NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet shocked the state and his colleagues yesterday by admitting that he had dressed as a Nazi at his 21st birthday party — but some in government fear there is worse to come.
Whispers of a photograph capturing the incident had been circulating for weeks, including on an anonymous gossip Twitter account that posted about rumours of a “damaging” picture as early as January 2.
Perrottet told reporters on Friday morning he didn’t know if there was a picture: “I’m not aware of a photograph. I’m not aware of one, if it exists. It’s not about that, it’s about the fact that I did it, and that I’m truly sorry for the mistake I made.”
Senior Liberal sources told Crikey the premier decided to speak about the incident after Transport Minister David Elliott brought it up with him in a recent conversation. Elliott’s office did not respond to requests for comment.
One Liberal source said that although they didn’t want to downplay the seriousness of what Perrottet had done, they hoped voters would judge the party on its merits when they go to the polls on March 25 rather than “having an election over what Dom did at 21”.
The source said they hadn’t seen the rumoured picture and acknowledged it could cause even more damage to the party if it did emerge.
The Twitter account that mentioned a photograph on January 2 followed up three days later with a post claiming the party had “serious concern” it would damage reputations if a picture became public before the election. The tweet didn’t mention any names or what specifically the picture depicted.
After Perrottet’s admission on Thursday, the people or person behind the account tweeted again, indicating they had seen the picture and that there were other prominent people in it. Perrottet was asked at his press conference on Friday morning if other Liberals were present during the birthday party and said he didn’t remember.
“It’s not about other people,” he said. “No one was involved. I was involved. It was me. I made a terrible mistake.”
Perrottet contacted Jewish leaders before making his admission public and met with the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies at the Sydney Jewish Museum afterwards.
Board of Deputies chief executive Darren Bark and president David Ossip said in a joint statement they appreciated that Perrottet had contacted them personally to apologise.
“The premier has been a staunch supporter and friend of the Jewish community throughout his time in public life, in particular as treasurer he ensured the Sydney Jewish Museum received funding to ensure that it could continue educating the community about the Holocaust and the horrors of the Nazi era,” they said.
“Nazi symbolism is not to be taken lightly and dressing as a Nazi is not a joke … The premier has acknowledged this, recognising that wearing the costume was offensive and will distress many in our community.”
Are you outraged at the premier wearing a Nazi uniform at his 21st birthday party? Let us know by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
The premier did not do any such thing. The premier is not 21. This is about something Dominic Perrottet did a couple of decades ago, not the premier.
A lot of the commentary this morning makes the assumption that wearing such a uniform shows support for all that goes with it, up to and including Holocaust denial. It might, but it can also display not much more than a juvenile desire to shock and annoy. Take a look at the way some of the punks in 1997 wore swastikas, or before that some of the Bonzo Dog Band members who, for the lolz, wore such uniforms to drive around London and go to pubs. Read the chapter in Hunter Thompson’s Hell’s Angels where, in the mid 1960s, he asked the California bike gang members he was riding with why they wore swastikas. They said they did it just to freak out the squares. (Thompson suggested they could get a much greater reaction, possibly involving an armed response from the state militia to exterminate them, by wearing hammer and sickle symbols and setting off an outlaw commie biker gang panic.)
Without more evidence that Perrottet had or has some real sympathy for the politics attached to that uniform, it is just an example of very bad taste at a fancy dress party. Being stupid and embarrassing at age 21 is not uncommon. Are there no real concerns about Perrottet and the NSW Liberals to write about?
Agree.
At around that age in my punk phase I wasn’t wearing swastikas but I was shouting the words to ‘Belsen was a gas’ and ‘Holiday in Cambodia’ and anything else I thought would shock the squares in ’80s Toowoomba, without much thought to either the political implications and intent of the lyrics or the experiences of the dead and brutalised victims of the events they were referencing.
I hope that I’m now much more thoughtful and well past that sort of nonsense, but everyone is young and dumb at some point. Totally agree there are much more up to date things to criticise the NSW Libs for.
(Typo correction in my first comment – delete 1997, insert 1977. Sorry.)
I know what you mean. For more on the punk and music generally connection, there’s an old Guardian article ‘It wasn’t just the Queen – pop music borrowed Nazi symbols too‘ which has a photo of Siouxsie Sioux, in later years almost a secular saint and very much an inspiration and role model for many lefty progressive types, wearing her swastika armband in 1976. The same article also drags in the late Elizabeth Windsor for her fascist salute at age 8, and of course David Bowie during his Thin White Duke phase.
(Typo correction in my first comment – delete 1997, insert 1977. Sorry.)
I know what you mean. For more on the punk and music generally connection, there’s an old Guardian article ‘It wasn’t just the Queen – pop music borrowed [bad word that incites the ModBot] symbols too‘ which has a photo of Siouxsie Sioux, in later years almost a secular saint and very much an inspiration and role model for many lefty progressive types, wearing her swastika armband in 1976. The same article also drags in the late Elizabeth Windsor for her fascist salute at age 8, and of course David Bowie during his Thin White Duke phase.
The premier wasn’t some punk, but an educated member of the young libs and this didn’t happen in the 60s or even 80s.
What does it mean if you go to a fancy dress party dressed as Satan? Or anybody else? Classic beat-up. Perrottet shouldn’t even have to apologise.
