A Videotaped Speech for Australia, 1993
David Irving visited Australia in 1986, for a lecture tour associated with the publication by Veritas publishing of the paper back edition of "Uprising", his work on the Hungarian anti-Communist Revolution of 1956. This had first been published in 1981 in the United Kingdom by the well known publishing house of Hodder and Stoughton Ltd.
The following year, 1987, Irving returned to Australia for the launch of "Churchill's War", also published by Veritas.
During both the 1986 and '87 Australian tours by Irving, there was no suggestion that the British historian, by his presence, had threatened any civil disorders or violated any Australian laws.
Irving had also conducted several Canadian lecture tours without any problems, except some protests organised by Zionist activists.
David Irving was scheduled to commence a lecture of Australia on March 17, 1993, coming direct from South Africa, where he was finalising his latest major work, Goebbels. Mastermind of the Third Reich which was commissioned by Macmillan. However, yielding to an immense Zionist Jewish campaign which blatantly demanded that Irving not be allowed to visit Australia, the then Australian Immigration Minister, Mr Gerry Hand, after some delay, ruled that Irving be denied a visa to enter Australia.
Prior to Irving being informed of the decision, the Zionist newspaper, the Australian Jewish News, had already claimed that Hand had assured Zionist lobbyists that Irving was being denied a visa.
This was a clear breach of confidentiality concerning Australian visa applications.
Leading libertarians, including some unsympathetic to what they believed to be Irving's views, were shocked by what they saw as an unprecedented violation of freedom of speech in Australia.
While stressing that he was no supporter of David Irving's views, the president of the Queensland Council of Civil Liberties, Mr Terry O'Gorman, called for the immediate overturning of the ban, describing it as "obnoxious" and "the equivalent of the banning of free speech in the section of the Australian community. A number of academics expressed their disquiet about the Irving ban. Typical of the protests was that of Professor J. Gregory, former Professor of Geography (Incorrect description) at the University of Melbourne, who said that he was writing in defence of the honourable principles of free speech" which he said was the basis of the Australian democratic system.
Mr John Bennett, president of the Australian Civil Liberties Union and author of the well known annual publication "Your Rights", commenting on the claim that David Irving's presence in Australia might be disruptive, pointed out that he himself chaired two well-advertised and well-attended public meetings for Irving during his previous visits to Australia and there was not even one interjection. There was no incitement to racial violence. He felt that Irving's views on the Holocaust should be publicly discussed.
A major encouraging feature of all this, was the unanimous attitude of the daily press of Australia, which said the ban should be removed.
The Melbourne Age said,
"the Federal Government's decision not to allow the controversial British historian to revisit Australia, is understandable. But it is neither courageous nor right. The Government was under strong pressure from the Jewish community to exclude him, but the reasons given fall short of convincing. To deny entry to David Irving, suggests a national immaturity in tolerating the expression of unpopular opinions and reeks of political poltroonery by a Government unwilling to risk votes".
The Brisbane Courier-Mail stated that David Irving had an "inalienable right to state his case, and any Australians who wish to, have an equal right to hear him state it". One of the most forthright editorials opposing the Irving ban was that of the Herald-Sun in Melbourne, which said that "the ban was an assault on free speech which should be reversed", commenting
"the ban makes a nonsense of the Government's censorious hectoring of other countries for the denial of human rights including the right of free speech. By refusing Mr Irving's entry the Government is indulging in the son of behaviour it claims to find so abhorrent in others."
Obviously stunned by this type of press editorial comment, Foreign Affairs Minister Senator Gareth Evans, who has prided himself on his libertarian philosophy, desperately sought to justify the ban by citing what he described as "the particular volatility that exists in the community at election times." Presumably the Foreign Minister overlooked the fact David Irving's tour was scheduled to start after the elections held on March 13, and not before.
One of the most disturbing features of this extraordinary affair was that of some politicians, the Australian Democrat senators were amongst the first to demand that Irving be banned, while following the ban, the Liberal National Party Opposition through its then shadow Minister for Immigration, Mr Philip Ruddock, endorsed what the Labour government had done. All this raises the question of, who is running Australia.
Well-known and respected columnist for the Weekend Australian, Humphrey McQueen, was one of the more courageous journalists who attempted to answer this question. Bluntly stating in his column of February 20-21, that the ban is
"political in the meanest sense, because even without the election, the Labour party is terrified of losing votes and donations from the local Zionists. Presumably, the other parties are also terrified for the same reasons."
Not surprisingly, allegations like these, together with the wide-spread publicity about the Irving affair, started to create some unease among the relatively small Australian Jewish community. There were suggestions that Zionist leaders like Mr Isi Leibler [right] had gone too far.
Prominent Melbourne Jewish leader, Mr Peter Isaacson, came out in his own journal, the suburban Melbourne Southern Cross stating that he did not agree with his fellow co-religionists who sought the Irving ban, and that the Minister for Immigration would have served both democracy and the Australian Jewish community better if he had allowed David Irving to visit Australia. He urged that the new minister reverse the Hand decision so that Irving's preposterous propositions can be demolished.
Irving agrees with this attitude and seeks to have his views and findings tested by rational debate. The wide-spread publicity concerning the Irving ban eventually forced Zionist leaders to change their tactics, claiming that as Irving's books sold freely the question of freedom of speech did not arise. It was claimed that Irving was a threat because he was a rabble rousing leader of a growing international neo-Nazi movement.
As David Irving points out, there are no books of his on the Holocaust selling, because he has written no such books and he challenges the Isi Leiblers to produce any evidence that he is a Neo-Nazi, a racist, or engaged in rabble-rousing.
The Zionists' careless handling of the truth and the manner in which any journalists who admit they have not read one word of Irving's books repeat what in many cases is blatant lying, leaves unanswered the question of why there is an orchestrated international campaign against David Irving. Have his researches taken him too close to some explosive revelations which the Zionist Jews fear being discussed?
In this recording you can hear and see what David Irving is really saying and then make up your own mind.