NSW Labor MP supports Frydenberg
NSW Labor frontbencher Walt Secord has thrown his support behind Josh Frydenberg, labelling dual citizenship claims against the federal Treasurer as being “deeply rooted in antisemitism”.
NSW Labor frontbencher Walt Secord has thrown his support behind Josh Frydenberg, labelling dual citizenship claims against the federal Treasurer as being “deeply rooted in antisemitism”.
Two weeks after lawyer and ALP member Trevor Poulton said he was “briefing certain constituents in Kooyong” to file a High Court challenge against the Treasurer, Kooyong resident and climate activist Michael Staindl initiated proceedings last Wednesday.
Describing claims that Frydenberg might be a dual citizen of Australia and Hungary as “vicious”, Secord told state parliament, “His mother was made ‘stateless’ by the Nazis and Hungarian collaborators for a sole reason: It was because she was Jewish.
“They robbed her of her citizenship. It is absolutely disgusting to claim that she had Hungarian citizenship when it was ripped away from her and her family during the Shoah.”
Secord went on to say that the attacks on Frydenberg are “scurrilous and deeply offensive”.
“I believe the dual citizenship claims against Josh Frydenberg are deeply rooted in antisemitism. I also agree with Scott Morrison, who has expressed similar views.”
Anti-Defamation Commission chairman Dvir Abramovich said, “The idea that in today’s Australia a Jewish member of parliament could be punished because his stateless mother, who lost family relatives in the Holocaust, and who escaped Nazi occupied Hungary to save her life, is stomach-churning.”
Abramovich added that it is “heartening to see that the vast majority of people, including colleagues from across the political aisle, have decried this shameful process and have rejected this unwarranted challenge”.
Further coverage in this week’s AJN.
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