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The plebiscite was held due to the Australian Government's desire to increase the recruitment of forces for overseas service to a total of 7,000 men per month. It was conducted under the War Precautions (Military Service Referendum) Regulations 1917. [8] It formed part of the larger debate on conscription in Australia throughout the war.
The referendum, held on 28 October 1916, narrowly rejected the proposal. A second plebiscite, held a year later on 20 December 1917, also failed (by a slightly larger margin) to gain a majority. [2] [3] The referendums caused significant debate and division in Australian society, and within the government.
1917 Australian conscription referendum; Metadata. This file contains additional information, probably added from the digital camera or scanner used to create or ...
Pressured by British leaders for increased Australian participation in the war effort, Labor Prime Minister Billy Hughes announced his intention to hold a national referendum on compulsory military conscription in October 1916. After a particularly bitter campaign, a majority of Australians voted against the proposal, the issue splitting the ...
The 1917 Australian federal election was held in Australia on 5 May 1917. All 75 seats in the House of Representatives and 18 of the 36 seats in the Senate were up for election. The incumbent Nationalist Party , led by Prime Minister Billy Hughes , defeated the opposition Labor Party led by Frank Tudor in a landslide.
5 May – Queenslanders reject a referendum to abolish the state's Legislative Council. [1] 2 August – The General Strike of 1917 begins, a massive industrial action involving over 100,000 workers in support of railway workers in Sydney. 17 October – The two-halves of the Trans-Australian Railway meet.
A plebiscite was held in 1916 in Australia to introduce conscription in order to bolster recruitment rates for the Australian Imperial Force (AIF), which was deployed in Europe fighting in the Great War. The plebiscite was narrowly defeated, but with the war still raging in Europe the question of conscription remained a live one.
In November 1917 during World War I, the Australian Government conducted a raid on the Queensland Government Printing Office in Brisbane. The aim of the raid was to confiscate any copies of the Hansard, the official parliamentary transcript, which documented anti-conscription sentiments that had been aired in the state's parliament.