Joe Hockey
Joe Hockey 
| |
|---|---|
| Resides in | Australia |
| Positions | Treasurer of Australia |
| Ethnicities | Armenian |
| Dialects | Western Armenian |
Australian-Armenian politician. Joe Hockey’s own grandfather was a survivor of the 1915-17 atrocities, which killed more than one million Armenians in what become modern-day Turkey (source: the Australian).
- Treasurer of Australia
- Deputy leader of the Federal opposition party (November, 2010)
Hockey abandons plans to speak at Armenian “genocide” centenary ceremony
The Australian April 24, 2015 12:40PM
by Jared Owens
Joe Hockey has abandoned plans to speak at a ceremony marking 100 years since the “genocide” of the Armenians under the Ottoman Empire.
As Tony Abbott prepares to attend Anzac Day services at Gallipoli tomorrow, the Treasurer was tonight scheduled to speak alongside barrister Geoffrey Robertson at the Armenian Genocide Centenary National Commemoration Evening at Sydney’s Town Hall.
Mr Hockey’s own grandfather was a survivor of the 1915-17 atrocities, which killed more than one million Armenians in what become modern-day Turkey.
Mr Hockey this morning explained: “My views in relation to the events that occurred 100 years ago in Turkey are well known. I’ll certainly be at the event, but I’ll leave it to Geoffrey Robertson to do the speaking.”
Asked if he had been gagged, Mr Hockey said: “No.”
Turkish officials have threatened to blacklist from the Anzac commemorations politicians who disrespected their government’s official history by describing the tragic events as genocide.
In October 2008, Mr Hockey accused the Ottoman Turks of the “intentional attempted obliteration of an entire people”.
“In the dead of night on 24 April 1915, 250 Armenian political, religious, educational and intellectual leaders in Istanbul were arrested, deported to the interior of the country and murdered. On that same day, 5000 of the poorest Armenians in the city were rounded up and slaughtered on the streets and in their homes. This is now recognised as the beginning of an official attempt by the Turkish government to exterminate its Armenian population,” Mr Hockey, then in opposition, told parliament.
“Over the next three years, the Turkish government ordered the deportation of the remaining Armenian people in the Ottoman Empire to concentration camps in the desert between Jerablus and Deir ez-Zor.
“They were marched through the country on foot in a hard and cruel journey. Women and children were forced to walk over mountains and through deserts. These people were frequently stripped naked and abused. They were given insufficient food and water, and hundreds of thousands of Armenian people died along the way.
“Around 1½ million Armenians were murdered during the Armenian genocide out of an estimated total Armenian population of just 2½ million people.
“My own grandfather was himself a survivor of the genocide. He never knew the fate of his siblings and his friends as they were presumably led to their deaths.
“Australian people deplore this sort of racism and barbarity. This country has prospered though the immigration of people from countless nations, including Armenia. I urge this parliament to recognise the Armenian genocide for what it was — not alleged, not supposed and not so-called.
“It was the intentional attempted obliteration of an entire people. To refuse to acknowledge this genocide is to ensure that future Hitlers can capitalise on the world’s reticence in taking a stand.”
A spokesman for the Armenian National Committee of Australia said Mr Hockey indicated this morning that he would not speak, although the Treasurer was still planning to attend.
NSW Treasurer Gladys Berejiklian has marked the centenary at a service in the Armenian capital, Yerevan.
“For me it was a very important decision I took to be there, because of my family history, but also on principle to ensure that tragedies, that genocides, don’t happen again,” Ms Berejiklian told the ABC.
“I think that relationship we have with modern Turkey is so important and integral, but that should not stop us recognising what horrible acts occurred 100 years ago under Ottoman rule.”
Mr Robertson has authored a book on the atrocities, An Inconvenient Genocide, which publisher Random House says “proves beyond reasonable doubt that the horrific events of 1915 — witnessed by Australian POWs — constituted the crime against humanity that is known today as genocide”.
The Australian parliament has not recognised the events as genocide, the term has been used by the parliaments of countries including Canada, France, Italy, Switzerland, Germany and the Netherlands.
The parliaments of NSW, South Australia and 43 US states have also recognised the genocide.
| This article contains text from a source with a copyright. Please help us by extracting the factual information and eliminating the rest in order to keep the site in accordance to fair use standards, or by obtaining permission for reuse on this site.. |
HOUSE ON THE HILL
by Annabel Crabb
The Age (Melbourne) March 5, 2003 Wednesday
With friends like these . . .
Tourism Minister Joe Hockey certainly got the rubber end of the plunger when he showed up last Friday night at the Australian Arabic Council's annual media awards dinner in Melbourne.
Arriving clutching his invitation to be the function's keynote speaker, the avuncular Hockey was not impressed to discover he had been shunted as main speaker in favour of politically outspoken actor Judy Davis.
Hockey became less impressed as speaker after speaker had a go at the Government over Iraq, and even less so when indigenous film-maker Richard Frankland announced that he knew how the Iraqis felt because the Government was already engaged in a war on Aborigines.
Mr Hockey abandoned his prepared notes and bravely plunged into the topic of the day, passionately explaining his belief in the American alliance.
This produced a general chorus of boos and jeers, but Mr Hockey remained on his feet, insisting that he had a right to an opinion.
"There's a place in hell for those who sit on the fence," he insisted.
The Tourism Minister also reminded the restless crowd that he is Palestinian by descent - Mr Hockey's father moved to Australia from Palestine and his grandfather was Armenian.
P.S. His Grandfather's original family name was Hokedoonian.
| This article contains text from a source with a copyright. Please help us by extracting the factual information and eliminating the rest in order to keep the site in accordance to fair use standards, or by obtaining permission for reuse on this site.. |