Michael Johnson (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The budget that was delivered by the federal Treasurer on Tuesday evening made reference to the government seeking to increase the age pension for tens of thousands of our fellow Australians, and I want to put on the record that that is one initiative that I support, and that I believe the coalition supports, very strongly and very genuinely. Many pensioners in my electorate will welcome this initiative, and I want to place on the record and remind the people of Ryan that the inspiration and the driver of this policy was not in fact the Rudd government but was the former Leader of the Opposition Dr Brendan Nelson, a man who enjoys enormous respect in this parliament, a man of great popularity on both sides of the chamber.

I want to talk about this in the context of compassion. In the parliament yesterday one of the members of the government, the member for Bendigo, spoke about compassion, and I, as an individual citizen of this country and as a member of this federal parliament since 2001, want to place on the record the deep offence that I took at his remarks which associated me, as a member of the coalition, and my colleagues in this parliament with the Third Reich of Adolf Hitler in Nazi Germany. I want to place on the record the words that the member for Bendigo spoke, because I know that the constituents of Ryan will find them absurd, offensive and absolutely inappropriate. He associated the opposition’s compassion and our views on the age pension with the Third Reich.

In fact, it was the former Leader of the Opposition Dr Brendan Nelson, and the opposition, that pushed the Rudd Labor government into taking this initiative on board; it was not of their own doing. For him to allege lack of compassion on the coalition side of the chamber and associate the coalition with the Third Reich is terribly offensive. I know that all those of Jewish faith, in particular, and supporters not only of my party but of the government will find this remarkable—and that is being generous—but, more likely, terribly offensive.

The state of Israel is the only democratic nation in the Middle East, and its people sometimes still have to persuade others in the world, even some people who hold positions of significant influence, that the Holocaust, one of the darkest chapters in the history of humanity, took place. That millions of Jews were slaughtered and butchered and murdered is something that we all need to remember. We need to stand side by side with the state of Israel, the government of Israel and the people of Israel. During World War II, Adolf Hitler controlled Germany as a plaything of his own megalomania. That is something that today, in 2009, and in the 21st century, we must not forget, because if we as a people forget, and the world forgets, then we are sure to revisit it in the future.

I want to place on the record that for a member of the Australian parliament to make remarks in the House of Representatives that associates a political party with the Third Reich of Adolf Hitler is something that is totally offensive to me as an individual and to all of my colleagues in the federal opposition. It is absolutely appropriate for any political party in this parliament to engage in vigorous, robust and indeed passionate debate, and for that debate to be extended to the association of an individual of any political party in the parliament with dictators and governments of evil such as we can only imagine is something that should stand condemned. I will certainly be making it very clear to the people of Ryan that this took place and that it was way out of line.