Conscription in Australia
Following recommendations arising from a visit to Australia by Field Marshal Kitchener to report on the country's defence readiness, the Australian Labor Party government instituted a system of compulsory military training for all males aged between 12 and 26 from 1 January 1911.
[2] John Barrett, in his study of boyhood conscription, Falling In, noted: In 1911 there were approximately 350,000 boys of an age (10–17 years) to register for compulsory training up to the end of 1915.
Under Labor Prime Minister Billy Hughes, full conscription for overseas service was attempted during the First World War in two referendums.
[8] Other notable opponents to Conscription included the Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne Daniel Mannix, Queensland Labor Premier T. J. Ryan, Vida Goldstein and the Women's Peace Army.
[13] Anti-conscriptionists, especially in Melbourne, were also able to mobilise large crowds, with a meeting filling the Exhibition Building on 20 September 1916;[14] 30,000 people on the Yarra bank on Sunday, 15 October,[15] and 25,000 the following week;[16] a "parade of women promoted by the United Women's No-Conscription Committee – an immense crowd of about 60,000 people gathered at Swanston St between Guild Hall and Princes Bridge, and for upwards of an hour the street was a surging area of humanity".
[16] An anti-conscription stop work meeting called by five trade unions held on the Yarra Bank mid-week on 4 October attracted 15,000 people.
[19] The issue deeply divided the Labor Party, with ministers such as Hughes and George Pearce vigorously arguing the need for conscription for Australia to help the Allies win the war.
Hughes denounced anti-conscriptionists as traitors and a climate of bitter sectarianism developed since most Roman Catholics opposed conscription and most others supported it.
By the end of the war in November 1918, a total of 416,809 men had voluntarily enlisted in the Army, representing 38.7 percent of the white male population aged between 18 and 44.
However, several CMF Militia units fought under difficult conditions, suffered extremely high casualties in 1942 and slowed the Japanese advance on the Kokoda Track in New Guinea, then an Australian territory.
In late 1942 and early 1943, Prime Minister John Curtin overcame opposition within the Australian Labor Party to extending the geographic boundaries in which conscripts could serve to include most of the South West Pacific, and the necessary legislation was passed in January 1943.
[26] The Defence Act was amended May 1964 to provide that national servicemen could be obliged to serve overseas, a provision that had been applied only once before, during World War II.
[27] In March 1966, the government announced that national servicemen would be sent to South Vietnam to fight in units of the Australian Regular Army and for secondment to American forces.
[29] Men who wished to avoid national service could join the Citizen Military Forces and serve only inside Australia, claim a student deferment or attempt a conscientious objection application.
The movement protested against conscription of Australians to fight in the Vietnam War and made the plight of men under 21, who were not yet eligible to vote, a focus of their campaign.
It was the YCAC that imported the concept of draft-card burning from the United States and ushered in a new form of resistance to conscription, active non-compliance.
Instead of merely not registering (passive non-compliance with the National Service Scheme), the young conscripts actively demonstrated their distaste for the government's actions by destroying their registration cards.
There were several high-profile controversies caused by the government's heavy-handed treatment of conscientious objectors, including William White and Simon Townsend (who later became a well-known television personality).
Instead of waiting to be called up, draft resisters wrote letters to the Minister for National Service detailing their intention not to comply with conscription.
In December 1972, while 'underground' as a draft resister, Barry Johnson stood as the Australian Labor Party (ALP) candidate in the seat of Hotham against Minister Don Chipp.
