See full LEGAL OPINION delivered to the Prime Minister, MPs and the Media on 11 July 2019 - click link -http://www.teamlaw.net.au/uploads/1/7/4/9/17498055/frydenberg_case_-_dual_citizen___11_07_2019___legal_opinion_by_trevor_poulton__solicitor_.pdf
PRESS RELEASE (short version below)
Parliament chooses ‘Political Correctness’ over the Constitution – Frydenberg case
By Trevor Poulton
Australian Legal Practitioner
5 April 2019
Persistent public skepticism over Treasurer Joshua Frydenberg’s citizenship status is looming as a constitutional crisis for the federal government at a time when it is preparing for an election.
During the recent dual citizenship eligibility saga fifteen parliamentarians were ruled ineligible to sit as members of the federal parliament by the High Court pursuant to Section 44(i) of the Australian Constitution or resigned preemptively. The unresolved question is whether Joshua Frydenberg MP is a Hungarian citizen by descent. The dispensation given to Frydenberg by fellow parliamentarians from being referred to the High Court illustrates how the parliament has become infected with ‘political correctness’ at the expense of the Constitution.
Embarrassingly, the imbroglio may soon be addressed by self-helping members of the public in lieu of an incapacitated politically correct federal parliament. Under Section 355(c) of the Commonwealth Electoral Act a candidate for an electorate, or any person who is qualified to vote in the electorate at a federal election, may challenge a result by a petition to the High Court that must be filed within forty days after polling day.
If Frydenberg is re-elected as the Member for Kooyong, it is foreseeable that a petition will be filed disputing the election on the basis that Joshua Anthony Frydenberg is not qualified under the Constitution to stand as a candidate, and if the court were to uphold the petition a new election for the electorate would be held.
Alternative narrative
The defence of Frydenberg’s eligibility status given by former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, Opposition Deputy Leader Tanya Plibersek and other MPs that Frydenberg’s Mother arrived in Australia after fleeing the Holocaust does not stack up.
The Frydenberg family narrative is typical of European families migrating to Australia during the late 1940s. The family departed from Europe boarding the S.S. Surriento at the Port of Genoa, Italy, and arrived in Sydney on 30 December 1950, five and a half years after the end of World War Two. Frydenberg’s maternal grandfather and grandmother, whose surname is Strausz, were Hungarian Jewish citizens. The couple produced three children including Josh Frydenberg’s Mother Erika born in Budapest on 3 October 1943. The youngest child, Agnes, was also born in Budapest on 13 May 1948.
Migration records stored by the National Archives of Australia [i] disclose on a medical declaration filled in by a physician in Paris on 28 February 1950 that the residential address of the Strausz family was 11 Rue des Deux Gares, Paris, France (presently the Hotel d’Amiens). Significantly, it can be inferred that it was sometime between the birth of Agnes in May 1948 and the medical examination in February 1950 that the family relocated from Budapest to Paris, which had become a departure hub for Jews preparing to travel to the newly formed state of Israel, and to other destinations such as Australia.
Frydenberg has argued that as his Mother’s application for the certificate of exemption to enter Australia identified her nationality as ‘stateless’, she could not have been a Hungarian citizen. However, a ‘stateless’ person is a person who is not considered as a national or citizen by any state under the operation of its law.
In terms of the political climate in Hungary in 1948, Jewish people by various historical accounts were over represented within the post-War government, and the nation’s top government leadership was predominantly Jewish including Mátyás Rákosi, leader of Hungary's Communist Party from 1945 to 1956. Still, a ‘cold war’ was budding in 1948 between the West and eastern Soviet bloc nations that witnessed a wave of political and economic post-war migrants leaving Hungary. Australian historian Jayne Persian in her 2012 essay ‘Displaced persons and the politics of international categorisation(s)’ quoted the phenomenon as “the Voting Feet”.
Without any factual evidence to the contrary, it would seem that the family Strausz had elected to leave Hungary sometime after the birth of their youngest child in 1948 for a new life in a new world.
Revisionist political correct MPs
Regardless, on 3 November 2017 a revisionist Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, upon returning from a visit to Israel, was quoted in The Sydney Morning Herald stating, “I wish that those who make these allegations could think a little deeper about the history of the Holocaust.” [ii] He was further quoted as stating that “the family fled the Holocaust at the end of the war.”
Prime Minister Turnbull’s public evocation of the Holocaust which occurred during World War Two – a war during which 70-85 million human beings of many races, religions and creeds perished – hinted at anti-Semitic hate-speech by those questioning Frydenberg’s status. Prime Minister Turnbull seemingly chose to distract the public and the parliament by inducing guilt, coincidentally at a time when his government was at risk of becoming a minority government.
