Dreyfus blasts ‘disgusting’ opposition attempt to gag him on antisemitism

“I do not need the leader of the opposition or any of those opposite to tell me what antisemitism is, or how seriously I should take it.”

Saying that members of the Coalition were offended by the claim they had sought political advantage from antisemitism, Sukkar rose to his feet for a point of order and, in an unusual parliamentary manoeuvre, moved that Dreyfus no longer be heard.

After the vote was defeated 91-52, Sukkar sought to have Dreyfus withdraw his remarks.

Albanese rose to defend Dreyfus, saying: “The idea that the minister should withdraw a statement is, quite frankly, totally inconsistent with things that have been said by those opposite over a considerable period of time.

“The minister, due to who he is … he is someone who feels this very personally and deeply. He was being interjected against by those opposites in behaviour that I regard as completely disorderly and completely unacceptable.”

Speaker Milton Dick did not ask Dreyfus to withdraw his comment but asked him to avoid making remarks that offended opposition MPs.

Dreyfus concluded his answer by saying: “I’m the son and the grandson of a Holocaust survivor. I went to the commemoration of the liberation about the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, a place where a million Jews were murdered, a place where my great grandmother was murdered on the 13th of October 1942,” he said.

“I say to members of this house that we’ve had a wave of antisemitism in this country, and right now, what we need is unity.

“We need bipartisanship, and that’s the effort that our government made.”