On the humid last day of February in 1951, a young Cypriot carpenter walked out of the Supreme Court of Victoria in Melbourne with a precedent-setting victory over rough bush injustice.
Judge Arthur Dean had just ruled that the trial of Demetrius Anastassiou in a cramped police office in Yallourn in Gippsland had not been legal.
The previous October, 25-year-old Anastassiou had been convicted on a charge of offensive behaviour and fined two pounds, the equivalent of about a day’s pay.
The charge arose from an incident during an alleged protest over bus services for Yallourn, a company town built for employees of the State Electricity Commission of Victoria – most of whom worked at the nearby power station.
Anastassiou had been tried before a Justice of the Peace in an office measuring less than four by three metres, containing three tables, a cupboard, a wash basin, a heater, five chairs – and a police officer dealing with a member of the public.
Judge Dean criticized the JP for refusing the defendant’s request for an adjournment to obtain legal assistance, and for not allowing him to call witnesses, who were waiting at the town’s Court of Petty Sessions, unaware that the trial was already underway.
“Keeping the door open did not overcome the secrecy which otherwise surrounded the proceedings,” the judge ruled, ordering a retrial. “I cannot, in these circumstances, find that the case was heard in open court as required by law.”
The ruling was substantial for Anastassiou, who went on to win the retrialled case, when his witnesses were able to give evidence – and decades later, Judge Dean’s ruling in his favour would still be being cited as a precedent in other cases.
A much bigger victory for Anastassiou’s solicitor in the Victorian Supreme Court case, Cedric Ralph, would come just a few weeks later, when the High Court ruled that federal government legislation seeking to ban the Communist Party of Australia was unconstitutional.
‘Ced the Red’ Ralph, who’d been instructing solicitor in the High Court case on behalf of the CPA, described it as “a triumph for the forces of democracy in Australia”.
Unsurprisingly, Menzies government supporters didn’t see it that way – and they were ready to lash out.
Back in Yallourn, Demetrius Anastassiou had already lost his job with the SEC, the town’s biggest employer, for allegedly holding unauthorized stop-work meetings of migrant workers, and was relying on jobs with private contractors.
Now, on the very day of the High Court judgement, the local Liberal Party secretary, David N. Smith, suggested a new investigation into Anastassiou, who he regarded as “disloyal” and a “menace to the country of his adoption”.
Smith wrote to his local federal Liberal MP, saying Cedric Ralph’s Cypriot client was an active member of the CPA, and had spoken at public meetings of the Peace Council – a Melbourne-based organization that opposed Australian involvement in the Korean War.
The letter from Smith was passed on to Immigration Minister Harold Holt, who in turn passed it to the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation. ASIO.
With the Cold War underway, and Australia in the Western alliance against the Communist bloc led by the Soviet Union, ASIO was just beginning what would be a long campaign in which Communists were regarded as the main threat to national security.
ASIO’s Director-General, Charles Spry, wrote back to Holt in July 1951 saying much of Smith’s information had been confirmed – and, further, that Anastassiou had just left Melbourne as one of the delegates to the World Youth Festival in Communist East Berlin.
“He has had a life of struggle and has now become an idealist. He considers that the Communist Party is the only true answer,” said a subsequent ASIO report on those attending the youth festival.
In early 1952, Spry advised it “would constitute a security risk” if Anastassiou was allowed back into the country, resulting in a directive from Holt to Australian diplomatic missions around the world that he be refused permission to board a ship or plane to return.
But the directive was issued too late: the non-computerised Immigration Department records not revealing until months later that the Cypriot had in fact already returned on board a passenger ship from London the month before.
Back in Australia, he continued to appear in ASIO reports as a public advocate for workers’ rights, particularly for migrant workers, for democracy in Greece, and for self-determination in Cyprus.
By mid-1952, ASIO believed he was probably working full-time for the CPA.
In August, Anastassiou was charged for a second time since he migrated to Australia with offensive behaviour, this time over the handing out of leaflets outside the Greek consulate in Martin Place in Sydney.
He was one of eight people arrested during a protest against the trials and potential death sentences in Greece of several trade union leaders.
Holt and his department may have missed getting rid of Anastassiou the first time, but with ASIO’s help, the case against him was building again.
In September, Spry wrote to Heyes, “I consider that a strong security objection exists to his remaining in the Commonwealth.”
