Family Name:
Hamel-Green
Given Names:
Michael
Gender:
Male
Birth-date:
1945
Death-date:
Still living
Marital Status:
Single, but engaged
Age:
20 yearsold
Location:
VIC, Elsternwick
Occupation:
University Student
Primary Motivation:
Draft Resister
Reason for Court Appearance:
[1] Refusal to undertake the medical examination
[2] Trespass (sit-in)
[3] Unknown
Court Name and Location:
[1] Unknown, Unknown
[2] Unknown, Unknown
[3] Unknown, Unknown
Court Hearing Date:
[1] 15 September 1969
[2] Unknown
[3] 1971
Court Outcome:
[1] Fined $40 plus costs and 7 days jail
[2] Jailed 16 days
[3] Fine and 7 days jail
Military Event:
National Service and Vietnam War 1964-1972
Further Information:
Michael Eric Hamel-Green was a post-graduate political science student at Melbourne University. He registered for military service in January 1965 and then deferred call-up to continue his tertiary studies. He publicly burnt his registration card on 3 July 1969. He was required to attend a medical examination on 6 August 1969, but he refused. He was summonsed and convicted on15 September 1969 for this offence. He was fined $40 plus costs and imprisoned in Pentridge. for seven days. He was called up on 21 October 1969 and he refused to comply with the notice. Michael has recalled the rituals of humiliation and degradation he experienced in prison. An experience common to most prisoners. Francis Newell and Michael were engaged at the time. They married 26 April 1969. Francis served several short prison terms for her refusal to pay fines imposed for her peace activism. She also recalls the feeling of powerlessness and humiliation of prison.
Whilst waiting for the expected summons, conviction and jailing for the statutory two years he travelled to Saigon South Vietnam. He did not seek permission from the government as was required under the NSA. Michael was part of an International Mission organised by the International Fellowship of Reconciliation. On 11 July 1970 members of the mission together with members of the press and about one thousand local students sought to deliver a petition to Ambassador Bunker at the United States Embassy. They had barely walked two blocks when the police tear-gassed them. The mission members left on 13 July 1969 but only after three American journalists and three-hundred students all who had been arrested were released. Michael justified his non-compliance of the NSA in a statement published in The Peacemaker Newspaper It was titled Not with my life you don’t. He began with a strong criticism of the horrors of the Vietnam War and Australia’s participation which was done in his name and life of all conscripts. He viewed conscription and Australia’s involvement in Vietnam as symptoms of what was wrong with Australian society. He stated, the system we live under is depriving us more and more say in our own lives. Conscription is only one symptom of this. There are plenty of others”. He then mentioned an unjust arbitration system, censorship of the press and publications and the dehumanization of the education system. He continued the statement, “Everyone in factories, shops, offices, school and universities there is a denial of any real say in the conditions under which one lives and works. In the final analysis almost everyone discovers themselves deferring servilely to someone higher on the ladder-and losing their self-respect in the process. He concluded his statement with the words of its title, Well, not with our lives you don’t. Hundreds of young people in Australia are saying to the representatives of illegitimate authority: you will not terrorise us by the threat of two year’s gaol or the prospect of police clubbing. We won’t let our lives be used for your obscene activities in Vietnam-or for those right here in Australia. We will neither become the soldiers nor the clerks of repression.
Michael received further terms of imprisonment for his continued non-compliance with the National Service Act. Then he and other draft resisters went ‘underground’ to evade the police and assist with the non-compliance cause. Michael and Frances were married whilst Michael was ‘undergound’. He attended, with others, the third Melbourne Moratorium March, on 30 June 1971.Police intended to arrest him and the others, but they were successfully protected by an estimated 5000 protesters. During September 1971 Michael came out of hiding and with other draft resisters set up a piracy radio station at Melbourne University. Commonwealth Police raided the station, but Michael and Mike Matteson hid in a cavity behind a wall. They successfully evaded arrest. Michael was never prosecuted, and any outstanding charges were dropped when the Whitlam Labor Government suspended the NSA. Those who were in prison for breaching the Act were released.
Confirmatory Sources:
Bobbie Oliver, Hell No! We Won’t Go: Resistance to Conscription in Post-War Australia, Interventions, 2022, esp. pp.156-163; 175-176; 194-196; 201. Peacemaker, September/ October 1969, p.10; November/ December 1969, p.1; Woroni 21 July 1970, p.?; Tribune, 29 September 1971, p.10.
THE AUSTRALIAN PEACE HONOUR ROLL 