‘Ultimate hypocrisy’ of Wong in Auschwitz

As a Holocaust survivor, I am sickened by Wong’s comments.

Penny Wong is in Auschwitz representing Australia at the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of this former death camp where more than one million Jews were murdered.

During a television interview she complained that the occasion was being politicised, referring to the opposition to her role, which of course is based on her conduct and statements hostile to Israel since the outbreak of the terrible recent Middle East conflict.

As a survivor of the Holocaust, I was nauseated by her comment that we should be united to ensure that (adopting the Israel/ Jewish post-Holocaust mantra) “this will never happen again”, when just about everything she or her government has done (especially in the United Nations) or said since the barbaric murder of more than 1000 Israelis, as well as her government’s inaction to the explosion of violent anti-Semitism in Australia, have supported and aided the objective of those committed to ensuring that it will happen again. The ultimate hypocrisy.

Peter Strasser, Bellevue Hill, NSW

Eighty years ago on Monday, we saw the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in southern Poland, the largest Nazi industrial killing compound, where over a million Jews were murdered. Auschwitz remains one of the most powerful symbols of the Holocaust.

The memorial service is being attended by world leaders including German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Britain’s King Charles III.

It is perverse or maybe delusional that the Albanese government reportedly planned to send Senator Sue Lines as the head of our delegation, someone who has a history of anti-Israel remarks. Could there be anything more offensive than sending an Israel hater to an international Holocaust memorial? Penny Wong (along with Mark Dreyfus) was a last-minute replacement and she, too, is a questionable choice. Her actions and rhetoric towards Israel have alienated Australia’s Jewish community.

It’s a clumsy decision and will result in further insult.

Alex Selby, Double Bay, NSW

One has to agree with Dr Harry Pinskier (“ALP to pay a heavy price at election over anti-Semitism”). Having the Foreign Minister, Penny Wong, represent our nation at the event celebrating the liberation of Auschwitz is clearly a serious mistake. Greg Brown quotes Pinskier as saying it is a “slap in the face” of the Jewish community and the “Albanese government will reap what it sows”. Correct on both counts.

Clearly, this government is struggling to read the room by continually putting politics in the way of duty. If it’s good enough for King Charles and French President Emmanuel Macron, to name just two, to attend, why on earth is the Governor-General and/or the PM not representing Australia? Not only does it not make sense, it’s devaluing an event all Australians, particularly Jewish Australians, feel very strongly about.

Having been to Auschwitz, seen the gas chambers, the piles of shoes and more, I feel extremely angered that yet again we are letting down a country and a people who have been our friends and partners for many years past.

Ian C. Murray, Cremorne Point, NSW

Crash-test Albo

Nick Cater writes: “With hindsight, it was Trump’s good fortune to sit out the past four years and allow the Biden administration to be the crash-test dummy for critical theory pushed to extremes.”

The similarities with Australia are striking. Peter Dutton has sat out the Albanese experiment of pushing to the limit identity politics, climate change virtue-signalling, and the pushing of diversity, equity and inclusiveness on to an ever-expanding public service. Meanwhile, merit, pragmatism and common sense have evaporated and living standards have nosedived (“ ‘Keep calm and carry on’ will not work”, 27/1).

Ron Hobba, Camberwell, Vic

Nick Cater invokes the acerbic founder of the Liberal Party to deliver a very Menzian put-down for the PM and this Labor government. It’s worth repeating: Anthony Albanese “lacks the courage or intelligence to confront the nutbags in his own party or the destabilising and divisive policies of the Greens”. Cater summarises how in the US in the 1970s neo-communist university elites invented critical race theory and woke. This inadvertently destroyed all mainstream media in the West by pushing the message never to tolerate a conservative voice. Cater’s welcome voice is one they haven’t cancelled.

Betty Cockman, Dongara, WA

No-jab nurses

The government is looking for well-qualified nurses. There are at least many hundreds of nurses who lost their jobs because they wouldn’t take the Covid jab. Is it simply the authorities not wanting to admit they were wrong that stops these nurses from being rehired over foreign imports?

James Hein, Hackney, SA