Kylea Tink (North Sydney, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Anzac Day rightfully honours those who have fought and given their lives for our nation since World War I, and this anniversary has always been important to me, but, as a member of the North Sydney community, I've also learned to honour the day before Anzac Day, 24 April, as a day that marks a horrendous unanswered crime against humanity. Many of the Anzacs who returned to Australia in 1915 brought with them harrowing tales of the attempted annihilation of the Armenian population by the Ottoman Empire. Those diggers spoke of Armenian men being rounded up and killed, and of Armenian women and children being displaced from their homes and deported, enslaved or forcibly integrated into Turkish households. And yet, 109 years since the world witnessed the mass murder of more than 1½ million Armenians, and over a million Assyrians and Greeks, at the hands of the Ottoman Empire, our government—regardless of which major political party was running it—is yet to recognise these events as an act of genocide.

As painful as it is, the world must acknowledge the horrors that were committed under the guise of World War I as genocide so that we can unite against such atrocities ever happening again. I'm standing with the Armenian community in North Sydney and once again call on the Australian government to recognise the Armenian genocide so we can move forward towards reconciliation and healing.