Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Manufacturing) Share this | Hansard source

In April I attended the stage performance entitled Journey of Faith. The play was produced to coincide with the 100th anniversary of what is referred to by many historians as the Armenian genocide. The production relives the death of an estimated 1.5 million Armenian people at the hands of the Ottoman Empire between 1915 and 1923, through the eyes of an Armenian woman and a Turkish soldier who come face to face in Adelaide as two elderly people some 50 years after the event.

Whilst the Turkish Government has acknowledged that atrocities were committed, it denies that they were genocide and says that they occurred during a time of war, when other atrocities were also taking place. In 2013, the Turkish Prime Minister conveyed his condolences to the grandchildren of the Armenian people who had lost their lives in the early 20th century. As Australian lawyer, Geoffrey Robertson, points out, the determination of genocide is a matter for judges. What there is little disagreement about is the magnitude of Armenian suffering and the loss of lives of men, women and children—so much so that, at the time, emergency relief committees were established in several countries, including Australia.

In 1923, Adelaide pastor Reverend James Crasswell travelled to Armenia and surrounding countries to see for himself the situation of the Armenian people. Today I acknowledge the 100th anniversary of the loss of 1.5 million Armenians between 1915 and 1923, and to their surviving families I offer my sympathies.

See this speech in context