The Dreyfus Affair Act II
Queensland Liberal Senator Paul Scarr has always been a good friend of the Australian Jewish community and is pained by the upset caused by the analogy of the Dreyfus Affair he used in the Senate debating the ministerial conduct alleged demonstrated by Attorney General Mark Dreyfus.
In a statement to J-Wire, Senator Scarr said: ” During a heated debate regarding conflicts of interest claims against the Attorney General, I made reference to the Dreyfus Affair. I apologise for doing so.
Alfred Dreyfus
I am very familiar with the injustice perpetrated against Captain Dreyfus. As I said in the first paragraph of my remarks, he was free of any wrongdoing. However, my familiarity with the case is even more reason for me to apologise for the reference.”
In December 1894, a French Jewish officer Captain Alfred Dreyfus was convicted of treason accused of passing secrets to the Germans. He spent five years imprisoned on Devil’s Island in French Guiana. The real traitor was exonerated by the court prompting Emile Zola to publish his famous book “J’Accuse”.
Senator Scarr told J-Wire that had he been living in Paris at that time, he would have aligned himself with Zola.
Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus
Last year in a debate in the Senate, he said: “I believe, if we are to be successful in defeating extremism in this country, those of us who consider anti-Semitism, fascism and extremism of all types to be vile and unacceptable in our society need to come together. We should seek in our rhetoric in this place to bring each other together rather than to throw stones at each other.
I am going to talk about anti-Semitism in this context.”
He spoke about a “New South Wales Labor upper house MP and opposition whip at the time of this report. He refused entry to a leader of the New South Wales Jewish community at the launch of the Labor Union Multicultural Action Committee on 13 August 2013. The Labor Union Multicultural Action Committee itself did not invite any representatives of the Jewish community to the launch, but representatives from other ethnic communities and organisations were invited. More than 10 other ethnic community organisations expressed outrage at the discrimination and exclusion of the Jewish leadership and community.”
The Liberal Party claimed that Mark Dreyfus had a Superfund, which contains shares of a company that funds litigation.
J-Wire understands Mark Dreyfus has no shares in his name and that those who operate Super Fund have discretionary power to buy and sell shares.
