October 1979 dismissed Despoja's appeal against the injunction granted by Mr Justice Smithers. Despoja and Sidic closed the doors of their "Embassy" two weeks later. According to Sidic, the legal advice they had received was that an appeal to the High Court could have extended the "Embassy's" life by another eight months but they would have lost the appeal. The flag and insignia at the "Embassy" were to come down under the cover of darkness on 25 October, "to spare the Croatian people the sight of seeing them removed", according to Despoja. The next election for the Croatian National Council was held about the same time and found Mario Despoja receiving the most votes among the 93 international candidates contesting 30 positions. Dinka Sidic also stood for election but did not receive enough support to be one of the chosen 30. Special precautions were taken to protect Despoja, as his two predecessors as top vote-getters had died, one supposedly at the hands of Yugoslav assassins. Despoja next appeared before the English-speaking public as Adviser, Foreign Relations Department, to the Croatian National Congress (Australasia) (sic), which conveyed its point of view on Tito's Yugoslavia through an advertisement in The Canberra Times on 1 May 1980. The newly married Dinka Crgic-Sidic, Adviser, Press and Information Department, was a co-signatory. Members of the governing, conservative Liberal Party of Australia had supported Despoja and the "Embassy" on a number of occasions. Despite this, the Croatian National Congress urged Croats in Australia to vote against the Liberals in the Federal elections to be held on 18 October 1980. Despoja claimed that Croatians were prepared to change their votes for a number of reasons, including closure of the "Embassy". In the event, the Liberal Party lost 13 seats but still won the election. Despoja's "diplomatic" career had ended by October 1982 when the first of many property advertisements featuring him as the real estate agent appeared in The Canberra Times An admirer summed up his contribution ten years later, when she wrote to the Editor of The Canberra Times that, "People may have short memories, especially in the political arena, but history has already marked the name of Mario Despoja as one of the champions of the 20th century fight for Croatian democracy". On 21 June 1995, Mario Despoja watched Croatia's first elected president, Franjo Tudjman open his nation's official embassy in Canberra. References 1938 births