Australian
Screen

an NFSA website

ALP: It’s Time (1972)

A video which normally appears on this page did not load because the Flash plug-in was not found on your computer. You can download and install the free Flash plug-in then view the video. Or you can view the same video as a downloadable MP4 file without installing the Flash plug-in.

Email a link to this page
To:
CC:
Subject:
Body:
clip
  • 1
It's time

This clip chosen to be G

Clip description

A group of celebrities, led by Alison McCallum, sing the ALP It’s Time song for the 1972 federal election campaign.

Curator’s notes

In the 1969 federal election, the defeated ALP, led by Gough Whitlam, had nonetheless gained 15 seats. But key sections of the party were far from complacent about the outcome of the election to follow in 1972. The need for a well-managed campaign with a coordinated approach was recognised. Pre-campaign market research revealed that Whitlam’s image required ‘humanising’. Women in particular found him ‘cold’, ‘distant’ and not enough of a ‘bloke’. Margaret Whitlam was virtually unknown to the public.

Creative Director of Hansen Rubensohn McCann Erikson, Paul Jones, conceived the phrase ‘It’s Time’ and a three-stage campaign was developed around the slogan. In the first stage the slogan was popularised. The television commercials were part of the second stage. They were aimed at sections of the community identified in focus groups as elusive – broadly speaking, women and young people. For the ads, it was decided to produce a campaign song ‘with hit qualities’. The song was written by Paul Jones and Mike Shirley, and sung by media and entertainment personalities – predominantly from television and other media, popular amongst the target demographic. Shadow Minister for the Media, Senator Doug McClelland, had been a member of the Vincent Committee, set up some years earlier to investigate means of encouraging local television production. He had no difficulty securing cooperation from a range of willing participants.

In the meantime, to ‘humanise’ Whitlam, images of a ‘relaxed and friendly’ Gough were to be included in the commercials. As NCC member and NSW Campaign Director Peter Westerway set out for the Whitlam residence, armed with a photographer, he envisaged capturing Gough in ‘family man’ poses, akin to the then familiar photographs from earlier US campaigns of John F and Robert Kennedy enjoying time with their families. Westerway recalls arriving at the house, only to be met at the door by Gough dressed in a formal suit. Plan B – the Whitlams’ photo collection – was resorted to, and these are the photos intercut with the celebrity choristers in the ad. Nobody seems to have a definitive list of those who gathered on the day of the song’s recording at Supreme Sound in Sydney’s Paddington, but among them were Alison McCallum (lead singer), Bobby Limb, Dawn Lake, Jack Thompson, Little Pattie, Jacki Weaver, Barry Crocker, Col Joye, Jimmy Hannan, Judy Stone, Bert Newton, Chuck Faulkner and Kevin Sanders.

The final version of the It’s Time commercial was more effective than anyone could have anticipated. Long before Live Aid and its many progenies, and long before celebrities were in our faces 24/7, the fact that popular personalities would stand up publicly to be counted for a cause was significant. And the song they sang was significantly catchy and significantly inspiring. As well as reaching its target audience, the ad reached a far wider and probably quite unexpected segment of the electorate. The muster of stage and screen personalities – young, optimistic and very Australian – seemed, for many, to capture the mood of a nation on the threshold of rediscovering and redefining its cultural identity.

Thanks to the generosity of the rights holders, we are able to offer It's time from the advertisement ALP: It's Time as a high quality video download.

To play the downloadable video, you need QuickTime 7.0, VLC, or similar.

You must read and agree to the following terms and conditions before downloading the clip:

australianscreen is produced by the National Film and Sound Archive. By using the website you agree to comply with the terms and conditions described elsewhere on this site. The NFSA may amend the 'Conditions of Use’ from time to time without notice.

All materials on the site, including but not limited to text, video clips, audio clips, designs, logos, illustrations and still images, are protected by the Copyright Laws of Australia and international conventions.

When you access australianscreen you agree that:

  • You may retrieve materials for information only.
  • You may download materials for your personal use or for non-commercial educational purposes, but you must not publish them elsewhere or redistribute clips in any way.
  • You may embed the clip for non-commercial educational purposes including for use on a school intranet site or a school resource catalogue.
  • The National Film and Sound Archive’s permission must be sought to amend any information in the materials, unless otherwise stated in notices throughout the Site.

All other rights reserved.

ANY UNAUTHORISED USE OF MATERIAL ON THIS SITE MAY RESULT IN CIVIL AND CRIMINAL LIABILITY.

This clip is available in the following configurations:

File nameSizeQualitySuitability
alpitsti1_pr.mp4 Large: 16.0MB High Optimised for full-screen display on a fast computer.
alpitsti1_bb.mp4 Medium: 7.5MB Medium Can be displayed full screen. Also suitable for video iPods.

Right-click on the links above to download video files to your computer.

Thanks to the generosity of the rights holders, we are able to offer this clip in an embeddable format for personal or non-commercial educational use in full form on your own website or your own blog.

You must read and agree to the following terms and conditions before embedding the clip:

australianscreen is produced by the National Film and Sound Archive. By using the website you agree to comply with the terms and conditions described elsewhere on this site. The NFSA may amend the 'Conditions of Use’ from time to time without notice.

All materials on the site, including but not limited to text, video clips, audio clips, designs, logos, illustrations and still images, are protected by the Copyright Laws of Australia and international conventions.

When you access australianscreen you agree that:

  • You may retrieve materials for information only.
  • You may download materials for your personal use or for non-commercial educational purposes, but you must not publish them elsewhere or redistribute clips in any way.
  • You may embed the clip for non-commercial educational purposes including for use on a school intranet site or a school resource catalogue.
  • The National Film and Sound Archive’s permission must be sought to amend any information in the materials, unless otherwise stated in notices throughout the Site.

All other rights reserved.

ANY UNAUTHORISED USE OF MATERIAL ON THIS SITE MAY RESULT IN CIVIL AND CRIMINAL LIABILITY.

Copy and paste the following code into your own web page to embed this clip: