Last week at the Greek Writer’s Festival in Sydney a historian told the audience of an anti Greek riot in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia that occurred in 1916. It was an incident that few of us knew about because it has been lost in time over the last century since it occurred and never spoken about since as far as we are aware.
And yet last week on April 1 it was the anniversary of another event that occurred exactly 45 years ago to the day which is remembered by too few of us within the Greek Australian community.
It was the start of a chain of incidents that tainted the whole Greek community and led to demands to have us deported back to where we came from.
So what happened exactly 45 years ago on April 1, 1978?
The public woke up to the news that the then Commonwealth police had in the early hours of that morning raided the homes of 181 people in Sydney.
The mostly men were dragged off in front of their families and neighbours to be charged for allegedly defrauding the Social Security department. They had committed no crime, no offence. It was later revealed the police did not even have a search warrant for these people.
It was the biggest mass arrest of people in Australia’s history.
It was assumed they were all part of a secret Greek underground organisation called the ‘kolpo’ to conspire to illegally obtain an invalid pension by paying to get medical certificates and reports with fabricated illnesses and injuries.
What they all had in common was that every one of them was a Greek migrant.
As all the pensioners were of Greek origin the case quickly became known as the “Greek Conspiracy”.
Also arrested and charged with conspiracy to defraud were 5 doctors who supposedly helped these migrants gain an invalid pension.
Within a week of the raids more than 700 people had their payments cancelled due to being of Greek background. Police were also stationed at airports to stop any Greeks from trying to flee the country.
Greeks in receipt of an invalid pension in Greece also had their payments cancelled.
One newspaper boasted they had proof of more than a thousand people being involved in the conspiracy to defraud the Commonwealth. While another paper reported there was a massive probe into unemployment benefit fraud predicting “thousands could lose their benefits” and the alleged fraud was centred on the Sydney Greek community. Anyone reading that story would think Greeks were also involved in trying to rip off the dole, but in reality this was not the case but a false story made up.
Those pensioners and their immediate families who had now had their pension cancelled faced severe financial difficulties, relying on handouts from extended family, friends or charities.
At least 1 person committed suicide.
Greeks were now looked upon as cheats and bludgers thanks to the media’s lopsided, biased and inaccurate reporting and calls for them to be deported.
I helped interpret and interviewed scores of those that were caught up in this scandal. What I noticed they had in common was that these were people with low literacy skills, most had only reached primary school education levels while a few had no education. Most had no formal skills apart from farming in Greece and therefore had worked in unskilled jobs whether at a factory or construction building sites in Australia.
For some the working conditions were poor, unsafe and dangerous, having to put up with toxic fumes, chemical exposures, dust, industrial heat, noise and risky job behaviours. By the mid 70’s quite a few Greek immigrants working on such sites were showing signs of lung illnesses due to dust diseases from factory or excavation sites as no masks were worn by workers.
In September 1977 the Commonwealth police informed Social Security they had evidence of a massive fraud involving hundreds of people of Greek origin and doctors falsifying medical reports to assist with the fraud. The head of the commonwealth police suggested they pay an informant a huge amount of money so he could give names and details of the fraud and that is what happened.
According to the informant the alleged fraud was being organised by a group of middlemen within the Greek community known as “mesazones” aiding claimants in how to fabricate symptoms of various illnesses including physical and psychological for a fee of about one thousand dollars.
The case proceeded over several years and eventually all charges of conspiracy to defraud were dropped in 1985 as there was none.
The entire investigation cost the government tens of millions of dollars but the stigma of being falsely accused rested with the victims, their families and Greek community for years.
Unfortunately no Royal commission was ever established to find out how and why this terrible fiasco occurred, nor was there any detailed reporting as has been with the robo-debt scandal in recent months and which still continues.
Today hardly anyone recalls this tragic event 45 years later apart from those caught up in the hysteria of the conspiracy.
I wonder how many of those charged with conspiracy are still alive today and what the affect on them has been and how they and their families feel decades later?
However just as important these incidents should not be forgotten as they remind us to be careful and vigilant when whole ethnic, racial or religious groups are accused by government authorities of some conspiracy against the state.
This is part of the Greek Australian history and we have no reason to be ashamed or to forget.