Similarly, the Opposition Deputy Leader, Tanya Plibersek stated to The Jewish News, “These people (Strausz family), like many millions, fled the Holocaust and I really do think that we’re going a bridge too far when we start to pursue people in these circumstances.” [iii]
The Holocaust ended in May 1945 with the occupation of Germany by Allied forces. It is therefore illogical to maintain that the family Strausz fled the Holocaust when they migrated from Hungary during or after 1948.
In an act of collective atonement by the Labor Party, Mark Butler MP fronted the media declaring that it was not the party’s official position to pursue Josh Frydenberg. However, the Shadow Attorney General, Mark Dreyfus MP was determined to draw Frydenberg directly back into the drama despite various Labor MPs purportedly requesting he desist. [iv]
Mark Dreyfus is an Ashkenazi Jew, same as Frydenberg [v], and as such would have felt ‘qualified’ to speak out without the risk of being accused of anti-Semitism. On 10 December 2017 he appeared on ABC Insiders to be interviewed by Barrie Cassidy. [vi]
Cassidy: “Why did you put him on that list in that context? Why not a bit of generosity and just leave him alone?”
Dreyfus: “His disclosure statement says nothing. It says that his Mother, who escaped the Holocaust, was born in 1943 in Hungary and that's all it says. It says that he's got legal advice but he doesn't say what it says.”
During a roundup after the interview, Barrie Cassidy summed up his own view on Frydenberg with his political correct take: “The law is the law, and then there’s common sense and just a bit of respect.” The Insiders' response of elevating Frydenberg above scrutiny, above the Commonwealth Electoral Act (1918), above the Australian Constitution, revealed a complete lack of political and ethical objectivity.
Political correct tactics undermine free speech
Frydenberg’s true citizenship status can only be resolved by the High Court forensically reviewing Hungarian Citizenship Acts of 1947, 1948 and 1957 to determine whether his Mother had been deprived of her Hungarian citizenship, or else forfeited her citizenship upon becoming an Australian citizen, and by requiring verification from records held by the Hungarian Ministry of Interior Affairs as to whether her Hungarian citizenship had ceased under a Ministerial Decree of expatriation.
The Frydenberg case is a stark illustration of how political correctness, and one of its legislative incarnations, Section 18(c) of the Racial Discrimination Act, operate as a sword in our society, in this case to strike at the very heart of our Constitution’s pivotal prohibition on dual citizens governing our nation.
The Australian public is alert to the fact that with increasing loss of privacy there is less room for free speech. Emerging ‘Neo-Aussie’ extremist right-wing political movements are readily capitalising on government demonization of free speech.
Guilt Trip + Public Atonement = Political Correctness [viii]. The Frydenberg case illustrates the danger for society and our constitutional democracy with politicians engaging in tactics of political correctness.
---------------------------------
1,350 words
The full version of this article appears on the author’s website Frydenberg Case Sec. 44(i)
http://www.teamlaw.net.au/article---frydenberg-case---s44i.html
Contact: Trevor Poulton, Solicitor (Victoria)
[email protected]
Mobile 0402 987 181
[i] National Archives Australia – Strausz https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/NAAMedia/ShowImage.aspx?B=7296917&T=PDF
[ii] 3/11/2017 Turnbull Hits Out At Claim Josh Frydenberg Is Hungarian Dual Citizen https://www.theguardian.com/profile/amy-remeikis
[iii] The Jewish News, 9/11/2017 Frydenberg citizenship saga ‘absurd’
[iv] 10/12/2017 Mark Dreyfus Draws Josh Frydenberg Back Into Citizenship Saga, Divides Labor Party -ABC News - by political reporter Caitlyn Gribbin
www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-10/josh-frydenbergs-citizenship-dividing-labor/9244440
[v] ‘Ashkenazi’ - Hebrew/Yiddish noun for Jews with European ethnicity (representing 80% of Jews globally) https://www.britannica.com/search?query=Ashkenazi
[vi] 10/12/2017 - ABC Insiders program - Watch -https://www.abc.net.au/insiders/sunday-december-10-full-program/9244276
[viii] Guilt Trip + Public Atonement = Political Correctness (formulated by Trevor Poulton 2018)
During the recent dual citizenship eligibility saga fifteen parliamentarians were ruled ineligible to sit as members of the federal parliament by the High Court pursuant to Section 44(i) of the Australian Constitution or resigned preemptively. The unresolved question is whether Joshua Frydenberg MP is a Hungarian citizen by descent. The dispensation given to Frydenberg by fellow parliamentarians from being referred to the High Court illustrates how the parliament has become infected with ‘political correctness’ at the expense of the Constitution.
