Melbourne University students
Sue McCulloch
In fact, I was the voice on the radio. There was a radio station called Radio 3DR that was set up, an illegal radio station. Which was itself a rather terrifying thing to do, because that contravened the Broadcasting Act. And that actually had very serious penalties. And just before we were about to go on air, somebody told me what these penalties were, and they were like – I don’t know – ten years’ jail, and a huge fine. And I sort of went on, and I had no idea what to say. So they just went, “Right, you’re live to air now,” and, you know, and I started speaking. And I said something like, “Hello, this is Radio Resistance 3DR, and we’re trying to give power to the people.
Alexandra Pierce
University students were, perhaps unsurprisingly, heavily involved in protesting against both the Vietnam War and National Service. There were three universities in Melbourne whose students had significant involvement in the protest movement, and I’m giving each of them their own episode. There’s the University of Melbourne, which was established in 1853 and has gone up and down in terms of radicalism over time, and is the subject of this episode. There’s Monash University, which was established in 1958 and it gets two episodes because there’s one particular issue that some students there get involved in which I think warrants its own episode. Then there’s La Trobe University, which was established in 1967. Now before anyone gets up in arms, yes there were two other significant tertiary institutions in Melbourne at the time. They don’t get their own episodes because I could find very little information about the involvement of their students in protesting, so I’m going to briefly discuss what I could find before getting into Melbourne Uni.
RMIT, or the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, got named that in 1960, after starting life as the Working Men’s College in 1887. Their student paper in from 1968 until 1972 was called Catalyst, and I’ve looked through most of the issues thanks to the State Library of Victoria archives. The editorial staff was overwhelmingly male. There were many articles about the war and conscription, and most of them are unsigned, but presumably they were mostly written by men because that’s who was on staff. There is a May 1968 article about a sit-in at some government buildings that mentions the involvement - indeed the arrest - of some women. It’s unclear if these are RMIT students, but it was written by Sue Bell, a second year Arts student. Then in 1970 there’s an article about a talk given at the newly formed Labor club. The article was written by Sue Bond, and it’s unclear if she is a journalist or a member of the new club. And that’s about it from RMIT’s women students as far as I could discover.
Swinburne University was originally the Eastern Suburbs Technical College, from 1908, and was called Swinburne Technical College from 1913 through to our period. It only became Swinburne University in 1992. Their student paper in the late 1960s and early 70s was called Scrag. Again thanks to the State Library of Victoria, I’ve managed to look at many of the issues, and found that few women wrote for it in this period. Given the time and the fact that it was a technical college this may well reflect the student population. The paper also doesn’t seem to have been quite as concerned with external politics as the student papers at Melbourne and Monash Unis were. That said, the 1970 issue definitely encouraged men not to register for national service. In the lead up to the first moratorium, in 1970, a female student named Margaret Haste wrote a letter to the paper, including such lines as “How does Mum explain to little Jimmy that although his Christian society tells him it is wrong to kill, any man who tries to follow that ethic is clapped in gaol”. Then a couple of months later the paper included an open letter from staff that, quote, “encouraged and enticed” students not to register. Of the 21 staff who signed, at least seven are definitely women, while another 8 are represented only by initials, so that may mean more women – and the issue of Scrag from 11 March 1971 notes that the people who signed that letter actually went to court, because they were legally committing an offence.
OK, now to Melbourne University. I’m going to present these events and experiences chronologically, and in this episode you’ll hear from Sue, Frances, Diana, Erika, and Elisabeth. They were born between 1948 and 1950, so they were in their teens and early 20s throughout the Vietnam War era.