“Victorian Police state that Anastassiou is a political agitator of the worst possible type and they make the strongest possible recommendation that he be sent out of the Commonwealth,” stated a report to Holt in November 1952.
And that is precisely what the Minister decided would be the best thing to do, by using a provision in the Immigration Act to apply a dictation test in a language that Anastassiou could not speak, to declare him an illegal immigrant.
He would then face a six-month prison sentence, followed by immediate deportation, with no right of appeal.
Before the offensive behaviour charge could be heard, Anastassiou was arrested and taken to the Immigration Department offices in Sydney to be given a dictation test in Italian – not one of the three languages he knew.
Denied a request for legal representation, he failed the test, was charged with being an illegal immigrant, and remanded in police custody for the night, with a trial date set for December.
Anastassiou wrote a polite letter to Holt appealing to him to halt the deportation proceedings, saying the way he was being treated by his department violated “all principles of British justice and of democratic human rights”.
In the lead-up to the trial, the federal government was also flooded with letters of protest from unions, Greek community groups, and individuals, many mentioning how Anastassiou had served with the Royal Navy during and just beyond WW2.
This he’d been unable to prove, and the government was skeptical, but on the eve of the trial in December 1952, the documentary proof finally came through from London.
It showed that in fact, he had served from 1943 to 1946 as a waiter in various shore bases of the Royal Navy in the eastern Mediterranean, including Haifa in Palestine and Alexandria in Egypt, and he’d been discharged with a good record.
It was enough to make Holt change his mind: he decided that despite the security concerns, the proceedings against Anastassiou should be withdrawn.
“He has committed no breach of the law for which deportation would normally follow, and while his political activities may have been a cause of trouble and disturbance there is no evidence of subversive intent,” he acknowledged.
Days later, one fiercely anti-Communist federal Labor MP in Victoria, Stan Keon, wrote to Holt saying he hoped he wasn’t reconsidering the deportation.
“I sincerely hope that the government is not likely to weaken on the policy of refusing the hospitality of this land to foreign Communist trouble-makers,” Keon wrote. “There are only two places for these folk – back where they came from, or Moscow.”
But Holt had to admit the case had already been withdrawn, while assuring Keon of continued security screening of every future applicant for migration.
Around the same time, two other cases emerged involving the proposed deportation from Australia of two other migrants regarded as trouble-makers, both Italians, so Holt put the matter to Cabinet.
In a policy submission in February 1953, he said Anastassiou and the Italians, who all had known or suspected Communist links, were accused of endeavouring to foment discontent among newly-arrived migrants.
The Minister acknowledged that the allegations related “solely to their political activities” and suggested it would be better to try to curb these by using provisions of the Crimes Act, rather than the Immigration Act.
A senior officer of Holt’s department had also recently admitted the action being taken against Anastassiou was solely because of his “political leanings”, warning the government could get into legal “hot water” by using the dictation test against him.
After Cabinet endorsed Holt’s policy submission, ASIO’s Director-General Charles Spry received a brief note informing him the deportation proceedings had been dropped “in view of very important questions of principle involved”.
In a terse reply to Immigration Department Secretary Tasman Heyes, a clearly peeved Spry asked for further information, in case ASIO should gather information in future cases “along different lines”.
“However, if the questions of principle were such as to override any security information which was or could be supplied by me, I could, in future, make enquiries as convenient to me rather than as a matter of urgency as was done with Anastassiou,” he wrote.
Heyes’ “secret and personal” explanation to Spry was that Cabinet had decided that lawful political activities – including membership of the Communist Party – did not of themselves justify deportation, as long as no subversive or “anti-social conduct” was involved.
Spry may have lost the battle, but in his view, not the war, and ASIO’s campaign against Anastassiou would continue for years.
Late in 1959, ASIO lodged an objection to him being allowed to sponsor Ioanna Stylianides, from the Greek community in Egypt, who he wanted to bring to Australia to become his second wife, he and his first wife having divorced.
On this occasion, the Immigration Department overruled an ASIO, on the basis that if Anastassiou had been allowed to stay, then as long as his fiancée had a clear security record, there was no reason he shouldn’t be allowed to sponsor her.
But the following year, when the Cypriot applied for Australian citizenship it was a different story: ASIO’s advice objecting to his application was upheld.
The basis for ASIO’s objection remained Anastassiou’s political activity, nothing suggesting any criminal behaviour, and often the information gathered by the organisation’s agents was quite banal.
