Michael Hamel-Green interviewed for the documentary "Hell No We Won't Go"

Michael Hamel-Green (DOB 1965) was selected in the first conscription ballot but deferred as a student. At Melbourne University he came under the influence of the ideas of Gandhi and non-violence and of Quaker student Frances Newell who set up a Vietnam study. She soon became his life partner. Hamel-Green was instrumental in the formation of Students for a Democratic Society in 1968 and, following the Vietnam Moratorium, the Draft Resisters Union in 1970. Hamel-Green himself was only called up in 1970, by which time he and other anti-conscription activists had developed the strategy of going underground and openly defying conscription while urging/supporting others to do so. He and other non-compliers who were “on the run” appeared wherever they could in large and small gatherings, and established a draft resisters’ sanctuary and pirate radio in the Melbourne University Union. This resulted in the highly public and farcical police raid known as “The Siege of Melbourne University”. Hamel-Green continued his activism in the peace and disarmament movement and as an academic achieved prominence in a range of university appointments. He continues writing and involvement in the field of peace studies. (Description provided by interviewer).