Burnside partner apologises for own anti-Semitic tweet

The partner of Julian Burnside has deleted and apologised for a tweet that was interpreted as being anti-Semitic and an attack on Josh Frydenberg’s ancestry, days after the QC issued an apology for his tweet comparing Israel with Nazi Germany.

Kate Durham had responded to a tweet by the Treasurer by saying: “As I told you once, I suspect Burnside knows more about the Holocaust and its subsequent trials than you. As a teen, the Holocaust propelled him into a concern for human rights & refugees, which can’t be said of you, Your just a Hungarian, just a Liberal. #Fraudenberg.”

Ms Durham said she was and is “unreservedly sorry for my remarks” and in defending Mr Burnside, had made things worse.

She said Mr Frydenberg had been referred to as the “Hungarian candidate” by John Howard in his introduction to parliament and her “stupidity” was in adding to Premier Daniel Andrews’s remark that Mr Frydenberg was “just” a Liberal.

“I did not think anyone was anti-Hungarian, silly me,” she said. “But l didn’t and don’t think Burnside is an anti-Semite; the ­accusations hurt and they have been going on for over two years.”

Ms Durham said the Holocaust had taught Mr Burnside about human rights and it was painful in the extreme to be harassed as anti-Semitic, noting that her sister and stepmother were both Jewish. “I was wrong to imply that, that I suspected Burnside might possibly know more about the trials and the Holocaust than Josh,” she said.

Read the article by Tessa Akerman in The Australian.