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About Dr Samuel White's Fellowship research 

The appropriate use of the military domestically is a cornerstone of Australia’s constitution. Outside of a very specific constitutional option to respond (under 119 to counter domestic violence/insurgency), not much has been written on the topic notwithstanding extensive political considerations and directed domestic deployments. Earlier research has uncovered thirteen instances of domestic deployments, through archival and oral history accounts.  

Dr White’s research expands upon the topic by utilising the uniquely held resources of the Library to uncover how key decision-makers arrived at the conclusion to call out the troops. The project utilises collections such as correspondence between Ministers around the call out events and the diaries of Commanding Officers involved in keeping the peace of the realm. In cross-referencing call out events (from earlier research) with the Library’s unique resources, a definitive history of the use of military troops in Australia will illuminate historical practice, and inform contemporary debates around the ‘proper’ use of the Australian Defence Force. 

Dr Samuel White is a 2025 National Library of Australia Fellow.

Learn more about National Library Fellowships

About Dr Samuel White 

Dr Samuel White is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Adelaide Law School. Prior to joining academia, he worked at the Office of International Law (Attorney-General’s Department) across a range of national security matters. Dr White has also served as both a Royal Australian Infantry Corps and an Australian Army Legal Corps officer in a variety of tactical, operational and strategic level postings. He holds the rank of Major.  

His operational experiences focused his doctoral studies, which addressed the constitutional ambit and limitations of responding to foreign interference (both traditional and modern forms) via military responses. This built on one of his monographs, Keeping the Peace of the Realm (LexisNexis, 2021), which analysed the nature of section 119 of the Constitution and whether it created a shield, or empowerment, for Commonwealth interventions in State affairs.