COVID-19 forced the Australian National Commemoration of the Armenian Genocide to go virtual this year, but that did not stop a record number of Federal and State Parliamentarians joining growing calls for a change in the national position on the Armenian Genocide, which the Armenian National Committee of Australia (ANC-AU) labelled “untenable,” ANC-AU reported.

The position of Australia to appease its ally, the denialist dictatorship of Turkey, remained unchanged for 2020. However, messages correctly characterising the events of 1915 as genocide by Federal parliamentarians Trent Zimmerman, Joel Fitzgibbon, Tim Wilson, Kristina Keneally, Adam Bandt and Rex Patrick, as well as New South Wales State Premier Gladys Berejiklian, Shadow Treasurer Walt Secord and the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly Jonathan O'Dea means Canberra's position is becoming more impossible to sustain.

"The 'truth' that Australia is going with is that the Armenian experience at the hands of the Ottoman Empire was not a genocide. This is an active ignorance of the overwhelming facts," said ANC-AU Executive Director Haig Kayserian. "This is clearly offensive and unacceptable to us descendants of genocide survivors who proudly call Australia home."