I’ve had the opportunity to look through most of the issues of the student newspaper for Melbourne University, called Farrago, for the period of 1966 through to 1972, because Melbourne Uni has them in the journal section of the Baillieu library, which I know pretty well because that’s the uni I attended. I would call Farrago a pretty political paper at this time. It concerned itself with a wide variety of issues, both internal to the campus and external, and both the Vietnam War and conscription feature prominently. Clearly I could insert a discussion here about student activism not necessarily representing the opinions of the student body more generally, and that may well be true. However, in 1966 the Student Representative Council, or SRC, decided to hold what Farrago called a referendum on campus. In the April 22nd issue, Farrago notes that the SRC planned a teach-in on conscription for June 22, and that the referendum would occur after that. The results were reported in the September 23rd issue. The headline on the front page reads “SRC acts on Vietnam poll results”, stating that the SRC voted 13 to 7 to participate in the “no conscripts to Vietnam” protest. An analysis of the results of the referendum later in the paper states that “Less than one in five” students support, “even ‘broadly’, the government’s policy of sending national servicemen to Vietnam” - and it’s important to note here the very specific issue being raised. The issue isn’t the war, at this stage, but the use of conscripts. About 25% of students were surveyed, and about 80% of those actually returned a completed survey. Of those, 3.9% were against all military service, while at the other end 13.4% considered, quote, “the present system does not go far enough.” Bundled together, about 80% of the student respondents favoured limited conscription - so not a blanket disapproval, but certainly against what the government of the time was doing. So that gives some context for how the university body was feeling at this early stage. Later in 1966, on October 5, there’s a demonstration against sending conscripts to Vietnam, and Farrago reports that “Five hundred earnest Melbourne University students marched” in that protest. The accompanying photo shows a couple of women in the ranks of protesters, and women students are involved in all of the protests from this point on.
One of the key players from 1967 onwards was Frances Newell. In the excerpt you’re about to hear, she mentions Jonathan Mirsky, who was an American academic involved in this time in criticising the American involvement in Vietnam, who participated in protest marches and teach-ins in America. She also mentions Michael Hamel-Green and Harry van Moorst, both of whom were also significant student leaders of the protest movement. Frances and Michael married during this period. Towards the end, Frances also discusses Holsworthy Barracks, which is an army barracks in New South Wales where some conscientious objectors were imprisoned.
Frances Newell
In 1966, that was my first year at Melbourne Uni, and I attended the LBJ demo. I wasn't involved in organising it. But it was after that - the next year - that I set up the Pacifist Society at Melbourne Uni.
Alexandra Pierce
And through the Pacifist Society, did you help to organise demonstrations or was that more about education and talking to like-minded people?
Fran Newell
In July of that - of '67, when I invited Jonathan Mirsky to come to the university, that was an education focus. But because it had such a deep impact on me, in the sense of getting a first hand account of what was happening in Vietnam, I then decided we needed to research this issue of civilian casualties, because I believed that if we did that research, we could communicate it, and that it wouldn't be acceptable to the broader Australian population. So that was my initial thinking.
Alexandra Pierce
I understand that you were involved in some other groups or societies as well - I think you were involved in the Students for a Democratic Society? Is that right?
Fran Newell
Okay, so what I've been discussing is 1967. Setting up the civilian casualties study group. And when we set up that group, somebody at the meeting where we set it up, suggested that I contact Michael Hamel-Green, that he had already done some research on Vietnam. So I did that. And he joined that civilian casualties study group. And Harry Van Moorst was also in the Pacifist Society at that time. But by early '68, SDS was being established. So I was very early on involved in SDS.
Alexandra Pierce
When you say involved, does that mean that you were helping to decide what events should happen? Or were you writing leaflets and those sorts of things?
Fran Newell
Well, both of those things. So I was very involved in debates about strategy and tactics. So at the beginning of '68, that was around how to respond to the fact that Dennis O'Donnell and Simon Townsend, and Des Phillipson were in Holsworthy. So, you know, the question was, what to do about it, how to respond. And so I was part of that thinking that came up with the idea of going up to Holsworthy and occupying the space outside Holsworthy Barracks. But also in the discussion about whether people were - would get arrested or were prepared to get arrested, what to do if one was arrested - all of those things were debates that I was involved in at that time.
Alexandra Pierce
Threat of arrest was that a very real and present thing you were considering?
Fran Newell
Yeah. I was very much involved in that whole discussion of civil disobedience as a way of approaching opposing the war - civil disobedience involving getting arrested. So yes, it was certainly, certainly very much at the centre of our thinking that if we organise these obstructive events, then we would be arrested.
