On Peter Dutton, Sydney Opera House protest and Port Arthur
Survivors react and a little known fact about Martin Bryant's motivation
Hello!
I’m taking a short break from leave — in case you didn’t hear, I’m off work for a few months — to share a few notes on a news cycle that pulls at a few areas of interest.
This week, Australian Opposition leader Peter Dutton compared the October 9 Sydney Opera House pro-Palestine protest to Port Arthur.
"While no one was killed during the October 9 protests, the events at the Sydney Opera House were akin to a Port Arthur moment in terms of their social significance," Dutton said in a speech inside the Sydney Opera House.
I reported closely on that protest. As part of as-yet-unannounced project, I’m also researching the Port Arthur massacre where 35 people were killed and 23 injured in what was the third deadliest mass shooting ever at the time.
Here’s a few idle observations:
I spoke to two Port Arthur survivors to hear what they thought about comparison. Neither were impressed. One, Anita Bingham, who was just 17 and working as a waitress at a Port Arthur site cafe when she heard killer Martin Bryant’s assault rifle fire and saw people screaming and running, said she didn’t think the comparison made sense. “I think it’s not necessary to bring up PA or compare it doesn’t make sense to me really,” she said in a text. Another one who didn’t give permission to be named also said they didn’t agree with it.
It’s not widely known that Martin Bryant was an anti-Semite. In Carol Altmann's 2006 book After Port Arthur, she includes quotes from Bryant speaking about one of the people he killed before his shooting spree — arguably showing how his bigotry was a contributing factor to his motivation for violence.
It’s not a surprise either that at least two of Bryant’s loudest Port Arthur truther defenders who wrongly claim that he didn’t commit the attacks, Joe Vialls and Olga Scully, were also Holocaust deniers and anti-Semitees.
I’ll leave it up to others to discuss the merits of the comparison or whether there are other more appropriate events to compare to Port Arthur but I thought these two tidbits might be of interest.
Yours,
Cam
P.S. Will have more to say about that secret project soon, make sure you’re subscribed to hear first.