Referendum ad 'This Freedom'

The First Term

Bob Hawke was elected Federal Labor Leader and Opposition Leader, dramatically just as sitting Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser called a double-dissolution election campaign. Hawke campaigned with energy and confidence, expanding Bill Hayden’s strategy for Recovery and Reconstruction with a third overriding goal, Reconciliation. Campaign advertising was likewise redesigned around the new leader’s aspirations for Bringing Australia Together. On 5 March 1983, Labor won power. With a primary vote of 49.5%, Labor won 75 seats in…

The Baton is changed

The Australian Labor Party celebrated its centenary in June 1991 at a national conference in Hobart. It pledged itself to hold a referendum, before the centenary of Federation, to make Australia a republic, and to legislate indigenous land rights. Keating supporters had seen the conference as an ideal opportunity for Hawke to ‘go gracefully’ - announce his retirement amid the plaudits of a grateful party. Instead, Hawke delivered a fighting speech which made clear his…

It’s Time. The 1972 election

The campaign for the election eventually called for December 1972 was the most professional, long running, and media orientated that Australia had seen to that date. It reflected the reorganisation of the party's extra-parliamentary machinery, as it reflected the parliamentary leadership of Whitlam. A change in the popular attitude to Vietnam and conscription was manifest in the huge rallies of the Moratorium movement, led by Jim Cairns but supported by the whole party. Whitlam's visit…