Having researched the role of volunteers during World War II, Associate Professor Melanie Oppenheimer, an historian from the University of Western Sydney, started wondering what happened to them afterwards.

This led to her receiving the Margaret George Award from the National Archives of Australia to undertake further research on volunteering in Australia since World War II (to be published by UNSW Press next year).

She presented her preliminary findings in a public lecture Volunteering: The Australian Experience at the National Archives in Canberra on Tuesday, 15 May during National Volunteer Week.

‘Women became really involved in their local communities through the war years,’ she said. ‘Afterwards they wondered how they could continue that involvement and that was the start of many voluntary organisations. Volunteers would see a need in the community and start projects such as marriage guidance counselling. As these things grew, the government would step in and take them over.’

Dr Oppenheimer was delighted to discover a wealth of information in the National Archives collection about volunteering during the 1956 Olympic Games. It was also the time of debates about amateur versus professional sport.

‘In the 1950s virtually all sportspeople, their coaches and trainers were unpaid. They were in it as amateurs, for the love of it,’ she said. ‘The army also volunteered their men to act as marshalls and scoreboard operators and provided sheets and towels for the Olympic village.’

The second big volunteering push was in the 1970s under Gough Whitlam’s leadership. One of the items Dr Oppenheimer uncovered was a promotional film from the 1970s on the Australian Assistance Plan.

‘This short-lived yet radical and innovative program focused on local community volunteering,’ she said. ‘The federal government provided funds for grass roots organisations to get together and work at a local level.’

Although the program only lasted three years it left a legacy.

‘It rejuvenated the voluntary sector at a grass roots level. When the genie’s out of the bottle, you can’t stop it.’