Gassing sheep
The B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation Commission has accepted Senator Culleton’s clarification that in his comments— “This will show that the ANZ bank came in and misled the farmers. In actual fact, said, ‘Come take a shower’, and gassed them.”— he did not mean to refer to the Holocaust but to a mass gassing of sheep that took place in Australia in the 1990s.
Senator Rod Culleton
Dr Dvir Abramovich, Chairman of the ADC said: “While we accept Senator Culleton’s very much-needed clarification that he did not mean, in his remarks about ANZ, to refer to the Holocaust, we are still deeply troubled that an elected official would use such insensitive and inappropriate language to criticize a bank’s actions.
We hope that Senator Culleton recognises and understands our earlier concerns and the hurt that his remarks caused, and call on him to use this opportunity to unequivocally denounce and speak out against the trivialization of the holocaust and all forms of bigotry. This incident serves as a timely reminder of the power of words, and how public figures, whether they realise it or not, bear a special duty and responsibility to weigh their words carefully.”