Alexandra Pierce
As is the case in the broader community, student activism really ramps up from 1968 onwards. In May that year Farrago has a lengthy article from a member of the Draft Resistance Movement explaining why 21 people ended up being arrested for a protest. Then in 1969, the March 14th issue’s front page has a headline proclaiming “Awaiting this call”. It explains that five members of the Students for a Democratic Society group are, quote, “waiting for cops to burst onto the Melbourne campus and drag them off to gaol”, end quote. I never said Farrago avoided sensationalist language. It goes on to explain that the five expected arrest for refusing to pay fines for distributing leaflets in the city, which defied Melbourne City Council by-law 418 preventing the distribution of leaflets on Melbourne streets. Of the five, Frances Newell is the only woman. And she is the only one who is physically described - as “a blonde haired pacifist” - while for three of the men, we’re told what they are studying. Later in that issue, in a letter to the editor, nine people signed a letter explaining the problem of by-law 418, including Frances and another woman, Diana Crunden, who was one of my first interviews:
Diana Crunden:
When we first started protesting in the streets of the city of Melbourne, there was a by-law. Heard of that?
Alexandra Pierce
Yes.
Diana Crunden
By-law 418. We’d get pinged for handing out the leaflets, and we’d be – were we arrested? I don’t know. Actually arrested, or – I think we might have been. But I remember, once – once – handing myself in for unpaid fines, because the police were wanting me. And that was rather hilarious, because I just spent the time in the watch house… It was meant to be, you know, it was overnight, or something. And the sergeant who was in charge of looking after me was very concerned that I was there.
Alexandra Pierce
This young woman in the watch house.
Diana Crunden
Yeah, yeah. So those sorts of things went on. …
Alexandra Pierce
So you mentioned that you had fines. Did you end up with a lot of fines?
Diana Crunden
Not a huge number, no. Because we won by-law 418. As soon as that happened, all our fines would have been expunged.
Alexandra Pierce
May 1969 saw Helen Clark write a letter to the editor of Farrago explaining why there is a group called The NLF Aid Committee on campus, and the fact that they are attempting to raise money to send to the NLF - that’s the National Liberation Front, in South Vietnam, against whom Australian soldiers were fighting. This is connected to a Monash University campaign to do the same thing, and will be explored in greater depth in a couple of episodes’ time. The author of the letter is an interesting point, though, because one of the things that stands out in looking through Farrago is the lack of female authorship - at all, including on issues to do with Vietnam. One of the few exceptions is Erika Feller, who was the news editor for 1969.
Erika Feller:
And then I did a fair bit of journalism at the University - I mean I studied law but I also studied Arts, I did a combined degree. And I was the news editor of the university newspaper, Melbourne University newspaper, Farrago. And it was under, at the time the editor was Henry Rosenbloom, who you may know - he's quite, he has his own publishing house now. And he's quite eminent in that area. But Henry was always, you know, encouraging the university newspaper to pick up causes outside - not just what was happening with the SRC, the student representative council, or the Union Building or whatever, but really, so we were encouraged to go out and report these things. And I - a lot of the demonstrations that I attended, I attended actually on behalf of Farrago writing it up. And, you know, you'll see I mean, if you ever go back into the history of Farrago, and some of the articles – one I used to keep with me for a while, because it was just funny, the headline was "Feller at the demo," as the principal headline. I can remember some quite violent demonstrations actually, just on the corner of Commercial Road and St Kilda Road where they had police horses breaking them up and tear gas. And so it was quite active. But a lot of my activity came from belief in what I was reporting, but also enthusiastically being the news editor and wanting the Farrago to cover these sorts of stories.
Alexandra Pierce
Why was it important that Farrago cover it - was it simply because there were so many students who were involved in them?
Erika Feller
Well, I mean, the university has traditionally always been - I don't know if it still is, with everybody working and holding down jobs, and only going to the campus for tutorials and things - but in those days, it was, you know, you were at the university full time. And it was always a place where there were a lot of, you know, demonstrate - a sort of sense of social justice, and an enthusiastic taking up of social justice causes. So for me, it was important that the, that the university newspaper was reflective of this aspect of university life. And if I, I mean I can't - I can't remember the conversations, but I'm sure I had many with Henry - and I'm sure that was pretty much his view as well.
Alexandra Pierce
I found Erika’s article, the one entitled “Feller at the demo”, from 11 July 1969. I assume it’s about a Monash University-organised protest at the American Consulate, which is something that I’ll discuss in more detail in the next episode.
