Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
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.
Hughes, however, knew that he did not need to create a new law but could just amend the old one to include conscription via a democratic referendum. As a result, on 28 October 1916, an advisory referendum was held to decide whether the community of Australia supported conscription. The vote was rejected, and Hughes was sacked from the Labor Party.
1917 Australian conscription referendum Metadata This file contains additional information, probably added from the digital camera or scanner used to create or digitize it.
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.
Conscription in Australia, also known as National Service following the Second World War, has a controversial history which dates back to the implementation of compulsory military training and service in the first years of Australia's nationhood. Military conscription for peacetime service was abolished in 1972.
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.
On 30 August 1916, he announced plans for a referendum on the issue (the 1916 Australian conscription referendum), and introduced enabling legislation into parliament on 15 September, which passed only with the support of the opposition. Six of Hughes's ministers resigned in protest at the move, and the New South Wales state branch of the Labor ...