At AuSI we are delighted with the success of our recent Conference (thanks to the efforts of Fi, Angie, Cynthia and Mark!).
 
The theme was “It’s Time Again” in recognition of the 50th Anniversary of the election of the Whitlam Government on 2 December 1972. During Whitlam’s campaign the party’s capacious agenda for a new Australia was encapsulated in the famous campaign slogan “It’s Time”.
 
I take no credit for the conference’s title (actually, I think it was Fi who came up with it). But everything new is old again. As the dust settled on the conference I was going through some boxes of political ephemera looking for material that I could donate to the Whitlam Institute and I found this draft-cum-mock-up of a badge/sticker for use in the 1974 Federal Election. ‘Its Time Again’. No apostrophe. It was clearly an early draft.
 
Where did I get it? In the mid-1980s I began work as a research officer – wet behind the ears - for a member of the Federal Parliament, Dr Harry Jenkins. A friend and mentor at that time was Glyde Butler. Glyde (a fine Anglo-Saxon name) had a long career as a trade union official before becoming an organiser at the headquarters of the Victorian Branch of the Australian Labor Party in Carlton (and later a Member of the Victorian Parliament).
 
I’d often go to a regular Sunday BBQ at Glyde’s home in Pascoe Vale. On one occasion I got there early and found him finishing clearing out his garage. Numerous boxes had been consigned to a skip. Even as a fledgling historian I knew this was a tragedy unfolding before my eyes. Unfortunately, damp, mould, mice and moths had left numerous boxes of treasures beyond salvation. But I saved a couple. And, one contained this mock-up badge/sticker.
 
Reflecting back it’s interesting that even by 1974 some in the ALP thought they need to frame the campaign ‘It’s Time Again’. Numerous alternatives spring to mind in hindsight. In the end the party opted for ‘Go Ahead’, ‘Give Australia the Go Ahead’, and ‘Whitlam: He’s So Much Better’. The latter was clearly already under consideration when the mock-up was done. Notice: scribbled at the bottom is ‘alternative slogas [sic.]’ ‘He’s So Much Better’.

- Professor Paul Pickering, Director, ANU Australian Studies Institute