The security “evidence” against him included such nuggets of information as the fact that in 1959, he’d attended a function of the Russian Social Club in Sydney where he had “performed a dance and spoke favourably in respect of the peace campaign and the Soviet Union”.
The same year, he was on the management committee of the Atlas Club, which was “the Sydney Greek Communist centre”, and he’d marched in the Greek section of the May Day march which was “Communist-organised and controlled”.
In 1960, he was “still active” in the Atlas Club, and highlights for both 1961 and 1962 were that he’d again taken part in May Day marches.
In July 1962, Anastassiou wrote to Immigration Minister, Alec Downer, appealing to be allowed to be naturalized “for the sake of justice and fairness”, pointing out that he was well settled in Australia, where he now owned his own home.
During his 13 years in Australia, he said, he’d been pleased to contribute towards the building of the country, which he now loved as his motherland and which he looked forward to making that of his future of that of his children.
“When I arrived in this country I was a youth of 22 and during all these 13 years I have learned quite a lot about Australia – its people, its history, its heritage, and the struggles of the Australian people”, Anastassiou told Downer.
“Because of the love and admiration I have for Australia and its people I wish to contribute whatever I can, in whichever way I can, for the progress of this country and help towards the assimilation between the old and the new Australians, in the spirit that Banjo Patterson and Henry Lawson wrote about, in the spirit of friendship, understanding, fairness and mateship.”
Anastassiou’s grand-daughter, Alex, says her grandfather loved Australian literature, so she’s not surprised that he mentioned the writers in his letter to Downer.
“I think he was feeling like 13 years was quite long enough, that he needed to become an Australian citizen. I think he felt deserving of the title of Australian citizen,” says Alex. “But also I feel like it’s an important letter for him to try and communicate how much he did love this country. He wouldn’t have mentioned Banjo Patterson or Henry Lawson if he didn’t have a real appreciation of this country and its heritage.”
Still, the letter had no effect on Downer, and in late 1967, when he wanted to visit his elderly mother in Egypt, he’d been rejected for Australian citizenship again.
The previous time Anastassiou had left Australia was back in 1951, when the bureaucrats hadn’t acted quickly enough on the government’s desire to stop him coming back by denying him permission to board a return voyage or flight.
This time, before leaving, he went to the Sydney office of the Immigration Department and applied for a re-entry visa to be placed in his passport of the now independent Cyprus.
Told this couldn’t be done immediately, he had to fly out without a visa, while the matter was referred to ASIO.
Almost two months later, from Cairo, a worried Anastassiou contacted Labor Senator Lionel Murphy, asking him to check why a visa still hadn’t been issued so he could return to his wife and daughter in Australia.
Murphy’s inquiries prompted ASIO to make a decision, and it was not in Anastassiou’s favour: in fact, acting Director-General Peter Barbour ruled he was “unable to grant a security clearance for the issue of a re-entry permit”.
So, if ASIO had its way, after the two failed attempts to either leave him overseas or deport him in the early 1950s, Anastassiou would finally have been unable to return in 1968.
But the very day Barbour made his ruling, he was informed by the Immigration Department secretary, Peter Heydon, that he’d been overruled, and that authority had been given for Anastassiou to return to Australia to rejoin his wife and child.
Jimmi Anastassiou still had to wait another five years, though, to become an Australian citizen.
That happened on 16 May 1973, the day his new application was received by the Immigration Department under the new Labor government.
His daughter, Marilena, says she feels a little saddened, but not angry, when she’s read the many security files gathered about her father.
“It makes me very proud that he was somebody that stood up for his beliefs and passionately backed what he believed in, but that he was described as a menace,” she says. “It actually, in hindsight, makes me realise what sort of society we lived in and the injustice of those who wished to speak up against what were fundamentally human rights and workers’ rights were being quashed and so because he was standing up for that, they were labeling him a menace, I just think is an indictment on Australian society at the time. I feel that I am actually very proud that he had the courage to stand up and do what he did.”
(Originally published by SBS as part of a series called ‘Unwanted Australians’, produced by Kristina Kukolja and Lindsey Arkley).
Sources:
1. Dando v Anastassiou http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/sinodisp/au/cases/vic/VicLawRp/1951/30.html?query=; [1951] VLR 235; Melbourne “Herald” 18 May 1951.
2. “The Advertiser”, 10 March 1951.
3. NAA: A6119, 891
4. NAA: A6980, S200624
5. NAA: A6119, 891
6. NAA: A6980, S200624