At the end of last year, Melbourne waterside workers again refused to load barbed wire for Saigon, refusing to accept official explanations that it was for use in "strategic hamlets," According to the waterside workers, these hamlets can only be likened to concentration camps,
The intellectuals responded more slowly, but with increasing tempo. In Conservative, isolationist Australia, few can remember an issue which has caused the sustained publication of a huge press correspondence over twelve months and longere In May this opposition was given a fillip by the unanimous decision of the Federal Labour members of Parliament to oppose the sending of Australian troops to Vietnam. The unions have not responded further, and there has been considerable behind=the-scenes pressure on them not to hinder the transport of war materials to Vietnam. The reason? Under amendments to the Crimes Act passed by the Menzies Government in 1960, it is an act of treachery (penalty life imprisonment) to "assist by any means whatever any opponents or possible opponents of an Australian defence force anywhere" or to commit any act of hostility to a "proclaimed" friendly country. Unions were not anxious to risk implementation of these acts, However the Trades and Labour Councils of every State of Australia and the Australian Council of Trade Unions have all carried resolutiors opposing Australian participation in what is increasingly recognised as a civil war.
Few now believe the simplistic line that Menzies has pursued recently (and he quotes Britain's Michael Stewart!) that this is an exact replica of Korea « an invasion of the South by the North. Even powerful sections of the press no longer accept this unreal view of the war, In May 2,000 Sydney students demonste rated, with 30 arrests, More than 3,000 Canberra citizens demonstrated outside Federal Parliament House. 1,000 clergymen and religious persons held a 12-hour peace "vigil" outside Federal Parliament. Fourteenleading Anglican bishops wrote two powerful letters of protest over the war and the atrocities. Menzies rejected them contemptuously, but their contents received maximum publicity, At its May Congress, 20 of the 60 delegates to the Australian Student Labour Federation were arrested for a sit-dowm protest in the streets of Canberra. (Earlier this Congress, representing 20 Student Labour Clubs all over Australia had carried a policy motion giving "critical support" to the Vietnam National Liberation Front as the effective government in South Vietnam).
On 24th July the Australian National University heard sixteen speakers in an eight-hour "teach-in" which created consternation and a press attack on the Government for refusing to defend itself by declining to take part.
Finally there is a bout of organised resistance to conscription of 20-year= old youths for service in Vietnam. The number of "conscientious objectors" has run into hundreds; while - some labour youth groups are holding classes on “how to fail the Army medical,"
It is a long time since open discussion and real criticism of Australian foreign policy on this scale has been seen, As the war intensifies it might grow = but so also will restrictions on domestic opponents, All the Government has to do is proclaim South Vietnam a friendly country under the 1960 amendments to the Crimes Act (as noted above) and they have a formula for taking action against the critical discussion now developing, If the war continues, in 12 months or five years, it is extremely unlikely that even the "teach-in" would be permitted.
Bruce McFarlane (Canberra)
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