).

Campaign poster

It's Time was a successful political campaign run by the Australian Labor Party (ALP) under Gough Whitlam at the 1972 election in Australia. 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". 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.

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 Whitlam's ideas for governmental reform.

Policies

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 in place at that time. Under Labor, the pension rate would be raised to 25% of the average Australian male's earnings.

Political climate

Leadership

By 1972 Australia had been governed by the Liberal-Country coalition for 23 years. However, the Coalition had barely avoided a humiliating defeat when it suffered an 18-seat swing in the 1969 election campaign--one of the largest swings against a government that still managed to keep power. Whitlam came up only four seats short of toppling the Coalition. The Prime Minister, William McMahon, was indecisive, and failed to deliver on many of the Coalition's campaign promises. 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. McMahon was also unable to get the better of Whitlam; his skills as an orator were no match for Whitlam's abilities. One of his own most cited quotes pointed out his indecisive nature.

Foreign relations

The Coalition had focused heavily on relations with the United States 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, particularly with respect to their sports teams.

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.

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."

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.

Television commercial

The It's Time TV commercial, sung by Alison McCallum, featured a chorus comprising a "Who's Who" of Australian entertainment and sport personalities, including: Bobby Limb, Chuck Faulkner, Col Joye, Little Pattie, Judy Stone, Jack Thompson, Jackie Weaver, Graham Kennedy, Jimmy Hannan, Bert Newton and many others.

Success

Labor received 49.7% of the primary 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 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.

The Whitlam program

During its time in office, the Whitlam Government embarked upon an ambitious programme of social reform, in keeping with the promise of change that the ALP campaign emphasised. The social radicalism of the Whitlam Government was such that, during its first thirteen days in office, some forty important decisions had been made.

As noted by one historian, “Labor’s extensive reforms during its first term in office were the high water mark of Australian postwar social democracy". Upon coming to office, the Whitlam Government granted federal public servants paid maternity leave, a thirty-six and a quarter hour workweek, large wage rises, and four weeks annual leave. Free tertiary education was introduced, together with a universal health care system and a sole parent pension. Laws were also passed providing for equal pay for women and national land rights, divorce laws were made more liberal, and legislation against racial discrimination was introduced. In addition, In addition, the principle of equal pay was extended, occupational health and safety had been improved, annual leave loading was introduced, trade union education was established, four weeks of annual leave was achieved as a national standard, military conscription was abolished and Australian troops were withdrawn from Vietnam, a separate ministry responsible for Aboriginal affairs was established, controls on foreign ownership of Australian resources were put in place, laws against sexual discrimination were passed, maternity leave and benefits for single mothers were extended, and an attempt was made to democratise the electoral system through the introduction of one-vote-one-value.. The social services were also significantly expanded, with spending on housing quadrupled, education outlays doubled, and federal health expenditure rising by 20%

A significant amount of legislation was passed altogether from 1972 to 1975, with 221 acts passed by parliament in 1973 alone. Public spending was raised significantly, with the 1973 budget quadrupling spending on housing, tripling outlays on urban development, and doubling spending on education.

A wide range of new benefits were introduced, such as a handicapped child’s allowance, a special orphan’s pension, and the Supporting Mothers Benefit. Rates of sickness and unemployment benefits were increased to bring them in line with other social security benefits, while funding was provided for child care, women’s refuges, and community health programs. The means test for pensioners over the age of seventy-five was abolished in 1973, and in 1975 the means test was abolished for all pensioners over the age of seventy. As a result of the welfare measures undertaken by the Whitlam Government, social expenditures as a percentage of GDP rose from 12.5% to 17.6% during its time in office.

The voting age was also lowered to eighteen, and grant programs for regional development were introduced, which provided for urban renewal, the construction of sewerage systems in unserviced urban areas, tourist and leisure facilities, and flood prevention. During its last year in office, the Whitlam Government carried out measures such as the introduction of a national employment and training scheme, the first no fault divorce procedure in the world via the Family Law Act 1975, and a welfare payment for homeless Australians.

Despite being in office for only three years, the Whitlam Government was able to carry out a radical programme of progressive social reform, and arguably came far in meeting the promises for change envisioned by its electoral slogan. According to one historian,

“If many Labor supporters regard the Curtin and Chifley governments as a period of great achievements and greater ambitions frustrated by conservative forces, their illusions in the Whitlam government are even more heroic. After nearly a quarter of a century of stagnant conservative rule during which Australia seemed to be a backward looking outpost of the British empire run by monarchists and reactionaries, Gough Whitlam, the Mighty Gough, broke through and during his first 12 months in office remade Australia forever.”.

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.

References

• Detailed results: House of Representatives election 1969, Parliament of Australia.
• "Hopes were high...", Sunday Telegraph, 15 November 1992.
• Whitlam Speeches: 1972 'It's Time' Policy Speech, 13 November 1972