Senator’s ‘final solution’ speech slammed

QUEENSLAND Senator Fraser Anning has come under fire from communal leaders after using the term “final solution” in his maiden speech on the subject of immigration.

The member of Katter’s Australian Party invoked the White Australia policy, stating Australians may want “to return to the predominantly European immigration policy of the pre-Whitlam consensus”.

Decrying the record of Muslim immigrants “in terms of rates of crime, welfare dependency and terrorism”, Anning said “the final solution to the immigration problem” would be a plebiscite “to allow the Australian people to decide whether they want wholesale non-English speaking immigrants from the third world, and particularly if they want any Muslims”.

While the speech was widely condemned as both divisive and racist, Jewish leaders were particularly concerned by Anning’s choice of words which Executive Council of Australian Jewry president Anton Block claimed “would have been deeply unsettling for Jewish Australians, especially Holocaust survivors”.

He said, “For them the words “final solution” in reference to an ‘alien’ group are a chilling reminder of how the process of dehumanisation begins. They know from personal experience where it can end. Senator Anning should have been aware of this history.”

Block added, “It has long been the ECAJ’s position that prospective migrants to Australia should be assessed on their individual merits, and not according to their skin colour, ethnicity or religion.”

Dvir Abramovich, chairman of the Anti-Defamation Commission, said, “Mr Anning is entitled to his views, but he discredits himself and his argument by irresponsibly referencing an evil plan that led to the calculated murder of six million Jews and millions of others in the Holocaust.”

Jewish MP and deputy manager of Opposition business Mark Dreyfus said, “To use the words ‘final solution’ in relation to immigration policy, and then plead ignorance at the meaning of those words, is just beyond belief.

“As the son of a child refugee who fled Nazism in Germany, I am appalled that our Parliament has been defiled by the speech Senator Anning has made.”

Slamming Anning as “a disgrace”, Josh Burns, Labor candidate for Macnamara, told The AJN, “My family perished because of the final solution.”

He added, “The far right is seeping hate into our politics and it’s abhorrent.”

AJN STAFF