*Conscription Vote

Ninety two years ago the Australian people voted on the highly emotive issue of Conscription to fill the ranks of volunteers to serve in the AIF.  This was in the context of the decline in recruitment following the losses at Fromelles and the Somme.

On the 28^th October 1916 Australians voted in the first of two Referendums to introduce Conscription to Australia. It was proposed by the Government, led by Prime Minister (W.H.) Hughes, to extend the existing militia training to also include service overseas. Voting was not compulsory but 82.75% eligible voters polled their vote. The final figures were 1,087,557 for YES and 1,160,033 for NO.
To read more about the Conscription issue on the ANZAC Day Commemoration Committee (Queensland) Incorporated web site, click here.

Photo: Referendum Badges.

 Prime Minister Hughes’ part in the conscription debate formed the subject of an episode in the ABC series The Prime Ministers’  National Treasures, produced in 2007. The episode entitled William Hughes and the 1916 Conscription Badge can be viewed on the Screen Australia website by clicking here.

The Conscription debate was also featured in the 1951 film Cavalcade of Australia 1901-1951. To view the clip from the film, World War 1 and the Conscription Referenda, click here.

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The Families and Friends of the First AIF thanks the Australian, UK and French governments for affording Australian and British soldiers – presently buried in mass graves at Pheasant Wood – dignified individual reburials in a new CWGC cemetery at Fromelles, and urge those responsible to ensure all necessary scientific and other means are employed to properly identify each soldier.