Cirrus@Austlit

Humorous poem on the minor diplomatic row which erupted following the removal of the Italian Coat of Arms from the office of the Italian consular agent at Innisfail, in North Queensland.

During the 1920s and 1930s, Italian migration to North Queensland sparked a significant backlash within sections of the Anglo-Australian community, and in 1925 the Queensland Government was so concerned that it established a royal commission to investigate the matter. In 1930, the mood at Ingham became particularly volatile when the newly formed British Preference League and the Australian Workers' Union attempted (unsuccessfully) to limit the employment of Italian labourers on the North Queensland cane-fields. This state of affairs was further complicated by tensions within sections of the Italian community, between those who felt a loyalty towards Mussolini's fascist government in Italy, and left-wing anti-fascists, many of whom had fled to Australia to escape political persecution.

So whilst Ixion's poem seeks to portray the removal of the Italian Coat of Arms at Innisfail as a trivial affair and the work of pranksters, this view downplays the tensions which existed in North Queensland at the time, and ignores the broader context within which the incident occurred.