Embarrassingly, the imbroglio may soon be addressed by self-helping members of the public in lieu of an incapacitated politically correct federal parliament. Under Section 355(c) of the Commonwealth Electoral Act a candidate for an electorate, or any person who is qualified to vote in the electorate at a federal election, may challenge a result by a petition to the High Court that must be filed within forty days after polling day.
If Frydenberg is re-elected as the Member for Kooyong, it is foreseeable that a petition will be filed disputing the election on the basis that Joshua Anthony Frydenberg is not qualified under the Constitution to stand as a candidate, and if the court were to uphold the petition a new election for the electorate would be held.
Alternative narrative
The defence of Frydenberg’s eligibility status given by former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, Opposition Deputy Leader Tanya Plibersek and other MPs that Frydenberg’s Mother arrived in Australia after fleeing the Holocaust does not stack up.
The Frydenberg family narrative is typical of European families migrating to Australia during the late 1940s. The family departed from Europe boarding the S.S. Surriento at the Port of Genoa, Italy, and arrived in Sydney on 30 December 1950, five and a half years after the end of World War Two. Frydenberg’s maternal grandfather and grandmother, whose surname is Strausz, were Hungarian Jewish citizens. The couple produced three children including Josh Frydenberg’s Mother Erika born in Budapest on 3 October 1943. The youngest child, Agnes, was also born in Budapest on 13 May 1948.
Migration records stored by the National Archives of Australia [i] disclose on a medical declaration filled in by a physician in Paris on 28 February 1950 that the residential address of the Strausz family was 11 Rue des Deux Gares, Paris, France (presently the Hotel d’Amiens). Significantly, it can be inferred that it was sometime between the birth of Agnes in May 1948 and the medical examination in February 1950 that the family relocated from Budapest to Paris, which had become a departure hub for Jews preparing to travel to the newly formed state of Israel, and to other destinations such as Australia.
Frydenberg has argued that as his Mother’s application for the certificate of exemption to enter Australia identified her nationality as ‘stateless’, she could not have been a Hungarian citizen. However, a ‘stateless’ person is a person who is not considered as a national or citizen by any state under the operation of its law.
In terms of the political climate in Hungary in 1948, Jewish people by various historical accounts were over represented within the post-War government, and the nation’s top government leadership was predominantly Jewish including Mátyás Rákosi, leader of Hungary's Communist Party from 1945 to 1956. Still, a ‘cold war’ was budding in 1948 between the West and eastern Soviet bloc nations that witnessed a wave of political and economic post-war migrants leaving Hungary. Australian historian Jayne Persian in her 2012 essay ‘Displaced persons and the politics of international categorisation(s)’ quoted the phenomenon as “the Voting Feet”.
Without any factual evidence to the contrary, it would seem that the family Strausz had elected to leave Hungary sometime after the birth of their youngest child in 1948 for a new life in a new world.
Revisionist political correct MPs
Regardless, on 3 November 2017 a revisionist Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, upon returning from a visit to Israel, was quoted in The Sydney Morning Herald stating, “I wish that those who make these allegations could think a little deeper about the history of the Holocaust.” [ii] He was further quoted as stating that “the family fled the Holocaust at the end of the war.”
Prime Minister Turnbull’s public evocation of the Holocaust which occurred during World War Two – a war during which 70-85 million human beings of many races, religions and creeds perished – hinted at anti-Semitic hate-speech by those questioning Frydenberg’s status. Prime Minister Turnbull seemingly chose to distract the public and the parliament by inducing guilt, coincidentally at a time when his government was at risk of becoming a minority government.
Similarly, the Opposition Deputy Leader, Tanya Plibersek stated to The Jewish News, “These people (Strausz family), like many millions, fled the Holocaust and I really do think that we’re going a bridge too far when we start to pursue people in these circumstances.” [iii]
The Holocaust ended in May 1945 with the occupation of Germany by Allied forces. It is therefore illogical to maintain that the family Strausz fled the Holocaust when they migrated from Hungary during or after 1948.
In an act of collective atonement by the Labor Party, Mark Butler MP fronted the media declaring that it was not the party’s official position to pursue Josh Frydenberg. However, the Shadow Attorney General, Mark Dreyfus MP was determined to draw Frydenberg directly back into the drama despite various Labor MPs purportedly requesting he desist. [iv]
Mark Dreyfus is an Ashkenazi Jew, same as Frydenberg [v], and as such would have felt ‘qualified’ to speak out without the risk of being accused of anti-Semitism. On 10 December 2017 he appeared on ABC Insiders to be interviewed by Barrie Cassidy. [vi]
Cassidy: “Why did you put him on that list in that context? Why not a bit of generosity and just leave him alone?”
Dreyfus: “His disclosure statement says nothing. It says that his Mother, who escaped the Holocaust, was born in 1943 in Hungary and that's all it says. It says that he's got legal advice but he doesn't say what it says.”
