Public Servants Fired

The Government reserved its worst brutality for two individual cases. Noel Counihan, the acting secretary of the PAAC was fired from the public service as was his wife - he was hunted by the police and in June 1940 he was arrested in Auckland, held in custody, and without publicity, charge or trial, deported back to his native Australia. His wife knew nothing of what happened to him until he contacted her from Sydney.

That same month Ken Bronson, a leading member of the PAAC was fired from the public service, arrested, held in custody, and without publicity, charge or trial, put on a boat travelling through the war zone back to his native England. After some quibbling his wife was allowed to travel with him - she was six months pregnant and there was no doctor on the boat. She lost the baby before reaching England.

A Wellington leaflet accused Fraser and Semple of murdering her baby. A man was gaoled for 12 months for 'subversion' as a result of this leaflet. N.Z. servicemen who fought Hitler's anti-semitism might ponder on Semple's description of Bronson - 'a dirty East London Jew.'

The whole conscription battle was waged again in 1949 when the same Fraser and Semple introduced peacetime conscription. The Labour Party itself was far from happy about the 1940 introduction of con scription, with the Morning side branch led by Jock Barnes, disaffiliating itself (Barnes later led the wharfies during the 1951 epic struggle).

New Zealand was far in advance of its Western allies in introducing conscription. Australia intro duced it for the S.W.Pacific area only and sent no conscripts there. Canada introduced it in August 1942 and sent no conscripts overseas until November 1944. South Africa and India didn't introduce it until after New Zealand.