Later in 1969, on October 6, the front page of Farrago had a list of names of students and staff who signed a document urging young men not to register for National Service. In doing so, to quote the article, “they have made themselves liable to a fine of $200 and/or 12 months’ gaol.” There are 92 signatories to this document. By my count, 33 are female names, while 10 are identified by initials alone. If we remember that this was still a time when a lot of staff, in particular, are male, then at least a third are women, which seems like a significant number. This is also the time when protesting is really starting to ramp up. The suggestion that a nation-wide, multi-group protest should be organised is gaining ground, and eventually becomes the 1970 moratorium movement. I’ve found reference to a War Resisters International group existing at Melbourne University at this time; membership and mailing list from June 1969 includes, from my count, 12 women and 27 men, and two I’m not sure about. It had a paper called Aquarius, which France Newell, or Frances Hamel-Green as she was sometimes known at this time, was involved in; records suggest that she contributed her own money towards its printing costs, and she was certainly a liaison in terms of getting it out beyond the university, as there’s a letter from someone in Tasmania thanking her for sending 20 copies. 1969 is also when Elisabeth Jackson got to university:
Alexandra Pierce
Did you feel like there was a strong push to be anti war at university, on the campus?
Elisabeth Jackson
Yes. I mean, the left wing clubs and so on were quite strong.
Alexandra Pierce
Did you get involved in any of them?
Elisabeth Jackson
Not really. I was sort of nominally a member of the Labor Club, but I was still too young and nervous, too... And there was this organisation called the SDS - Harry Van Moorst, who I notice has just died, he was a leading figure in that. So I sort of buzzed around the edges of that, but I mean, I was just very shy and lacking in confidence at that time. So I didn't get deeply involved.
Alexandra Pierce
And yet you went along to demonstrations?
Elisabeth Jackson
Yes.
Alexandra Pierce
That seems to me like the sort of thing that someone who's shy wouldn't automatically do.
Elisabeth Jackson
Oh I did, yeah, yeah, I would go with family or friends, yeah.
Alexandra Pierce
In the lead up to the moratorium in May 1970, Farrago ran a sort of Vox Populi bit about the moratorium. Two female students are in favour in general although one isn’t convinced that it will be very effective. A couple of weeks later, there is quite a lot of coverage of the moratorium, although nothing that mentions women specifically. Frances Newell is published again on July 17th, when she writes an article entitled “Australian Anti-War Students in Saigon”, reporting on the experiences of five Australian students, including her husband and draft resister Michael Hamel-Green. A couple of weeks later, in an article entitled “City Anti-Draft Demonstration”, there’s an image of a Melbourne University student named Susan Day being dragged from the GPO by post office security, and another photo showing at least one woman involved in sitting down as part of the post office protest. Women are also shown in the pictures from the second moratorium held in September 1970.
The last really significant event to occur at Melbourne University, or involving Melbourne students, was the 1971 siege of the Student Union building. Farrago reported on the events on September 30th, but doesn’t specifically mention any women. Both Frances Newell and Sue McCulloch were present:
Frances Newell
… also participating in things like the siege at Melbourne University. … So what happened there was - so that was September 1971. I was working, but Michael was underground. Both Jenny Walpole from the share house and myself took part in the siege. So it was announced that draft resisters would be at Melbourne University at that time; there was - and that - the draft resisters set up a base on the second floor of the Melbourne University Student Union and then other students mobilised to make that part of the Union inaccessible by barricading the stairs etc. So I was upstairs on the second floor, and must have been there one day and one night. I think it was the second night that Julie Ingleby, another wonderful woman activist also no longer alive, unfortunately, she was there as well. And in the early hours of the morning, maybe about five or six, she said, they're coming - because she'd been watching out the window. And so, you know, we all jumped out of our sleeping bags and ran to the window and so I could see the police - the Commonwealth police, a whole phalanx of them coming across the lawn from the Architecture Building to the Student Union. So then, the draft resisters disappeared into their prearranged hidey holes, and myself and the others went and joined the barricade at the top of the staircase. And I just remember sitting there for what seemed like hours linking arms with Jenny. And you know, singing, "We shall not be moved" and other such songs. So - but I, of course, knew that Michael was hiding, and all the time had to maintain this appearance of calm and not let on about what I actually knew was going on. So, again, a very intense experience.
