The House of Representatives of the Federal Parliament of Australia debated for the first time and unanimously approved a proposal for the recognition of the Genocides committed by the Ottoman Empire between 1915 and 1923 against the Armenians, Assyrians, Greeks, and other Christian minorities.
Following this development, the federal government is called upon to recognize the three Genocides, with the next stage of the discussion expected at the beginning of next year.
This is a major success of the Joint Justice Initiative, created in 2020 by the communities of Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks in Australia.
The proposal was tabled in the Australian Parliament by MP Trent Zimmerman and was supported by five of his colleagues, the coalition, and the opposition, including Steve Georganas.
Following the debate in Parliament, the Director of the Armenian National Committee of Australia (ANC-AU), Haig Kayserian, stated on behalf of the Joint Justice Initiative: “The House of Representatives has spoken. The Australian government has just received a cross-party and unanimous call to recognize the Armenian, Assyrian and Greek genocides from its largest and most representative legislature.”
Earlier, MP Zimmerman stressed in his speech that Turkey, as the successor to the Ottoman Empire, strongly opposes the recognition of the Genocide, let alone efforts to heal the wounds caused by those events”. It’s time for that to change, he said, adding that Australia needs to play a role in this effort, as part of the growing number of states recognizing the genocides.
The positions of the other five Members who took the floor during the discussion of the proposal were on the same wavelength.
Source: greek.vema.com.au