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[Creeperopolis]

The Rhodesia Information Centre (RIC), also known as the Rhodesian Information Centre,[2] the Rhodesia Information Service,[3] the Flame Lily Centre and the Zimbabwe Information Centre, represented the Rhodesian government in Australia from 1966 to 1980. As Australia did not recognise Rhodesia's independence it operated on an unofficial basis.

Rhodesia's quasi-diplomatic presence in Australia was initially established in Melbourne during 1966 as the Rhodesian Information Service. This organisation closed the next year, and was replaced with the RIC in Sydney. The centre's activities included lobbying politicians, spreading propaganda about white minority rule in Rhodesia and advising Australian businesses on how they could evade the United Nations sanctions that had been imposed on the country. It collaborated with a far-right organisation and a pro-Rhodesia community organisation. These activities, and the centre's presence in Australia, violated United Nations Security Council resolutions, including some that specifically targeted it and the other Rhodesian diplomatic posts. The RIC had little impact, with Australian media coverage of the Rhodesian regime being almost entirely negative and the government's opposition to white minority rule in Rhodesia hardening over time.

While the centre was initially tolerated by the Australian government, its operations became controversial from the early 1970s. The RIC's role in disseminating propaganda was revealed in March 1972, but the government of the day chose to not take any substantive action in response. The Whitlam government that was in power from late 1972 to November 1975 unsuccessfully attempted to force the centre to close on several occasions, with the High Court ruling one of the attempts to have been illegal. In 1977 the Fraser government also attempted to close the RIC, but backed down in the face of a backbench revolt over the issue. The Zimbabwean government shut the centre in May 1980 after the end of white minority rule and later established an official embassy in Australia.