CANBERRA: Jason Falinski, the Federal Member for Mackellar, has reaffirmed his longstanding support for Australian recognition of the Armenian, Assyrian and Greek Genocides by signing on to the Joint Justice Initiative of the Armenian-Australian, Assyrian-Australian and Greek-Australian communities.
The
February 2020 launch of the Joint Justice Initiative at Australia's Parliament House featured the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding by the Armenian National Committee of Australia (ANC-AU), Assyrian Universal Alliance (AUA) and Australian Hellenic Council (AHC), which declares Australia's recognition of the Armenian, Assyrian and Greek Genocides as a priority on behalf of their communities.
Falinski, who lost members of his family in the Holocaust, has a thriving Armenian-Australian community in his Sydney electorate that covers part of the Northern Beaches. Mackellar includes the community's largest everyday school, Galstaun College.
The Chair of Australia's House of Representatives' Standing Committee on Tax and Revenue, Falinski has been a long-time supporter of Armenian Genocide recognition and spoken on the matter in the parliamentary chambers on several occasions, including during a debate marking the 70th Anniversary of the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide in December 2018.
"Mr. Jason Falinski is a friend of human rights, and has therefore been a friend of national Australian recognition of the Armenian, Assyrian and Greek Genocides since entering Parliament in 2016," said Armenian National Committee of Australia (ANC-AU) Executive Director, Haig Kayserian.
"We thank Mr. Falinski for signing an Affirmation of Support for the Joint Justice Initiative, and ensuring growing support for Australia to change her position from one that appeases Turkish denial to one that sides with truth and justice," added Kayserian.
As one of the first Members of Parliament to join the Australian Friends of Artsakh network of prominent Australians, Falinski has also raised his support for the rights to self-determination of the Armenians of Nagorno Karabakh in the House of Representatives.
The Joint Justice Initiative has so far announced the support of Falinski,
Josh Burns MP,
John Alexander MP,
Senator Andrew Bragg and
Bob Katter MP, with a promise of more announcements to come.
On 25th February 2020, over 100 Federal Australian parliamentarians, diplomats, departmental officials, political staffers, academics, media and community leaders were treated to cultural performances, food, wine and brandy, as well as the historic signing of a Memorandum of Understanding, which affirmed that the signatory public affairs representatives of the three communities were jointly committed to seeing Australia recognise the Turkish-committed Genocide against the Armenian, Greek and Assyrian citizens of the Ottoman Empire during World War I.
More information here.
