Sydney, Australia – Graffiti daubed on the home of the NSW Treasurer, Eric Roozendaal, is believed to have been done by a group that has links to neo-Nazis.
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An unknown group painted ”88” on his eastern suburbs home. Among far right-wing groups, the number 88 is taken to represent HH, shorthand for Heil Hitler.
Mr Roozendaal refused to speak to the Herald about the incident, but a spokesman for him said he ”will not be intimidated and will continue to speak out against groups preaching hatred and division”.
His family is of Dutch-Jewish descent, his grandfather perishing in Auschwitz during the Holocaust.
Mr Roozendaal has had a longstanding dispute with the extreme right-wing group Australia First, stemming from his days at Macquarie University, where he had the group banned from campus.
Mr Roozendaal, a former state secretary of the ALP, negotiated in July with the Labor Party’s national secretary to guarantee no Labor electoral preferences would go to Australia First.
At the time, Mr Roozendaal said One Nation gained a foothold in Queensland due to one factor: Coalition preferences.
Mr Roozendaal’s spokesman said it was notable that the attack took place a month after the Treasurer’s public comments about blocking any preference flow from the Labor Party to Australia First.
Jim Saleam, of Australia First, denied the incident had anything to do with his group.
”It has been done by provocateurs; if it has not been done by criminal groups,” Mr Saleam said.