Treasurer Josh Frydenberg faces a challenge to his eligibility to sit in Parliament over “offensive” claims about the citizenship of his mother who fled the Holocaust.
Self-described “climate-change warrior at large”, anti-Adani protestor and Kooyong constituent Michael Staindl filed a section 44 case against Mr Frydenberg on Wednesday.
While any referral to the High Court would normally require a majority vote in the House of Representatives, the recent federal election provides a brief window for constituents to lodge a case directly with the Court of Disputed Returns.
Mr Frydenberg has repeatedly rejected allegations he has a dual-citizenship problem.
The Treasurer has consistently stated that his mother, Erica Strausz, who arrived in Australia as a seven-year-old, had papers marked “stateless”. Her family was sent to the Budapest ghetto by the Hungarian fascists, and she and her family eventually came to Australia after time in a displaced persons camp.
The deputy Liberal leader provided new information about his mother’s citizenship status shortly before the May 18 election. However, it was tabled in Parliament only recently.
In that updated document, Mr Frydenberg revealed his mother did not lose her Hungarian citizenship until 1948 – nearly three years after the end of World War II – despite claims she was stripped of it by the Nazis when she was born in the ghetto.
Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull had preciously denied that Ms Strausz was ever a Hungarian citizen.
“Josh Frydenberg’s mother Erica Strausz was born in 1943, in the Budapest ghetto. That is where the fascists had pushed all the Jews in together, as a prelude to sending them to the gas chamber,” Mr Turnbull said.
“She wasn’t a Hungarian citizen when she was born, neither were her parents – you know why? The Hungarian fascist government, allied with Hitler, stripped Jews of all of their rights, the right to citizenship and the right to life. Her family fled Hungary at the end of the war. It was a miracle they weren’t killed as so many of their relatives were.”
Prime Minister Scott Morrison slammed the reports at the time as hysterical and “offensive”.
Victorian lawyer Trevor Poulton, author of the fictional The Holocaust Denier, had previously flagged plans to challenge the Treasurer’s Kooyong election in the High Court.
“Josh Frydenberg has been totally evasive about how his mother was rendered stateless,” Mr Poulton said.
“Finally we get a date and it’s 1948. That’s 2.5 years after World War II ended. This is not about a family fleeing the Holocaust.”
But following accusations of anti-Semitism, Mr Poulton does not appear to have followed through with his threats to file in the High Court.
Asked about the Section 44 claims again recently, Mr Frydenberg said the matter had been dealt with.
“These issues were dealt with comprehensively through the last Parliament, and the Coalition is confident that none of its members or Senators have issues in that regard,” he said.
“No one should deny what was an appalling and tragic event in world history. And it wasn’t just the Jewish people who were the victims of the Holocaust. It was many other minority groups.
“It’s a tragic period in world history. It should never be forgotten, nor forgiven.”
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