On 5 December 1972, Gough Whitlam became Australia's new prime minister. One of his government's first decisions was to end national service. The National Service Termination Act 1973 was passed on 21 June 1973.
On 5 December we commemorate the 50th anniversary of the end of the last National Service scheme in Australia. The then newly elected Australian Government formally disbanded the scheme on 5 December 1972.
On a state basis, New South Wales, Queensland and South Australia voted a majority against conscription, while Victoria, Western Australia, Tasmania and the Federal Territories voted in favour of conscription.
One of the first pieces of legislation passed by the new Commonwealth government after Federation was the Defence Act 1903, which provided for the raising of an Australian army. The Act established the government's right to conscript men for the purpose of self-defence in the event of war.
Conscription ended in December 1972, and the remaining seven men in Australian prisons for refusing conscription were freed in mid-to-late December 1972. ef 63,735 national servicemen served in the Army, of whom 15,381 were deployed to Vietnam. Approximately 200 were killed.
Australia currently recruits its defence force on a completely voluntary basis and has not conscripted soldiers since the Vietnam War.
A new national service scheme was controversially introduced in 1964, and in 1965 Australia sent conscripts to fight in the Vietnam War (1964–75). This was abolished in 1972. Compulsory military training or service has not been brought back in since.
Politics and Government: Conscription
In 1939 Prime Minister Mackenzie King, conscious of the opposition of French-speaking Quebec to conscription in the First World War, promised that there would be no conscription for overseas service.
Indigenous Australians were excluded from joining military service under the Commonwealth Defence Act of 1903 (and further amendments). This prevented people 'not substantially of European origin or descent' from enlisting in military service.
A Momentous Debate. The 1917 conscription debate was one of the fiercest and most divisive in Canadian political history. French-Canadians, as well as many farmers, unionized workers, non-British immigrants, and other Canadians, generally opposed the measure.
Military and Civil Punishments
At first, COs were sent to military prisons because they were considered to be soldiers. It was a minor triumph for the anti-conscription movement when a mid-1916 Army order ruled that COs who had been court martialled were to be sent to civil prisons.
While the Act gave the government the power to conscript citizens for the purpose of home defence, legislation did not allow soldiers to be conscripted for overseas service. The Universal Service Scheme was the first system of compulsory military service in Australia.
After heavy casualties on the Western Front, Britain pressured Australia to make a bigger contribution to the war effort. In 1916 Prime Minister Hughes visited Britain and the war front. He returned to Australia convinced that conscription must be introduced to win the war.
Birthdates drawn in National Service ballots 1965-72
Men included in the ballot who were born in the period 1 July 1945 to 31 December 1945. Men included in the ballot who were born prior to 1 July 1945 but were absent from Australia when their age group was required to register.
In 1964, the National Service Act introduced a scheme of selective conscription in Australia, designed to create an army of 40,000 full-time soldiers. Many of them were sent on active service to the war in Vietnam.
At first, racist regulations prevented them from joining the army. Restrictions were relaxed in 1917 because the British Empire needed reinforcements.
'Aboriginal men were exempt from conscription, which was one form of recruitment of the day,' said Michael Bell, lead researcher and Indigenous Liaison Officer at the Memorial.
The conscription issue in Australia
Prime Minister Billy Hughes made two attempts to introduce conscription: two conscription referenda were held in 1916 and 1917.
One-quarter of Australia's prime ministers enlisted for military service at some point in their lives (see Appendix 7). This includes four who saw active service (Stanley Bruce, John Gorton, Earle Page and Gough Whitlam).
National Service scheme, 1964–1972
At that time Australian soldiers were involved in the war in Vietnam and with Indonesian Confrontation.
The range of eligible ages for conscripting was expanded to meet national demand during the World Wars. In the United States, the Selective Service System drafted men for World War I initially in an age range from 21 to 30 but expanded its eligibility in 1918 to an age range of 18 to 45.
At the outbreak of the war, many men volunteered to enlist in the newly formed Australian Imperial Force (AIF) to serve overseas. A government policy for conscription would have forced eligible Australian men into military service overseas with the AIF.
A conscientious objector (often shortened to conchie) is an "individual who has claimed the right to refuse to perform military service" on the grounds of freedom of thought, conscience, or religion.