It’s Time. The national ALP Campaign 1972.

For us ‘baby boomers’, this was a period of time when all manner of change was possible. The social headiness of the 60’s and 70’s with women’s liberation, the invention of the contraceptive pill, the ‘hippy’ generation and great advances in technology left us all believing that we could use social reform to advance our causes. With the benefit of hindsight, the visions of this theme song did not all work out the way they were intended.

The Australian Labor Party led by the enigmatic Gough Whitlam and his deputy, Lance Barnard, swept to power on 2nd December, 1972 after 26 years of conservative rule across the nation.The two of them essentially ran the country for a couple of weeks until a Cabinet was formed. The next highest vote after his in Gough’s seat around Liverpool in Sydney was the Informal vote!!

Whitlam pulled Australia out of the Vietnam War within weeks of being elected, abolished university fees (which provided a ‘hand up’ to this working class boy from the western suburbs of Sydney who could now ‘afford’ to go but who still had to ‘do the work’ to stay there) and instigated the return of country to the Aboriginal people of Australia.

What transpired since then is all part of history but the energy and enthusiasm of the theme remains time-less. We just need to ‘do it’ differently. A ‘hand up’ was a great help. A ‘hand out’ is not!!