What was the controversy surrounding Australia's involvement in the Vietnam War?

Answer 1

What it boiled down to was, that Australia had had a liberal government for a record number of years and this government was committed to aiding the United states regardless of how poor the consequences may turn out to be. There was a generational shift also with the first baby boomer coming into the equation as the people that were to conscripted and sent of to fight in a war that they were just not interested in. The controversy was that the attitude of the old school that had fought during WW2 who tended to blindly accept the reasoning of their political leaders was now starting to be opposed by the next generation, and they demanded an explanation for getting sent out and getting killed in a war that the politicians would not even call a war.

Australia mainly entered the war because the government wanted to keep its alliance with the US. Since the US was sending more troops to help fight the Viet Cong, the Menzies government wanted to do the same.

After the first soldier was killed in Vietnam (known as Indo-China back then) many Australians changed their opinion of the war and thus no one volunteered to go so the government had to introduce conscription through a ballot/lotto system