Conscription in Australia, also known as National Service following the Second World War, has a controversial history which dates back to the implementation of compulsory military training and service in the first years of Australia's nationhood. Military conscription for peacetime service was abolished in 1972.
However, in times of war, the Defence Act 1903 allows the Governor-General of Australia to authorise conscription for service in the Defence Force, provided it is approved by the Parliament of Australia within 90 days.[1]
In 1909, the Deakin government introduced an amendment to the Defence Act 1903, the Defence Act 1909, which allowed for a form of conscription for boys from 12 to 14 years of age and for youths of 18 to 20 years of age for the purposes of home defence. The Act, which passed with the combined support of the Protectionist Party and the Australian Labor Party, did not allow soldiers to be conscripted for overseas service.
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. Since 'universal' was a misnomer, about half that number were exempted from training, or perhaps never registered, reducing the group to 175,000.[3]
There was quite extensive opposition to the so-called "boy conscription". By July 1915, there had been about 34,000 prosecutions and 7,000 detentions of trainees, parents, employers or other persons required to register.
Under Labor Prime Minister Billy Hughes, full conscription for overseas service was attempted during the First World War in two referendums.
The first referendum was held on 28 October 1916 and narrowly rejected conscription with a margin of 49% for and 51% against.[4] The referendum of 28 October 1916 asked Australians:
Are you in favour of the Government having, in this grave emergency, the same compulsory powers over citizens in regard to requiring their military service, for the term of this War, outside the Commonwealth, as it now has in regard to military service within the Commonwealth?
A second referendum was held on 20 December 1917 and defeated by 46% for and 54% against. This question was put to Australians:
Are you in favour of the proposal of the Commonwealth Government for reinforcing the Commonwealth Forces overseas?[5]
After the failure of the first referendum, Billy Hughes and his supporters left the Australian Labor Party parliamentary caucus and took with them a good deal of the parliamentary party's talent.[6] They created a new National Labor Party, and Hughes survived as prime minister by forming a conservative Nationalist government, which was dependent for survival on the Commonwealth Liberal Party.[7] The remainder of the Labor Party, under the new leader, Frank Tudor, then expelled Hughes and all of those who had followed him.[6] Following the split, Labor stayed out of office for ten years.
After the first referendum, the government used the War Precautions Act and the Unlawful Associations Act to arrest and prosecute anti-conscriptionists such as Tom Barker, the editor of Direct Action and many other members of the Industrial Workers of the World and E. H. Coombe, who had three sons at the front, of the Daily Herald. The young John Curtin, then a member of the Victorian Socialist Party, was also arrested. Anti-conscriptionist publications, in one case, even when it was read into Hansard, were seized by government censors in police raids.[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.[9] Most trade unions actively opposed conscription. Archbishop Mannix, born in County Clare, stated that Ireland had been more wronged by Great Britain than Belgium had been by Germany.[10]
Many people thought positively of conscription as a sign of loyalty to Britain and thought that it would also support those men who were already fighting. However, trade unions feared that their members might be replaced by cheaper foreign or female labour and so opposed conscription. Some groups argued that the whole war was immoral, and it was unjust to force people to fight.
South Africa and India were the only other participating countries not to introduce conscription during the First World War.[11]
The conscription issue deeply divided Australia with large meetings held both for and against. The women's vote was seen as important, with large women's meetings and campaign information from both sides aimed at women voters. The campaigning for the first referendum was launched by Hughes at a huge overflow meeting at the Sydney Town Hall, where he outlined the government's proposals.[12] That was followed by a huge pro-conscription meeting at the Melbourne Town Hall on 21 September.[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.[17] It was passed on 21 September 1916,[13] and mandatory registration and enrolment commenced while the first referendum campaign was underway. By 5 October, The Age reported that of 11607 men examined, 4581 were found fit, approximately 40 percent.[17]
The Age noted in the article "Influence of the IWW" that "the great bulk of the opposition to conscription is centred in Victoria".[18] Many meetings in inner Melbourne and Sydney were disrupted by anti-conscriptionists with speakers being howled down from the audience in what The Age described as "disgraceful exhibition" and "disorderly scenes".[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. They were supported by many within the party, including Labor's first prime minister, Chris Watson and NSW Labor Premier William Holman. 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.[20]
On 1 November 1929, the mandatory service provisions of the Defence Act were suspended, ending 18 years of conscription for home defence.[21]
In 1939, at the start of World War II, all unmarried men aged 21 were to be called up for three months' military training. The men could serve only in Australia or its territories. Conscription was effectively introduced in mid-1942, when all men aged 18–35 and single men aged 35–45 were required to join the Citizen Military Forces (CMF). Volunteers with the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) scorned CMF conscripts as "chocolate soldiers", or "chockos", because they were believed to melt under the conditions of battle, or it might be an allusion to George Bernard Shaw's Arms and the Man in which Bluntschli filled his backpack with chocolate bars, rather than ammunition. 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.[22]
The Papuan campaign of 1942 led to a significant reform in the composition of the Australian Army. During the campaign, the restriction banning CMF personnel from serving outside Australian territory hampered military planning and caused tensions between the AIF and CMF. 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.[23] The 11th Brigade was the only CMF formation to serve outside Australian territory, however, when it formed part of Merauke Force in the Dutch East Indies in 1943 and 1944.[24]
In 1951, during the Korean War, national service was introduced under the National Service Act 1951. All Australian males aged 18 had to register for 176 days training (99 days full-time) and two years in the CMF. Later, the obligation was 140 days of training (77 days full-time) and three years' service in the CMF. In 1957 the system was changed to emphasise skill rather than numbers, then ended in 1959. The regular military forces remained voluntary.[25]
In 1964, compulsory national service for 20-year-old males was introduced under the National Service Act 1964. The selection of conscripts was made by a sortition or lottery draw based on date of birth, and conscripts were obligated to give two years of continuous full-time service, followed by a further three years on the active reserve list. The full-time service requirement was reduced to 18 months in October 1971.[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. The 1964 amendments applied only to the permanent military forces and excluded the Citizen Military Forces. In 1965, the Defence Act was again amended to require the CMF to serve overseas, which had not been included in the 1964 amendments.[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.[28] Requirements for overseas service were detailed by the Minister for the Army, Malcolm Fraser, on 13 May 1966.[29] Men who wished to avoid national service could join the Citizen Military Forces and serve only inside Australia, c