Stepping briefly away from budget news, and a follow-up to the story we brought you in yesterday’s blog, where WA Liberals Leader Libby Mettam called for a Labor MP to apologise to the state’s Jewish community after he likened her to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler during a speech in parliament.
Labor MP Stuart Aubrey has now penned an apology to the Jewish community, after he made the comments on Wednesday over Mettam’s election vow to ban puberty blockers being given to children.
WA Liberals leader Libby Mettam, WA Labor member for Scarborough Stuart Aubrey.
WA’s Chief Rabbi Daniel Lieberman told 6PR’s Gary Adshead this morning the Jewish community had received Aubrey’s letter unreservedly apologising for his remarks on Wednesday, and he had conceded they were “unacceptable”.
Lieberman praised Aubrey for his bravery in fronting up to apologise, but urged him to offer Mettam the same courtesy and embark on a journey of education about the genocide of European Jews in the 1940s.
“It’s quite shocking really, and it’s disappointing to see the devaluing of the Holocaust and the persecution of the Jewish community,” he told 6PR.
“[Mettam’s policy position] certainly is not the industrial killing of certain people, it’s not the transporting of people across the world to camps and killing them.
“Appalling things happened, and it’s not acceptable for [the Holocaust] to be bandied about: it is a unique crime, planned, calculated and carried out by people with the deepest and darkened evil in their hearts.”
Mettam had urged the member for Scarborough to apologise for using the cover of parliamentary privilege to compare her to the dictator over her stance on puberty blocker medication.
Mettam had vowed to ban puberty blockers for those under the age of 16 if the Liberals were elected in 2025.
WA Premier Roger Cook said that while he hadn’t spoken to Aubrey directly about the incident, he conceded his choice of words was “clumsy” and his office had been working to help him understand the hurt they could cause.