Four out of five of these men chose their careers

The Vietnam Moratorium Campaigns were a result of a conference held in Canberra in November 1969 to plan a series of protests based on the American Moratorium model. There were three Moratorium campaigns in Australia in 1970 and 1971. The Moratorium was the first truly mass movement of the protest against the Vietnam War. Until 1969 the protest had been uncoordinated in a national sense and rallies had been reasonably small in size, whereas the Moratorium mobilised the support of hundreds of thousands. It also succeeded in gaining more publicity in its first six months than had been achieved by the protest movement between 1965 and 1969. The aims of the first campaign were the immediate withdrawal of Australian troops from Vietnam and repeal of the National Service Act. The Moratorium stated that all actions taken by its members and supporters should be of a non-violent nature and this philosophy was extended throughout Australia through various state committees and others.

This poster, made for the September 1970 Moratorium, depicts the cartoons of five young men, dressed in clothes associated with their careers; a doctor in a white coat with a stethescope in his pocket, a barrister wearing a cloak and wig, a mechanic and a businessman in a suit. The fifth man wears an Army uniform and is a conscript. The accompanying text calls for the abolition of conscription. The Moratorium symbol also appears in the lower right of the poster.

This poster particularly highlights the legislation in the National Service Act (1964) and the exemptions that this allowed. For example, people could defer from the draft if they were undertaking professional training, such as at university, or certain trades - as is reflected in this poster. Members from generally higher socioeconomic areas were hence more likely to be able to defer, with greater access to education and the ability to fund higher education. Others that were exempt or able to defer were registrants who married before callup; those with a serious criminal record or who posed a security risk; and those who had joined the part-time Citizen Military Forces, Citizen Naval Force or Citizen Air Force. For more details on conscription exemptions, see: https://www.awm.gov.au/articles/encyclopedia/viet_app