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Chalmers finds it ‘hard to believe’ someone at 21 wouldn’t know Nazi fancy dress was unacceptable
Hamish McDonald asks Chalmers about the news on Perrottet’s decision to wear a Nazi uniform at his 21st birthday party.
My view about this is that we want the state of New South Wales and we want Australia to be more inclusive and more tolerant. And when something like this comes out, that’s obviously a challenge for that. People in New South Wales will have an opportunity to express their view in March on a more inclusive and more tolerant state of New South Wales in the same way that people had that opportunity nationally in May.
Do you think that it’s possible that someone didn’t know [it was offensive] was even at the age of 21?
I find that hard to believe. I think it’s a particularly hurtful thing to have done, particularly for people who remember the war; obviously the Jewish community and others will be deeply hurt by, deeply offended by that, and for good reason, and I think the ultimate judge of this will be the people of New South Wales.
The lost economic activity doesn’t really begin to capture the full human cost [to the] community and the full cost to infrastructure and assets and communities more broadly.
We’ve put that number out there, really just as a reminder that even though we are largely focused on the human cost of these natural disasters, there is a cost to the economy as well and the cost to the budget.
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