Conscription and Censorship
How and why did the federal government introduce conscription and censorship on the Australian Home front? What was the role of women on the home front?When World War Two was declared, Australia became fearful of the possibility of invasion by another country. As an almost immediate reaction Australia's laws regarding conscription and censorship were dramatically changed. Conscription had divided Australia in the First World War and was introduced in 1939 with virtually no protest. After the National Security Act 1939 was introduced, women were entered into services including the land army and defence forces. In October 1939 conscription was introduced for men aged twenty and as the seriousness of the war increased the terms for conscription constantly changed. Unlike World War One there was very little opposition to introducing conscription* among the public and Prime Minister Robert Menzies found it very easy to introduce conscription to Australia. Conscription laws changed twice, first in 1940 in which all unmarried men at the age of twenty-one were conscripted and second in 1942 where all married men without children as well as all single men from ages eighteen to thirty-three were conscripted. In February
To help farmers with the load the government introduced the women's land army, the farmers however did not think that the women would be able to keep up with the hard work required on the farm. 1943 the Federal Government extended the area that conscripts could fight to the whole of the South West Pacific Area. A large amount of money was raised and this went towards running the number of ambulances they had provided keeping men alive. Category C was for people from the enemy's country who were quite influential to the community and finally Category D was for people who were of enemy origin and were of military age. Meat and butter were rationed so that they could be exported to Britain. By 1945 over one thousand Australian Germans were interned even if they were refugees from Germany and were Jews. As the Japanese entered the war with Pearl Harbour, Japanese men, women and children were taken and placed in internment camps all over Australia. When the Italians joined the war, all Italian men were rounded up and sent off to internment camp and their families were left to provide for themselves. AWAS was designed for women to serve as clerks and drivers but as war progressed deeper AWAS members performed guard duties and operated searchlight stations. Their work included clerks, coders and cinematographer operators. Rationing placed a strain on mothers trying to feed their families and many young people were forced to cut short their education at ages as young as 13 or 14. As the war progressed on very few were found guilty of category A and thousand were found acceptable for categories B, C and D. One such incident involved a fight between American and Australian soldiers in Sydney in which one soldier was killed. Some women found the new work better off than before by earning twice as much money for the same amount of working hours. This act lasted for the duration of the war but as economic problems increased and human labour scarce the government had little choice but to let some prisoners out and make them work for the government.
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Acceptance Essays
