Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Hansard source

This year, on 22 April, I attended with the member for Bennelong a function held by the Sydney Armenian community to mark the 96th anniversary of the Armenian genocide. Today, as a member of this House, I join others in this place, and in parliaments around the world, to place on record that I believe the Armenian genocide was one of the greatest crimes against humanity. On 24 April 1915, as the Anzacs were preparing to go ashore at Gallipoli, nearby in Constantinople an attempt to eradicate the Armenian people began. At the end of the violence, which spread around the Ottoman empire, 1.5 million Armenian men, women and children had fallen victim to the genocide—a heinous act concealed under the cover of the war to end all wars. Four hundred Anzac prisoners of war bore witness to the atrocities. Australian Flying Corps captain Thomas White, who was captured in central Mesopotamia, wrote in his memoir, 'Armenians had sold their lives dearly.'

Many countries have condemned the 1915 genocide at the hands of the Ottoman government. We do not seek to lay blame, this is not an indictment of the modern, secular, Turkish state that we know as a friend, but it is important that we recognise the Armenian genocide for what it was. This is one act we should never forget. Dare we allow it ever to be repeated.

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