During a roundup after the interview, Barrie Cassidy summed up his own view on Frydenberg with his political correct take: “The law is the law, and then there’s common sense and just a bit of respect.” The Insiders' response of elevating Frydenberg above scrutiny, above the Commonwealth Electoral Act (1918), above the Australian Constitution, revealed a complete lack of political and ethical objectivity.
Political correct tactics undermine free speech
Frydenberg’s true citizenship status can only be resolved by the High Court forensically reviewing Hungarian Citizenship Acts of 1947, 1948 and 1957 to determine whether his Mother had been deprived of her Hungarian citizenship, or else forfeited her citizenship upon becoming an Australian citizen, and by requiring verification from records held by the Hungarian Ministry of Interior Affairs as to whether her Hungarian citizenship had ceased under a Ministerial Decree of expatriation.
The Frydenberg case is a stark illustration of how political correctness, and one of its legislative incarnations, Section 18(c) of the Racial Discrimination Act, operate as a sword in our society, in this case to strike at the very heart of our Constitution’s pivotal prohibition on dual citizens governing our nation.
The Australian public is alert to the fact that with increasing loss of privacy there is less room for free speech. Emerging ‘Neo-Aussie’ extremist right-wing political movements are readily capitalising on government demonization of free speech.
Guilt Trip + Public Atonement = Political Correctness [viii]. The Frydenberg case illustrates the danger for society and our constitutional democracy with politicians engaging in tactics of political correctness.
---------------------------------
1,350 words
The full version of this article appears on the author’s website Frydenberg Case Sec. 44(i)
http://www.teamlaw.net.au/article---frydenberg-case---s44i.html
Contact: Trevor Poulton, Solicitor (Victoria)
[email protected]
Mobile 0402 987 181
[i] National Archives Australia – Strausz https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/NAAMedia/ShowImage.aspx?B=7296917&T=PDF
[ii] 3/11/2017 Turnbull Hits Out At Claim Josh Frydenberg Is Hungarian Dual Citizen https://www.theguardian.com/profile/amy-remeikis
[iii] The Jewish News, 9/11/2017 Frydenberg citizenship saga ‘absurd’
[iv] 10/12/2017 Mark Dreyfus Draws Josh Frydenberg Back Into Citizenship Saga, Divides Labor Party -ABC News - by political reporter Caitlyn Gribbin
www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-10/josh-frydenbergs-citizenship-dividing-labor/9244440
[v] ‘Ashkenazi’ - Hebrew/Yiddish noun for Jews with European ethnicity (representing 80% of Jews globally) https://www.britannica.com/search?query=Ashkenazi
[vi] 10/12/2017 - ABC Insiders program - Watch -https://www.abc.net.au/insiders/sunday-december-10-full-program/9244276
[viii] Guilt Trip + Public Atonement = Political Correctness (formulated by Trevor Poulton 2018)
Cambridge University Press - Late 1940 political climate in Hungary - http://www.teamlaw.net.au/post-war-politics-hungary.html
Rákosi Mátyás https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%A1ty%C3%A1s_R%C3%A1kosi
Trevor Poulton Neologisms
'Correctspeak' - means language that is manipulated to give rise to feelings of guilt followed by the need for public atonement, in order to control social values, personal and public communication, and political activity. Correctspeak is the language of political correctness. (2008) Guilt Trip + Public Atonement = Political Correctness. (2018)
Correctspeak is distinguished from Orwell’s Newspeak which is controlled language, with restricted grammar and limited vocabulary, designed to limit freedom of thought.
Also:
‘Incorrectspeak’
‘Correctspeaker’
‘Incorrectspeaker’
[ii] Guilt Trip + Public Atonement = Political Correctness (formulated by Trevor Poulton 2018)
Aphorism of Trevor Poulton (2014) - 'Without the right to question, what remains is indoctrination.'
Rákosi Mátyás https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%A1ty%C3%A1s_R%C3%A1kosi
Trevor Poulton Neologisms
'Correctspeak' - means language that is manipulated to give rise to feelings of guilt followed by the need for public atonement, in order to control social values, personal and public communication, and political activity. Correctspeak is the language of political correctness. (2008) Guilt Trip + Public Atonement = Political Correctness. (2018)
Correctspeak is distinguished from Orwell’s Newspeak which is controlled language, with restricted grammar and limited vocabulary, designed to limit freedom of thought.
Also:
‘Incorrectspeak’
‘Correctspeaker’
‘Incorrectspeaker’
[ii] Guilt Trip + Public Atonement = Political Correctness (formulated by Trevor Poulton 2018)
Aphorism of Trevor Poulton (2014) - 'Without the right to question, what remains is indoctrination.'
