Ley attacks PM’s Joy Division shirt over antisemitic connotations

Opposition Leader Sussan Ley has attacked Anthony Albanese’s leadership over the prime minister’s decision to wear a Joy Division band T-shirt five days ago, accusing him of “displaying the wrong values”.

Ley made a speech in the House of Representatives on Tuesday afternoon to condemn the T-shirt Albanese was photographed wearing last Thursday: the cover of Unknown Pleasures, the acclaimed post-punk band’s first album, released in 1979.

Joy Division’s name comes from the phrase used to describe groups of women kept as sexual slaves in concentration camps during World War II, and Ley argued the prime minister’s decision to wear it would exacerbate the pain of Jewish Australians already dealing with rising antisemitism.

The band’s name has courted criticism, but did not deter its commercial success in the early 1980s. Joy Division won both the 1989 and 1990 triple j Hottest 100 with their song Love Will Tear Us Apart and appeared repeatedly in subsequent countdowns.

The prime minister has made his love for music a part of his personal brand, appearing at festivals and DJ-ing.

Australian media outlets, including The Australian, initially covered Albanese’s choice of shirt – from when he disembarked the plane from Washington on October 23 – in a lighthearted manner, using it as fodder for puns.

But it soon became a talking point among some right-wing accounts with tens of thousands of followers on X, formerly known as Twitter. It was questioned in The Australian’s media diary section on October 26, and in a Sky News segment that followed on October 27.

On Tuesday, Ley, who has described herself as a punk in her youth, took up the issue in parliament. She gave a statement in the House of Representatives before the start of question time to demand Albanese apologise over what she described as a “profound failure of judgment”.

“Arriving back in Australia from his overseas trip, the prime minister stepped off the plane proudly wearing a T-shirt with the name of a band, Joy Division, whose origins are steeped in antisemitism,” Ley said.

“The name was taken from the wing of a Nazi concentration camp where Jewish women were forced into sexual slavery. At a time when Jewish Australians are facing a rise in antisemitism, when families are asking for reassurance and unity, the prime minister chose to parade an image derived from hatred and suffering.

“This is not a slip of judgment, and he cannot claim ignorance. He was told about the dark origins of this band on a podcast in 2022. He even admitted that it is very dark. He knew, he understood and still he wore the T-shirt.”

When told about the origins of the band name in the podcast referenced by both Ley and the Australian, Albanese responded: “I wish I didn’t [know that] ... It’s very dark, isn’t it? But everything about the band is so dark .”

Ley said Albanese’s decision to wear the shirt “raises questions about values, the wrong values, and it is a profound failure of judgment for the prime minister of this country in full knowledge of the meaning behind the name of this band”.

“To choose to wear this T-shirt is an insult to all, and it fails the basic tests of leadership. He should apologise immediately,” she said.

Unknown Pleasures has been ranked among the best albums of all time by various music publications. Rolling Stone last year ranked the album cover as the greatest of all time.

Liberal MP Julian Leeser, who is Jewish, said the prime minister should apologise. “This is a serious error of judgment from the PM. It sends a terrible signal,” he said.

But Julian Hill, Labor’s assistant Minister for Citizenship, Customs and Multicultural Affairs, said “Sussan Ley’s internal [polling] must now be so bad if this is where the Liberal Party is at”.

“Their love for Sky will tear them apart.”

Liberal MP Zoe McKenzie said she thought most people knew the band name was a reference to Nazi concentration camps. “I say the crime is wearing band T-shirts when you’re a man of a certain age. He could have picked a better one,” she told the ABC’s Afternoon Briefing program.

Labor assistant minister Patrick Gorman said he thought Ley’s speech was odd. “There’s big issues in the world, I don’t think band T-shirts of mainstream bands is one of them,” he told the same program. “It’s OK for the prime minister to like a band, a well-loved band… their music has been around for a few decades.”

The Executive Council of Australian Jewry, NSW Jewish Board of Deputies and the Zionist Federation of Australia declined to comment.

Albanese is in Malaysia for the ASEAN summit. He declined to comment.

With Nick Newling.

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