VPRS 8509 Local Exemption Court Register of Applications for Exemption from Military Services

Background - Compulsory Military ServiceOn 28 October 1916 a referendum was submitted to the electors of Australia asking were they in favour of:`the Government having in this grave emergency, the same compulsory powers over citizens in regard to requiring their military service for the term of this war, outside the Commonwealth, as it now has in regard to military service within the Commonwealth?'(Source Victorian Year Book 1916-17, p.84).The referendum was lost yet the practice of requiring persons to serve in the Citizen Forces for service within the Commonwealth continued.Automatic exemptions were granted to:* Persons reported by the prescribed medical authorities as unfit for any naval or military service whatsoever,* Members and officers of the Parliament of the Commonwealth or of a State,* Judges of Federal or State Courts, the police, stipendiary or special magistrates of the Commonwealth or of a State,* Ministers of religion,* Persons employed in the police or prison services of the Commonwealth or of a State,* Persons employed in lighthouses,* Persons employed as medical practitioners or nurses in public hospitals,* Persons who are not substantially of European origin or descent, of which the medical authorities appointed under the Regulations shall be the judges,* Persons who satisfy the prescribed authority that their conscientious beliefs do not allow them to bear arms, and* persons engaged in any employment specified by Regulations or by Proclamation.Applications could also be made for exemptions for a number of other reasons:* On the ground that it is expedient in the national interests that the man should, instead of being employed on military service, be engaged in other work in which he is habitually engaged,* On the ground that it is expedient in the national interest that the man should, instead of being employed in military service, be engaged in other work in which he wishes to be engaged,* If the man is being educated or trained for any work, on the ground that it is expedient in the national interest that instead of being employed in military service, he should continue to be so educated or trained,* On the ground that serious hardship would ensue if the man called up for military service, owing to his exceptional domestic financial obligations,* On the ground that the man is the sole support of aged parents or a widowed mother, or orphan brothers and sisters under the age of sixteen years, and physically incapable of earning their own living,* On the ground that he is the sole remaining son, or one of the remaining sons of a family of whose sons one-half at the lease have enlisted prior to 2 October 1916,* On the ground that the man is the only son of a family,* On the ground that the man is not a natural-born or naturalised British subject.Applications for exemption were heard by an exemption court in the military sub-district in which the applicant lived.