These publications from SDA (Society for Democratic Action) created a big stir on the UQ campus when they circulated in 1969. Both booklets were immediately banned.
SDA in Brisbane re-printed the material. The material for the original booklet came from Resistance (a bookshop and activist group in Sydney) while the material for #2 came from Lot’s Wife (the student newspaper from Monash University in Melbourne).
The Labor Club Anti-Conscription Committee in Brisbane helped to distribute this publication. As well as Labor Club and SDA members, the Anti-Conscription Committee membership included several from the Liberal Club, some from Christian groups and some University staff members.
The distribution of the booklets met with considerable controversy, not the least of which because the publications were deemed "illegal". Their content was also quite provocative, and designed to bring media attention to the issue of Conscription as much as provide useful information to potential Conscripts.
In fact the main work of the Labor Club Anti-Conscription Committee (and similar groups) was far more discrete, and was designed to provide carefully-prepared legal, medical and political advice directly to young men to help them avoid Conscription.
As to the original source of the two booklets in Australia, the Percy brothers (from Sydney’s Resistance) claim that an anarchist seaman gave them a copy of How Not to Join the Army that had been produced in the US. The sailor also gave the brothers $20 and asked them to make copies. The rest is history....
How Not To Join The Army: 1 (203KB)
How Not To Join The Army: 2 (2.64MB)