Military History of Australia During The Vietnam War - Protests Against The War

Protests Against The War

In Australia, resistance to the war was at first very limited. Initially public opinion was strongly in support of government policy in Vietnam and when the leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) (in opposition for most of the period), Arthur Calwell announced that the 1966 federal election would be fought specifically on the issue of Vietnam the party suffered their biggest political defeat in decades. However, anti-war sentiment escalated rapidly in the late 1960s as more Australian soldiers were killed in battle. The centre-left ALP became more sympathetic to the communists and Calwell stridently denounced South Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Cao Ky as a "fascist dictator" and a "butcher" ahead of his 1967 visit—at the time Ky was the chief of the Vietnam Air Force and headed a military junta. Despite the controversy leading up to the visit, Ky's trip was a success. He dealt with the media effectively, despite hostile sentiment from some sections of the press and public.

The introduction of conscription by the Australian government in response to a worsening regional strategic outlook during the war was consistently opposed by the Australian Labor Party and by many sections of society, and some groups resisted the call to military service by burning the letters notifying them of their conscription (which was punishable by imprisonment). Growing public uneasiness about the death toll was fuelled by a series of highly-publicised arrests of conscientious objectors, and exacerbated by revelations of atrocities committed against Vietnamese civilians, leading to a rapid increase in domestic opposition to the war between 1967 and 1970. Following the 1969 federal election, which Labor lost again but with a much reduced margin, public debate about Vietnam was increasingly dominated by those opposed to government policy. On 8 May 1970, moratorium marches were held in major Australian cities to coincide with the marches in the US. The demonstration in Melbourne, led by future deputy prime minister Jim Cairns, was supported by an estimated 100,000 people. Across Australia, it was estimated that 200,000 people were involved.

Nevertheless, opinion polls taken at the time demonstrated that the moratorium failed to achieve its goals and had only a very limited impact upon public opinion, with over half respondents saying that they still supported national service and slightly less stating that they did not want Australia to pull out of the war. Additionally, the numbers that resisted the draft remained low. Indeed, by 1970 it was estimated that 99.8 per cent of those issued with call up papers complied with them.

Further moratoria were undertaken on 18 September 1970 and again on 30 June 1971. Arguably, however, the peace movement had lost its original spirit, as the political debate degenerated. Dominated by left-wing extremists, the organisers of the events extended invitations to members of the North Vietnamese government to attend, although this was prevented due to a refusal by the Australian government to grant them visas. Attendance at the subsequent marches was lower than that of May 1970, and as a result of a number of factors including confusion over the rules regarding what the protestors were allowed to do, aggressive police tactics, and agitation from extremists the second march devolved into violence. In Sydney, 173 people were arrested, while in Melbourne the police attempted to control the crowd with a baton-charge.