THE AUSTRALIAN
SIMONE FOX KOOB
A Melbourne councillor’s comparison of Australia Day with a celebration of the Nazi holocaust has drawn ire from Jewish groups and the government, who have labelled the comments “thoughtless and insulting”.
Socialist Alliance councillor Sue Bolton, part of the Moreland Council in Melbourne’s inner-north, made the comments after the council voted to remove all Australia Day celebrations from January 26.
The council will keep citizenship ceremonies on January 26, though the federal government is currently reviewing whether it will allow councillors to retain the right to administer them.
Earlier today, Ms Bolton said she was proud the council had taken a “big step forward” by recognising January 26 as the start of the invasion and genocide of indigenous people by the British.
“What happened to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people from that date was a holocaust. Celebrating that date would be like celebrating the Nazi holocaust as Germany Day. It is absolutely reprehensible,” she said.
‘Like celebrating the holocaust’
Dr Dvir Abramovich, the chairman of Jewish community group the Anti-Defamation Commission, said Ms Bolton’s contribution was tainting the debate and called on her to apologise for the analogy.
“(She has) crossed so many red lines I stopped counting. When will elected officials like Ms Bolton understand that is never acceptable to abuse and manipulate the Holocaust in an effort to beat down and demonise her opponents, score cheap political points and publicise her cause.”
“There is no comparison between Australia Day and the systemised, industrialised annihilation of millions of innocents by Hitler’s infrastructure of death … this inappropriate analogy not only does a disservice to the historical record, but is also is an insult to the victims, the survivors, and to those diggers who sacrificed their lives in the battle to defeat the Third Reich.”
However, Ms Bolton stood by her comments this afternoon, telling The Australian: “The Holocaust is a very hurtful thing to the Jewish community … But there are other similar experiences in other continents which may not have involved gas ovens but were attempts to commit genocide.”
“The reason I’m drawing the comparison is to dramatise what happened to Aboriginal people. Many Australians are in denial about our history,” she said. “I don’t shrink from using that comparison and I think we do have to recognise the atrocities committed in the past.”
Assistant Minister for Border Protection Alex Hawke said the comments were “extreme and divisive”, and the comparison “deeply offensive to all Australians.”
He said the government is currently considering whether to strip the council of its authority to administer citizenship ceremonies, as it did with Yarra and Darebin Councils last month.
Moreland Mayor Helen Davidson said she hoped the federal government would allow them to continue holding citizenship ceremonies, as they played a central role in the diverse community.
The council voted to retain the January 26 citizenship ceremonies, which puts it at odds with Yarra and Darebin councils who scrapped all events on that date.
“It’s extremely important to those newly arrived citizens who come to Moreland and it’s probably one of the most beautiful days as Mayor you get to experience,” said Ms Davidson. “I hope that the Minister can see the different approach taken by Moreland council.”
Ms Davidson also distanced herself from the comments made by Ms Bolton.
“That’s not the point of view I share at all. There is some passionate debate that occur in the council chamber but I don’t want to offend or alienate anybody and we have to keep this discussion in the reasonable boundary of what we are actually talking about.”