The Federal Parliament’s House of Representatives unanimously debated in favour of a motion calling on the Australian Government to recognise the Armenian, Assyrian and Greek Genocides on Monday.
According to the Armenian National Committee of Australia (ANC-AU), Trent Zimmerman MP introduced the motion to Parliament, which also had fellow Government members John Alexander MP and Julian Leeser MP as speakers.
Opposition members, Josh Burns MP, Steve Georganas MP and Joel Fitzgibbon MP, seconded the motion.
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“[The genocide] is absolutely something that should be recognised by our government and by this Parliament,” Greek Australian and Member for Adelaide, Mr Georganas, said in his address.
“President Biden has recognised it, many countries around the world have recognised the genocide, and it’s about time that we did too because if we don’t recognise humanity’s mistakes, they are there to be committed again.”
In a statement after the motion to Parliament, the Executive Director of ANC-AU, Haig Kayserian, said “the House of Representatives has spoken.”
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“The Australian Parliament’s largest and most representative legislative chamber has unanimously called on Australia’s Government to recognise the Armenian, Assyrian and Greek Genocides,” Mr Kayserian said.
“This unanimous outcome rejects Turkish interference in Australian foreign policy and calls on our country’s Prime Minister and his Government to stand with the representatives elected by their constituents and call a genocide a genocide.”
