Fletcher Awarded Friend of the Year by Armenian National Committee of Australia

Paul Fletcher, Federal Member for Bradfield, has been awarded Friend of the Year 2011 by the Armenian National Committee of Australia.

The award was presented at a banquet held on Friday 25th November at the Willoughby Civic Centre.

“I am honoured and delighted to have been presented with this award”, Mr Fletcher said.

“The Armenian community is a vital and vibrant part of my electorate of Bradfield.”

“I have been very pleased to have spoken on a number of occasions in the Parliament on Armenian issues, particularly the importance of the recognition of the Armenian Genocide.”

Mr Fletcher spoke on the Armenian Genocide in Parliament last week:

“ Recognition of [the Armenian Genocide] by governments of the world as genocide is of vital importance to all Armenians wherever they may be. This is an important issue for my electorate, which has a large and thriving Armenian community. It is estimated that 40,000 of the 50,000 Armenians in Australia live in the three federal electorates of Bradfield, Bennelong and North Sydney. For Australian Armenians, including those in my electorate of Bradfield, there is a legitimate call for the Australian government to recognise what happened during and after the First World War as genocide. Some 20 countries around the world have declared these events as genocide. These countries include Canada, France and Germany. It is time that the Australian government also recognised what happened in the early decades of the last century as genocide. The horror that occurred to these millions of Armenians, our fellow human beings, reverberates through time, impacting on the whole Armenian community, including the millions of descendants of those who were directly affected.

“The call that this event be labelled genocide is not to apportion blame to any current government or country but to recognise what happened for what it was and in turn to provide a basis for healing and acceptance by both the Armenian community and the world as a whole, and to provide a basis for continued awareness with a view to ensuring that atrocities of this nature never occur in the future.”