The chairperson of the Holocaust Centre says a Green MP should apologise after invoking the Holocaust while debating climate change in Parliament, saying the comments were insensitive.
Last Tuesday, MP Steve Abel referenced Hannah Arendt’s "banality of evil", a concept derived from observing the trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, while debating the Government's legislation to end climate change lawsuits against emitters.
Holocaust Centre chairperson Deborah Hart said Abel should apologise for the remarks.
Hart said it had trivialised state-sponsored genocide, and that she told him in a call to take greater care in using the Holocaust when discussing political causes.
"He shouldn’t have done that," she said, adding, "I think he should apologise."
In his original comments, Abel said: "It strikes me that those corporate bosses today — and, frankly, complicit politicians — are a truer form of the banality of evil, because though they will never personally come so close, as Eichmann did, to transporting human souls to the gas chambers, collectively their actions are far more consequential.
"They are gassing our whole planet towards an inconceivable human and animal death."
He added upon facing pushback in the House: "The concept of the banality of evil implies that there is a sort of blandness to an action that has a terrible consequence.
"Right now, our whole planet is being, effectively, gassed. The consequence of that is not six million deaths but tens of millions and hundreds of millions of deaths."
Green co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick defended Abel, saying he had been pointing to the banality of evil concept popularised by Arendt, in which people who are part of state machinery distance themselves from the consequences of their actions.
"I think that there can be no clearer example of that than when it comes to the existential threat of climate change," she said.
"I'd also make the point that plenty of legislators in this place, myself included, have pointed to the concept of the banality of evil on issues such as abuse in state care."
Pressed repeatedly on whether Abel's comments were appropriate, Swarbrick did not directly say, instead saying he would clarify them himself.
On Tuesday afternoon, the Green MP called Hart, who said she appreciated the call and his statement that he would take more care.
Abel said he took concerns on board and agreed the Holocaust shouldn’t be trivialised.
"I accepted her point on the importance of taking care with references to the Holocaust."
When asked if he would apologise, Abel didn’t provide a direct answer. "I also really appreciated the talk with Deborah and felt like we had a lot of shared ground."
Abel said we must learn the lessons of the Holocaust.
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