Time will be key bargaining chip

The associated increase in female participation in the workforce has also changed the dynamics of family time. In deregulated economies, intense competition has pushed the boundaries of work further and further out into the time zone once reserved for rest, recreation and family. It won't be long before time becomes a primary negotiating component of employment contracts, like money, rather than merely an afterthought. Only last week my old employer, Holding Redlich, advertised positions for lawyers who "while working hard, are not required to work excessive hours on a regular basis".

The emergence of time as a central issue is going to reshape our political landscape. The war between social progressives and social conservatives will be overtaken by a wider struggle around time and relationships. While they might fight bitter battles over issues like gay marriage, social progressives and social conservatives have a wider set of common interests, as the word "social" suggests.

Already there are signs of emerging common cause in the work of important Left-wing thinkers like Clive Hamilton and David McKnight. The UK Relationships Foundation is working on a theory of chronomics, the time equivalent of economics. When you analyse these points of commonality, you find time and human relationships at their heart.

Eventually we'll see an Australian political leader again run on the slogan "It's Time", but with a very different meaning from the original 1972 version.