Australian public opinion shifted from indifference to significant opposition as the conflict and the number of personnel involved expanded. Despite well-organised protests against national service by groups such as Save Our Sons, Australian policy largely followed United States (US) military decisions. The anti-war movement notably politicised previously disinterested citizens.
Australian public opinion about the war in Vietnam moved through several stages over the decade-long involvement.
In the beginning, a largely uninterested public paid little attention to a war that involved very few Australian soldiers, especially since they were members of the regular Army serving in a training role. At the same time, most Australians were wary of communism's spread through Asia, and when Australia's commitment to Vietnam increased to a regular Army battalion in 1965, there was little negative reaction.
News that Australia would contribute a task force to the war in 1966, and that this expansion would mean front-line service for national servicemen, sparked a rise in the number of anti-war groups. Some were opposed more to conscription than to the war itself. In 1967, when the deployment of an extra battalion to Vietnam was announced, public opposition to the war increased. An opinion poll revealed that 46% of the electorate disapproved of the decision, 17% were undecided. Only 37% were in favour, marking the first time that opponents of the commitment outnumbered supporters.
In the period before this, opposition to the war, as the ALP had learnt to its cost in 1966, was not a vote winner.
Despite the 1967 opinion poll results, it was not until 1969 that opposing the war became electorally popular. In August that year, an opinion poll found, for the first time, that a majority of Australians favoured a withdrawal from South Vietnam.
But public opinion and public protest played a relatively small role in policy decisions about Vietnam. Australia's withdrawal from the war was already underway in the early 1970s when widespread protests, known as moratorium marches, took place in the country's major cities. Throughout the war, Australia followed America's lead (often with regional concerns at the forefront of government thinking), and once the US decided to leave Vietnam, Australia had no choice but to follow suit.
Twenty years after the North Vietnamese victory, in April 1995, an opinion poll marking the 30th anniversary of prime minister Menzies' commitment of a battalion to South Vietnam and the 20th anniversary of Saigon's fall found that 55% of Australians thought that it was wrong to have sent troops to Vietnam and 30% considered it the right thing to have done.
‘HOW MANY YEARS CAN SOME PEOPLE EXIST’ from the Riley and Ephemera Collection ‘Vietnam War. Undated’, poster collection
Public dissent to national service
In the early years of Australian involvement in the war, opposition was limited, even to the policy of sending conscripts to a war zone.
The National Service Scheme attracted opponents as soon as it was re-introduced, but it was only when the government increased Australia's commitment to the war in May 1966, making conscription necessary, that significant public opposition arose.
National service's early opponents included the Parliamentary Opposition, religious groups, trade unionists, academics, and young men affected by the scheme. From within this disparate anti-conscription movement, groups began to form and organise. Some became prominent branches across Australia, such as:
- Youth Campaign Against Conscription (YCAC), which formed in late 1964 and was closely aligned with the Australian Labour Party (ALP)
- Save Our Sons (SOS), which formed in 1965, shortly after the government announced an increase in troops for Vietnam.
The national service announcement gave the protest movement some momentum, but it built slowly as anti-war groups began working together and learning lessons from similar groups in the US.
By 1969, those who opposed the war had increased in number and become sufficiently well organised to coordinate Australia-wide mass protests, known as the moratorium marches of 1970–71.
Involvement in anti-war activities politicised many previously disinterested Australians. Opposition to the war was a radicalising experience for some people, such as the middle-class women, members of Save Our Sons, who were arrested during peaceful protests outside national service induction centres.
Despite the eventual strength and widespread nature of the anti-war movement, its effectiveness in Australia is open to question.
The Australian Government had followed the US lead in South Vietnam since the early 1960s and continued to do so until the last Australian troops were withdrawn in 1972. When the US began removing its troops from South Vietnam, Australia followed suit, irrespective of the well-attended protests of 1970 and 1971.
'Save Our Sons'
Save Our Sons (SOS) was established in 1965 in Sydney but soon other groups formed under the SOS banner across the country. Some men and young women became members, but for the most part SOS was comprised mostly of middle-class and middle-aged women whose sons were old enough to be subject to national service.
The nature of SOS protests varied – some involved silent vigils in public places of commemoration such as Melbourne's Shrine of Remembrance; at other times members handed out leaflets at Army barracks or railway stations from which national servicemen were travelling to begin their military service.
Members of SOS also prepared and circulated petitions, approached members of parliament and worked in conjunction with other anti-war groups to protest against national service and the war.
Their protests were not always met with the same civility with which they were conducted. Some members of SOS were subject to abuse and insult. Called communists at a time when the term was replete with implications that the accused was somehow anti-Australian, some women were also sworn at and called bad mothers and neglectful wives.
One woman recalled the unpleasant experience of regular protests outside the Swan Street barracks in Melbourne while families farewelled their sons into military service.
Unwelcome and subject to abuse, the SOS protesters persisted because they believed their cause was worth the opprobrium and verbal confrontation.
Sometimes protest activities resulted in the arrest of SOS members.
In April 1971, 5 SOS women were sentenced to 14 days in Fairlea Women's Prison for handing out anti-conscription leaflets to men registering for national service. The charge was trespass. The case attracted considerable media attention and the women were released after 11 days.
Membership of SOS had another effect too. Many were becoming involved in political activities for the first time. Although they often came from Liberal voting suburbs, many women who joined SOS found that the issues of the war and national service moved them into the Labor camp. Others had always been there.
For many who joined SOS, the experience gave them the confidence and ability to publicly express their views for the first time. The women's movement of the 1970s benefited from the politicisation of such people.