“Arriving back in Australia from his overseas trip, the prime minister stepped off the plane proudly wearing a T-shirt with the name of a band, Joy Division, whose origins are steeped in antisemitism,” Ley said.
“The name was taken from the wing of a Nazi concentration camp where Jewish women were forced into sexual slavery. At a time when Jewish Australians are facing a rise in antisemitism, when families are asking for reassurance and unity, the prime minister chose to parade an image derived from hatred and suffering.
“This is not a slip of judgment, and he cannot claim ignorance. He was told about the dark origins of this band on a podcast in 2022. He even admitted that it is very dark. He knew, he understood and still he wore the T-shirt.”
When told about the origins of the band name in the podcast referenced by both Ley and the Australian, Albanese responded: “I wish I didn’t [know that] … It’s very dark, isn’t it? But everything about the band is so dark .”
Ley said Albanese’s decision to wear the shirt “raises questions about values, the wrong values, and it is a profound failure of judgment for the prime minister of this country in full knowledge of the meaning behind the name of this band”.
“To choose to wear this T-shirt is an insult to all, and it fails the basic tests of leadership. He should apologise immediately,” she said.
Opposition Leader Sussan Ley during her 90-second statement before question time.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
Unknown Pleasures has been ranked among the best albums of all time by various music publications. Rolling Stone last year ranked the album cover as the greatest of all time.
Liberal MP Julian Leeser, who is Jewish, said the prime minister should apologise. “This is a serious error of judgment from the PM. It sends a terrible signal,” he said.
But Julian Hill, Labor’s assistant Minister for Citizenship, Customs and Multicultural Affairs, said “Sussan Ley’s internal [polling] must now be so bad if this is where the Liberal Party is at”.
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“Their love for Sky will tear them apart.”
Liberal MP Zoe McKenzie said she thought most people knew the band name was a reference to Nazi concentration camps. “I say the crime is wearing band T-shirts when you’re a man of a certain age. He could have picked a better one,” she told the ABC’s Afternoon Briefing program.
Labor assistant minister Patrick Gorman said he thought Ley’s speech was odd. “There’s big issues in the world, I don’t think band T-shirts of mainstream bands is one of them,” he told the same program. “It’s OK for the prime minister to like a band, a well-loved band… their music has been around for a few decades.”
The Executive Council of Australian Jewry, NSW Jewish Board of Deputies and the Zionist Federation of Australia declined to comment.