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Conscription was an abuse : Comments
By Bruce Haigh, published 22/1/2013The Judicial Inquiry should look at the ethics, effect, equity and justice of conscription. It was an abuse of power and of people.
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As Bruce Haigh states, conscripts did fight in Papua, on the Kokoda Trail, and Papua was Australian territory. However, conscripts were required to serve in a much broader area known as the South West Pacific, which extended North from Australia to the Equator and included many islands which had no formal connection to Australia.
Bruce Haigh comments that they ‘… fought … stopping the Japanese just short of Port Moresby …’. Militia conscripts were certainly there, but Bruce Haigh ignores the far more numerous volunteer AIF battalions which also fought there.
He also speaks about the conscripts being ‘ … abused by the head of the army, General Blamey … ‘. I presume that referred to Blamey’s infamous ‘running rabbits’ speech. However, that speech was addressed to volunteer AIF soldiers, and about their performance.
Bruce Haigh contends that conscription was introduced to support the commitment to Vietnam. Was he aware of conscripts serving overseas in Malaysia during and after Confrontation, and in Papua New Guinea?
Bruce Haigh is completely in error when he refers to some being allowed to join the Citizen Military Forces (now the Army Reserve) because they were in reserved occupations. There were no reserved occupations. However, anyone could opt to serve six years in the CMF as an alternative to two years full time service, as long as they enlisted a year before the conscription ballot, and served six years whatever the result of that ballot.
I would agree with any contention that these issues are not critical to the main thrust of Bruce Haigh’s article. However, he chose to mention these issues, and his argument is not stronger for errors of fact.