Attempted Exclusion of Egon Kisch From Australia - The Government Uses The Dictation Test

The Government Uses The Dictation Test

The Strathaird arrived in Sydney Harbour on 16 November 1934. The Federal Government now attempted to exclude Kisch using the Immigration Restriction Act. The Act provided that "Any person who when asked to do so by an officer fails to write out at dictation and sign in the presence of the officer a passage of fifty words in length in an European language directed by the officer" would not be admitted.

This was primarily intended, and used, as a means to exclude non-whites from entering Australia under the White Australia Policy, but it could be, and occasionally was, used to exclude other undesirables. Kisch demonstrated his fluency in a number of European languages, and he was then asked to write the Lord's Prayer in Scottish Gaelic. He refused to participate and was deemed to have failed the test. He was then taken into custody, this time by the New South Wales police, who released him on AU£200 bail.

The dictation test was also used to exclude another anti-war activist who had been invited to speak. Irishman (and therefore British subject) Gerald Griffin, had been given a dictation test in Dutch, which he had failed as he was meant to do. In his memoir Australian Landfall, Kisch records with gusto how Griffin then entered Australia under a false name and led the authorities a merry dance as he popped up unannounced to speak at meeting after meeting.