*3.14. Finding 14*

There were a number of Catholic men who applied for exemption from military service. Benedict Chu was from Sydney, NSW (Peacemaker 1966a, p. 3). He was previously a Chinese subject from Canton and was naturalized two days before the introduction of conscription. He registered and was balloted in. He made application for full exemption from military service. His court hearing was 18 August 1965 before Magistrate Rogers who refused his application. It seems that Benedict was one of many to receive an unsuccessful outcome from NSW magistrates. In the early years some concern was expressed about the disparity of application "success rates" between NSW in particular, and other jurisdictions. (Langford 1997; Parliament of Australia 1968c). Benedict appealed Rogers's decision and this was heard by Judge Head on 24 February 1966. The Judge delivered his reserved decision on 1 June 1966. He noted that the applicant "believes that he should not engage in any form of military service and that such is binding on his conscience". He granted full exemption.

John Kobelke aged twenty-one years was studying at St. Thomas More College, Crawley, Western Australia (Peacemaker 1970e, p. 3). He was granted full exemption from military service by Magistrate Malley on 27 October 1970. John said "that his objections to war were based mainly on his Roman Catholic beliefs. The essence of the Christian message was that we must try to love. Violence completely contradicted this. All violence was wrong. He could not justify any wars". The magistrate responded and said "that although Kobelke's reasoning was not always logical and was confused in places, he was convinced that his views were sincere and arrived at by a careful process of thought, Evidence from Kobelke and corroborating evidence from the Roman Catholic chaplain of the University, Father John Harte, convinced him of Kobelke's sincerity".

It was often difficult for men from the two largest denominations to convince a magistrate that they were sincere in their conscientious beliefs because of the perceived 'support' for war and the military by their denomination.
