Fusion Party response to The Daily Telegraph, 30 March 2023 (Open Letter)

RE: “‘Disrespectful’ Holocaust comments by by-election candidate Owen Miller revealed”, Daily Telegraph, 28 March 2023

Dear Mr Morrow,

Owen Miller and the Fusion Party vehemently deny the allegations that Owen has been disrespectful about The Holocaust, or the victims of any tragedy. In fact, Owen has consistently supported victims of all avoidable tragedies, including in his tweet from February 2022, which was taken out of context — in this tweet he had been adding his support to victims of The Holocaust and Nazism, not taking away from it.

As a Jewish person myself, who is also Owen’s campaign manager, I can only offer you an apology on behalf of other Jewish people that David Adler gave you misleading information. It is wrong to use our religion to make unfounded attacks on political opponents, and he painted Jews in a bad light by doing so. Adler and his “Australian Jewish Association” do not represent most Jews, and I consider Adler’s actions an act of antisemitism in itself.

In the future, please give us more notice before publishing. We are a small volunteer run organisation and did not have capacity to respond to your 6.10am email until after publication, which was at 11.35am. We didn’t receive any phone call about the article either. In the interests of transparency, please also link the full tweets to your readers, rather than chop up sentences and omit the context.

We are not sure why you are trying to link us to Labor, and frankly the argument about preferences is bizarre. We share concerns about their concentration of power within Australian politics. We would be keen to have a representative of Fusion appear on Sky News, or in a good faith publication where our words will not be manipulated.

Thank you for showcasing our support for 800% renewables, universal basic income (UBI) and drug decriminalisation. The smaller parties which merged to become Fusion have been advocating for these policies for many years, well before the major parties and the Greens dared to take on similar policies.

Fusion is running a positive campaign for Aston. Owen Miller is presenting a vision for Aston and Australia in the long term, where policy has consideration for human happiness, not just economic growth.

Quotes attributable to Owen Miller:

I just want people to live in harmony

Yours Sincerely,
Simon Gnieslaw
Campaign Manager for Owen Miller - Aston 2023
Fusion Party

Addition 31 March 2023:

1. Added links to the content in question.

2. For the sake of clarity, "The Holocaust" name refers to Jewish victims of Nazism exclusively. Owen back in Feb '22 made an error on that wording - it was just an innocent mistake. His support to all victims is clear. If the wording was really the issue, then The Telegraph should have said so.

Simon Gnieslaw