CATHCART, Graham

Family Name:

Cathcart

Given Names:

Graham

Gender:

Male

Birth-date:

1951

Death-date:

August 1974

Marital Status:

Unknown, probably single

Age:

20 years old

Location:

QLD, Brisbane

Occupation:

University Student

Primary Motivation:

Draft Resister, anti-conscription, anti-Vietnam War

Reason for Court Appearance:

Court Name and Location:

Court Hearing Date:

Court Outcome:

Military Event:

National Service and Vietnam War 1964-1972

Further Information:

Graham Cathcart was a student at the University of Queensland. He refused to register for national service under the National Service Act 1964 (NSA). He was a prominent member of the Draft Resisters Union in Brisbane. He organized and attended many protests and demonstrations against conscription, the Vietnam War and the South African Rugby (Springbok) tour of Australia. On 29 August Graham, with others, appeared in court charged with disorderly conduct at a Springbok protest. In a statement read to the court he said he was for a socialist revolution and supported the revolutionary aims of the people of Vietnam. He was opposed to Australian participation in the war. During Orientation week at Queensland University in 1917 a antiwar program of discussions, films and dramas were presented by the Queensland Moratorium Committee and the Student Orientation Committee. Anti-conscription leaflets were distributed. Graham was an organizer and participant, and he urged that the issue of the Indo-China war be brought into the streets and into the workplaces. Despite his prominence it is unlikely Graham was prosecuted under the NSA. The government during 1971, and especially 1972, were reluctant to prosecute when the result would be jailing a young man. This was particularly in regard to a refusal to obey a call-up notice. This attracted 18 months’ imprisonment. The government aimed to minimize its political risk of having large numbers of young men in prison. All pending prosecutions under the NSA were stopped by the newly elected Whitlam Labor government in early December 1972. Regrettably, Graham died in India from Typhoid fever in August 1974, aged 23 years.

Confirmatory Sources:

Peacemaker, May/ June/ July/ August 1971, p.11.Tribune, 10 March 1971, p.3; 1 September 1971, p.12; 20 August 1974, p.11.