Australia: Free speech for Leftists is always guaranteed

Depict a prominent conservative politican as a Nazi? No problem: That's free speech

"The State Library of Victoria has outraged politicians and Jewish groups by spending taxpayers' money on an artwork depicting Jeff Kennett surrounded by Nazi imagery. Do I Pass Muster? by Australian artist Juan Davila shows the former Victorian premier as a cow surrounded by swastika-shaped trees.

Jewish groups were outraged, saying it trivialises the Holocaust. Dr Tzvi Fleischer, editor of the Australia/Israel Review, which is published by the Australia/Israel Jewish Affairs Council, said his organisation deplored the work for trivialising Nazism.

But the State Library hit back, with spokesman Matthew Van Hasselt bizarrely saying there was no evidence the artist meant the trees to be swastikas - even though the exhibition's program notes said the trees are "shaped into swastikas".

Dr Fleischer said the use of swastikas in the picture devalued the suffering that Hitler inflicted on the world. "We always deplore misuse of Nazi analogies in Australian political life," he said. "There's a difference between killing tens of millions of people and interfering in art policies - which I understand this work is referring to. "The inability to make this distinction not only trivialises what the Nazis did, but is dangerous to Australian political discourse because if everyone is a Nazi, then no one is."

State Arts Minister Lynne Kosky said: "I don't like the print, but the State Library has an independent board which selects artistic work. "When politicians start to influence independent processes it starts limiting freedom of speech and artistic expression." [This is the same State where an official government body successfully prosecuted a Christian pastor for disrespecting the Koran. No free speech for Christians!]

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