The law granted immigration officers a wide degree of discretion to prevent individuals from entering Australia.
[2] Because of opposition from the British government, more explicit racial policies were avoided in the legislation, with the control mechanism for people deemed undesirable being a dictation test, which required a person seeking entry to Australia to write out a passage of fifty words dictated to them in any European language, not necessarily English, at the discretion of an immigration officer.
Although the test could theoretically be given to any person arriving in Australia, in practice it was given selectively on the basis of race, and others considered undesirables.
People who brought ill or insane immigrants into Australia were also liable for the costs of caring for them, on top of other penalties.
Jewish political activist Egon Kisch from Czechoslovakia, who was exiled from Germany for opposing Nazism, arrived in Australia in 1934.
Kisch was fluent in a number of European languages and, after completing passages in several, was finally failed when he declined to be tested in Scottish Gaelic.
[5] In the face of a long press and legal campaign for her admission, the government was unable or unwilling to provide a convincing reason for her exclusion and eventually she was admitted, welcomed by a huge crowd at the quay in Sydney.