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Thanks for your comment about the New Zealanders. Led me to the following:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history_of_Australia_during_World_War_II

Of Note:

Australia entered the war against Germany on 3 September 1939, shortly after Britain declared war when its ultimatum for Germany to withdraw from Poland expired.[4] Unlike Canada and South Africa there was no legislative debate. The government of Australia believed that, as Prime Minister Robert Menzies said, “Britain is at war therefore Australia is at war”
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While the government initially proposed deploying the entire RAAF overseas, it was instead decided to focus the force’s resources on training aircrew to facilitate a massive expansion of Commonwealth air power.[17] In late 1939 Australia and the other Dominions established the Empire Air Training Scheme (EATS) to train large numbers of men for service in the British Royal Air Force (RAF) and other Commonwealth air units. Almost 28,000 Australians were eventually trained through EATS in schools in Australia, Canada and Rhodesia. While many of these men were posted to Australian Article XV squadrons, the majority served with British and other Dominion squadrons. Moreover, these nominally ‘Australian’ squadrons were not under RAAF control and Australians often made up a minority of their airmen.[18] As the Australian Government had no effective control over how airmen trained through EATS were used, most Australian historians regard the scheme as having hindered the development of Australia’s defence capability.[19] Nevertheless, RAAF airmen trained through EATS represented about nine percent of all aircrew who fought for the RAF in the European and Mediterranean theatres and made an important contribution to Allied operations.[20]

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Australian aircrew in Bomber Command had one of the highest casualty rates of any part of the Australian military during World War II. Although only two percent of Australians enlisted in the military served with Bomber Command, they incurred almost 20 percent of all Australian deaths in combat; 3,486 were killed and hundreds more were taken prisoner.[66]

Not pertinent to your comment but interesting:

The Australian military’s role in the South-West Pacific decreased during 1944. In the latter half of 1943 the Australian Government decided, with MacArthur’s agreement, that the size of the military would be reduced to release manpower for war-related industries which were important to supplying Britain and the US forces in the Pacific. Australia’s main role in the Allied war effort from this point forward was supplying the other Allied countries with food, materials and manufactured goods needed for the defeat of Japan
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We may criticize interment of civilians but war is war and we were not there. Was there any coverage of the august 5, 1944 event?

Thousands of Axis POWs were held in Australia during the war. A total of 25,720 POWs were held in Australia: 18,432 Italians, 5,637 Japanese and 1,651 Germans. These prisoners were housed in purpose-built camps and were treated in accordance with the Geneva Convention.[200] A total of 16,798 civilians were also interned. These included 8,921 Australian-resident “enemy aliens”, while the remainder were civilians sent to Australia for internment by other Allied countries.[201] On the morning of 5 August 1944, approximately half of the 1,104 Japanese held at a camp near Cowra, New South Wales attempted to escape. The prisoners overwhelmed their guards and over 400 broke through the wire fences; however, every escapee was either recaptured or killed within 10 days.[202]