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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 ...
Supporters of conscription campaigning at Mingenew, Western Australia in 1917 Industrial Workers of the World anti-conscription poster, 1916. Under Labor Prime Minister Billy Hughes, full conscription for overseas service was attempted during the First World War in two referendums.
Soldiers from the 4th Division near Chateau Wood, Ypres, in 1917. In Australia, the outbreak of World War I was greeted with considerable enthusiasm. Even before Britain declared war on Germany on 4 August 1914, the nation pledged its support alongside other states of the British Empire and almost immediately began preparations to send forces overseas to engage in the conflict.
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.
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.
World War II created a significant feeling of sympathy for the Soviet Union among Australian workers, and the CPA attempted to take advantage of this by industrial agitation after the war in the 1948 Queensland Railway strike and the 1949 Australian coal strike (the first time the military were used in peacetime to break a strike), and disputes ...