CANBERRA: “More than 60,000 Armenian-Australians have once again been let down by their nation’s leaders,” reported the Armenian National Committee of Australia (ANC-AU), after receiving statements issued on April 24, 2026, which failed to accurately recognise the atrocities of 1915 as the Armenian Genocide.
Speaking at the National Armenian Genocide Commemoration, ANC-AU Vice-Chair, Sarine Nazarian, gave a powerful address reflecting the sentiment of the Armenian-Australian community, calling out Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition Leader Angus Taylor for their “cowardice” in refusing to call the crimes of the Ottoman Empire by its name: genocide.
Nazarian said: “What is clear is that our nation’s leaders cannot summon the courage to speak one word: genocide. The gag order from a foreign dictatorship remains in force. No amount of diplomacy, no alliance, no strategic interest can justify their refusal to confront historical truth.”
Rather than accurately acknowledging the Armenian Genocide - or even detailing the scale and nature of the atrocities committed - Prime Minister Albanese referred only to “terrible suffering”, a description that falls far short of recognising one of the gravest crimes in human history.
Responding to this characterisation, Nazarian told more than 1,000 attendees: “The Prime Minister’s statement about the Armenian Commemoration looks like Ankara’s liquid paper removed the only word that matters, which should sit between Armenian and Commemoration.”
Similarly, in his statement, the Leader of the Opposition, Angus Taylor, outlined several acts committed by the Ottoman Empire which, when considered collectively, meet the definition of genocide. Yet, he too stopped short of explicitly recognising these crimes as such.
“The statements given by the major party leaders on the 111th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide not only denies the history of Armenian-Australians, but also fails to accurately recognise the major humanitarian response carried out by Australian civilians and soldiers in the wake of the genocide,” said ANC-AU Political Affairs Director, Sebastian Majarian.
He concluded that these statements not only fail the Armenian-Australian community, but also fail the Australian people, diminishing their history and legacy as a nation.
Majarian also said the failure of the leaders in addressing the Armenian Genocide with accuracy contradicted the “bipartisan and majority support of elected officials across the country”, unacceptably proving that the collective voices of those elected by Australians are being usurped by the commands and threats of a foreign dictator, in Türkiye’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan”.
Despite the shameful statements handed down by Albanese and Taylor, over 30 elected representatives from across the political aisle gave messages of support contradicting the leader’s statements, exemplifying the bi-partisan support for genocide recognition within each party’s ranks.