At 21 I was doing far worse ie: voting Liberal. Being a goose & making poor judgments is part of youth.
I agree. If this incident happened last week, or even last year, it wouldl be serious. But plenty of 21 yo’s do stupid things at parties.
It’s inrteresting that some of the comments here link it to a fightback by the Clubs and Pubs pokies lobby. Who knows, they could be right. I don’t agree with Perrotet about much , but he’s right about the curse of the pokies.
BUT, were you goose-stepping?
100% agree.
Agree 100%. This is precisely the type of thing that annoys ordinary voters about the self-appointed moral Left. He was a idiot in his twenties and did what idiots do (as we all have). Would rather the media and Government focus on things of import rather than this rubbish.
Except it’s not the moral left expressing the outrage this time. Murdoch’s Adelaide tabloid plastered this across half of p4 today (would have been p2, except pp2&3 were full-page ads) when most South Aussies would not know or care who Perrottet is. The question is why? Not following the latest iteration of NSW Rum Corps politics, I suspect some powerful right-wing mates of Murdoch want Perrottet gone.
(Madbot still hasn’t got over its sensitivity to mention of the creep-suing-Crikey. I’ll try again:)
Except it’s not the moral left expressing the outrage this time. Creep-suing-Crikey’s Adelaide tabloid plastered this across half of p4 today (would have been p2, except pp2&3 were full-page ads) when most South Aussies would not know or care who Perrottet is. The question is why? Not following the latest iteration of NSW Rum Corps politics, I suspect some powerful right-wing mates of creep-suing-Crikey want Perrottet gone.
Those on the left weighing in against Perrottet do exist and are expressing their predictable shock, outrage etc.. But they are being taken for mugs by Perrottet’s party enemies. As you surmise, this scandal, such as it is, is the dirty work of factions in the NSW Liberals who want Perrottet out.
As usual you could not be more plainly correct.
Agreed, Rat. Thanks for putting my own views so well. It’s a variant of the ‘cancel culture’ thing, the way it’s taken off, but likely driven by some covetous right wing Lib rival.
I smell pubs & clubs.
Harry & Dom, seems to be something in the sense of entitlement or gauche nebbishes.
I am not a Perrottet fan, but unearthing dopey things that pollies and public figures did when they were young, as if they did it just the other day, is taking things way too far. It is unfair and unrealistic.
No one is born perfectly wise, wisdom is a trait that is accrued through experience, which inevitably involves making mistakes. No one makes it to adulthood without a bunch of cringe-inducing memories they wish they could just make vanish.
The big mistake is to not learn from these experiences, and keep on making them again and again. That’s the real character flaw in a person.
Points to Perrottet for giving a fair dinkum apology, and not one of those “sorry/not sorry” ones that you hear so often.
In the era of online documentation of all life’s grand (and trivial) moments, the list all-the-dumb-things a person has done is even more accessible. If we remain on the ‘exposé’ trail the effect may be to keep otherwise competent aspiring political leaders of the future from entering politics at all. The bland blobs remaining after puritan party-vetting are unlikely to have any gravitas as future leaders.
There has to be a pathway of redemption, not simply a ‘lock-em-up and throw away the key’ mentality. Perrottet seemed fair dinkum with genuine remorse, with his humility a marked contrast to old mate Scott.
The motivations of those who pushed the scandal button need to be examined, a subject for ICAC, to be revealed perhaps by the next election cycle.
So the first meaningful regulation of pokies in a generation and this comes out…
Odd that, hoodathunkit?
Perrottet has to eat a lot of humble pie (which he has done) but he should not be expected to commit political suicide. To my surprise I find that I will be deciding my vote at the election based on his plans to eliminate or reduce stamp duty and gambling unlike his opponent who seems to be in favour of these things.
Aren’t both parties hostage to the gambling dollars?
For now, the NSW Liberals have a gambling policy that seriously alarms the gambling industry, while Labor has a pretend policy that the gambling industry is happy with. So what do you think?
It seems not.
I smell a rat… & it’s not just Perrottet.
For those with a long memory this could qualify as an episode of ‘The Scales of Justice’, a brilliant Australian tele series aired by the ABC back in the 1980s. Its theme was corruption on three fronts: law enforcement, politics, judiciary.
Could it be that the retiring Minister’s knife in his back was supplied by the ponies and clubs lobby????
Pubs
Is “The Mob” who run the slot machine industry and their official lobby group and apologists,
“ClubsNSW”, mixed up in this?
What is that odious Transport Minister doing as well?
Both the ALP and the Libs are tainted by gambling money.
Stay tuned, this will only get worse.
Don’t blame the messenger, or even guess who it is and why, we are entitled to know what an entitled prick we have as Premier.
Anyone who believes he will do anything meaningful against the Clubs and Pub Barons, when he does not have full Party support and the Nationals are totally against reform, is delusional.
Just another empty Liberal election promise.
It’s not unreasonable to blame whoever has most to lose should a cashless betting card be approved.
Ah yes, David Elliot. Is there a bigger turd floating in the NSW LNP bowl?
Crowded as it is.
This
I was wondering exactly that.
Unless the cashless pokies card is ditched and never spoken of again – we can expect a steady stream of similar stories