Jewish community condemns ‘disgusting’ depiction of Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk as Hitler

A protester displaying a depiction of the Queensland Premier as Hitler has been blasted as naive as calls for hate crime legislation grow louder.

A placard proudly displayed in central Brisbane this week depicting Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk as Hitler has disgusted the Queensland Jewish community and reignited calls for hate crime legislation reform.

A woman was photographed on Wednesday with a large sign featuring Ms Palaszczuk with an infamous toothbrush moustache and adorned in the murderous dictator’s grey army uniform along with the message ‘making human rights obsolete again’.

The image, provided to The Courier-Mail, featured at an unknown rally and has shocked leaders of the local Jewish community, with Queensland Jewish Board of Deputies president Jason Steinberg saying the act “trivialises the Holocaust and Nazism”.

“It really diminishes the memory of the six million Jews and five million other people who were murdered under that regime,” he said.

“It’s naive for people to compare the actions of the Queensland Government or the Australian Government to the Nazi regime.”

Mr Steinberg said he was horrified such an offensive placard could be proudly displayed in central Brisbane particularly given Ms Palaszczuk’s Polish heritage.

Depictions of Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk as Hitler has horrified the Jewish community.

“It’s naive of the person who made that poster (because they aren’t) aware that the Premier’s family were victims of the Holocaust,” he said.

“They survived, but they were victims.

“Seeing a modern-day political leader, like our Premier, depicted as she was is disgusting.”

The brazen depiction of the notorious dictator follows a spate of Nazi-themed provocations in recent months and has again renewed calls for state parliament to reform hate crime legislation.

“We called on the Queensland parliament when they had the opportunity to debate the proposed changes to the hate vilification legislation that they condemn the use of Nazi hate symbols and criminalise it so people know, in our state, that it’s not okay to show the swastika,” Mr Steinberg said.

“It’s not OK to show Nazi hate symbol in that context and we want it criminalised.”

In late January, the serious vilification and hate crimes committee tabled its report to parliament recommending the state government introduce criminal offences for those displaying hate symbols, including those related to Nazi ideology.

Attorney-General Shannon Fentiman described the depiction of Ms Palaszczuk as “repulsive”.

“The government is currently considering the recommendations of the inquiry into serious vilification and hate crimes, and will continue to look at ways to ensure Queensland is inclusive and embraces our diverse communities,” she said in a statement provide to The Courier-Mail.

Swastika graffiti on the office of Don Brown MP in Capalaba in November. Picture: Richard Walker

The placard carried through the streets on Wednesday also featured an image of Prime Minister Scott Morrison in a uniform that was difficult to identify from the image, but Mr Steinberg believed a masonic symbol was featured.

“And if it is a masonic symbol, again, that is a stereotypical anti-Semitic attempt to look at conspiracy theories and all of those kinds of things that anti-Semites do,” he said.

In November, state government MP Don Brown’s electoral office was emblazoned with a swastika and, prior to that, Queensland police charged a man with public nuisance offences after he displayed a swastika flag above a Brisbane synagogue.

The swastika is the symbol of the Nazi party, the far-right anti-Semitic German political party responsible for the murder of six million Jews during World War II.

The flag-flying continued the use of Nazi imagery in Queensland in recent months – including graffiti at the Clapham rail yard at Moorooka in May – and comes as law enforcement bodies raise concerns over rising far-right extremism in Australia.

Ms Palaszczuk has previously spoken of her family’s ordeal in Nazi concentration camps.