Sue McCulloch
And I was involved in the siege at Melbourne University. I think it surprised everybody, really, what it turned into. It was – the idea was to – again, to kind of embarrass the law enforcement agencies and the government by bringing attention to the fact that there were people who felt very strongly about conscription and the war. And the idea was to hold a kind of public demonstration in which four of the draft resisters would appear, and then be supposedly smuggled out of the building where they were to appear – but, in fact, what happened was that they appeared at the Melbourne University student union, and then it was decided to kind of barricade ourselves in, so that I think they could make media appearances. And there was this huge – it went on for several days, and we basically took over the union. The student union. And by the time the police arrived, in a kind of classic manoeuvre, I suppose, they did a dawn raid. I think, maybe, thinking they could catch people unawares. But by this stage, we’d barricaded ourselves in with chairs that went up and down the – you know, completely blocked the stairway of the several floors, and the draft resisters were not out of the building, they were, in fact, still in the building, hidden behind a very thin partition wall. There was a false wall that was discovered in one of the union rooms upstairs. And they were actually in the building when the police barged in, and eventually got their way up through this maze of chairs and came into the room where they were supposed to be. And there was nobody there. But, in fact, they were only, you know, like, a few centimetres away. And they said, you know, they had to be very careful not to cough, or not to alert anybody to them. And then, eventually, they were sort of smuggled out some time – I think, progressively, sometime after that.
Alexandra Pierce
You were in the union house for the entire siege?
Sue McCulloch
Yes, yes. I was. In fact, I was the voice on the radio. There was a radio station called Radio 3DR that was set up, an illegal radio station. Which was itself a rather terrifying thing to do, because that contravened the Broadcasting Act. And that actually had very serious penalties. And just before we were about to go on air, somebody told me what these penalties were, and they were like – I don’t know – ten years’ jail, and a huge fine. And I sort of went on, and I had no idea what to say. So they just went, “Right, you’re live to air now,” and, you know, and I started speaking. And I said something like, “Hello, this is Radio Resistance 3DR, and we’re trying to give power to the people.” And I think I sounded quite terrified, because I was just – I’d just been told of, you know, what we might be facing if we were caught. There was a bloke who produced that, or who made that radio transmitter was on the ABC a few years ago, on 7:30 Report, I think. He was trying to – I think he was trying to sell the transmitter, or say, you know, what can we do with it? That little bit of the recording was broadcast on The 7:30 Report. And I thought, oh my God, there’s me, sounding terrified.
Alexandra Pierce
The involvement of women from Melbourne University was not particularly well recorded by the student paper of the day, but it’s clear from my interviews that women were involved and important. I asked most of my interviewees whether they thought the involvement of women was significant, and many of them reflected on women in the movement in general, so I’ll save those for a later episode. But I’ll leave you with Erika Feller and Diana Crunden, who had different experiences and perspectives:
Alexandra Pierce
I'm interested in thinking about sort of women's involvement in general. Thinking back about the other people you knew who were involved, was your sense that there were a lot of female students involved in protesting as well as male students?
Erika Feller
Don't think I have any sense about that one way or the other. There were obviously female students involved. But my - because much of my studies were studies in areas that were essentially male dominated at the time, like law for example, most of my university friends were guys. And they were them, and then and then Farrago - there was a lot of men rather than women on Farrago. And so, you know, my - I don't know, I'm trying to think - I really don't have an impression of whether there were large numbers of women….
If you're asking me did you, did I, was I part of groups of women who went on demonstrations? Am I aware of it? I can't say I was.
Alexandra Pierce
Overall, do you feel like women had an important role to play in the movement? Had you not been there, do you think it would have been different?
Diana Crunden
Oh, absolutely. I mean, there was so much work to do, you know? Getting posters up, and handing out leaflets, and all of those things.
Alexandra Pierce
Yep. And you were doing a lot of that?
Diana Crunden
Yeah, yeah. So, yes, it would have – it did make a difference. In fact, I think it was central, really. Because, you know, a lot of the men were fly-by-nights. Whereas the women were there, and stuck with it.