Big Brother or self help?

Since the ending of National Service in late 1972 by the incoming Whitlam Labor government, the average person in the street has lost whatever leverage he or she had over defence experts and the professional volunteer defence force.

2016 is not Vietnam nor San Francisco Summer of Love 1967. Islamic State and its franchise followers, have breached Fortress Australia. I reiterate, I will not be asking for conscripts to be deployed overseas in any potential battle against Islamic State should there be a need.

History is full of political-ideological u-turns, some out of necessity.

German politician Joschka Fischer began his political career as a radical, left-wing, brawling taxi driver in the then West Germany in the 1970s. During a riot he beat to a pulp a German Police officer and almost blinded him. On becoming a Greens politician and later Germany's Foreign Minister, Fischer apologised to the policeman and also supported the war in Afghanistan.

In 1972 South Australian Premier Mike Rann was a Greenpeace activist in New Zealand who actively worked against the French Security forces in the South Pacific by sending boats to disrupt nuclear testing by encroaching upon French territory. Rann has now moved to the right within the Labor party.

New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark (1999-2008) cut her teeth as peace activists in the 1960s and protested against the Vietnam War but as Prime Minister couldn't wait to send combat troops into Afghanistan in 2001.

Conscription remains one of the last taboos in an Australian society where drug use, sexual orientation, rape, incest, mental health are now talked about freely.