Estimates of the New Guard’s membership count are contradictory. A report conducted by the NSW Police in September 1931 found 87,000 had sought membership and by December of the same year there were 39,000 card-carrying members – with 3,000 residing in the country centres of regional NSW. For practical reasons, Campbell’s internal estimations of membership count focused on those that the New Guard could rely on in the event of a socialist revolution. In that he estimated the figure at 20,000. For propaganda reasons, New Guard membership was often publicly exaggerated, as when Campbell foreshadowed a procession of 100,000 men along Macquarie Street to present a petition to Sir Game.