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Australian Involvement In The Vietnam War Essay

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Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam War
On the 28th of April 1965 Prime Minister Robert Menzies announced that Australian troops would be sent to fight in the Vietnam War. There was a great divide in Australian society over this decision as many people supported the decision and many people opposed it. However as the war went on and became the longest war Australia was ever involved in, more and more people joined the opposing side and joined the Moratorium movement (an anti-war movement.) When Menzies first made the announcement that they were sending Australian troops to Vietnam there was a lot of support from different groups. The Liberal Party were one group that rallied behind Menzies and supported his decision. Although in the Senate …show more content…

The Australian Labour Party was one group that opposed war. The reason the party opposed the war was because they believed that Australia should not get involved as the war was essentially a civil one. Trade unions were another group that strongly opposed war. They believed that the Australian government was sacrificing Australian troop’s lives so that American would spend money in Australia and boost the economy. They called the foreign policy ‘blood for dollars’ or ‘diggers for dollars’. Another group opposing the war were universities. The students first reaction to the announcement was mixed as some people supported war and some didn’t. At first the students who opposed the war had a cautious approach and mainly protested by sending open letters to newspapers, encouraging the government to negotiate with Viet Cong and North Vietnam. However when conscription was introduced the students really began to come out in force against the war. As the war went on, the wider community also had a lot of opposers, even though majority of the community were supporters at first. Anti-war demonstration began in the month between the announcement and the deployment of the troops in Vietnam. Wives of deployed soldiers sent out angry letters, gave angry phone calls and the departure date had to be kept a secret in order to avoid an angry scene or protests. At first there was not much opposition however as the war progressed more people switched from supported the war to opposing

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