CANBERRA, Australia (AP) – Australia’s gaffe-prone prime minister took back his second Nazi-related comment in a month on Thursday after he compared the opposition party leader to German World War II-era propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels.
Tony Abbott told Parliament that Labor Party leader Bill Shorten was “the Dr. Goebbels of economic policy.”
Abbott immediately said he withdrew the comment, as opposition lawmakers yelled in protest.
Speaker Bronwyn Bishop ordered Labor lawmaker Mark Dreyfus – one of only three Jewish lawmakers in Parliament – out of the House of Representatives for rising from his seat to angrily berate the prime minister.
Fellow Labor lawmaker Michael Danby, also Jewish, left the chamber with Dreyfus in solidarity.