EXHIBIT NOTE Date of Document: 23 February
1994 Filed on behalf of: The First and
Second Defendants Date of filing: 1994 Prepared by: Arnold Bloch Leibler Solicitor
Code: 54 Solicitors & Consultants DX:
455 Level 21 Tel: 629 7444 333 Collins Street Ref:
AHN:934829:KAV MELBOURNE VIC 3000 (Mr A H
Northam) This is the exhibit marked "AHN12"
referred to by ANTHONY HUGH NORTHAM in his Affidavit sworn
this 23rd day of February 1994.
MEDIA
MONITORSNEIL MITCHELL (0900) 17.09.93 INTERVIEW WITH HISTORIAN, DAVID IRVING COMPERE: As I mentioned earlier, David Irving, at this
stage, is free to come to Australia following court decision
yesterday. There's a possibility of the Federal Government
appealing, although it's still not yet clear whether they
will. On the line from London now, David Irving, good
morning. DAVID IRVING: Good morning or good evening, we're just
after midnight here in London, of course. COMPERE: Yes. When will you be coming to Australia? IRVING: That is still classified information, I'm afraid.
Obviously because of the heightened danger of disruption of
my tour, I'm going to have to adopt special security
measures concerning what date I'm arriving. We have immediately started planning the tour, but I'm
not going to reveal when it is or any details about which
direction across the continent I'm coming. COMPERE: What, you believe it could be that
dangerous? IRVING; I have to be realistic about it. The people who
have tried to prevent me from coming to Australia for the
past six months have not hesitated to use the dirtiest
tricks so far. They have now been shown up, I think, by the
law courts in Australia. The three judges have ruled that I am entitled to come in
and they've ordered The Ministry of Immigration to come back
with a decision, taken this time within the law, but the
people who are my opponents are going to operate outside the
law and I have to be realistic about it, I'm afraid. COMPERE: In a sense, that almost supports the
government's reason for refusing you entry. They said to
bring you here could incite violence. IRVING: Yes. i can't appreciate that but, of course I'm
not gong to be the one committing the criminal acts. It's
the people who are trying to stop me speaking who will be
committing the criminal acts. And to make me the victim of somebody else's criminality
which is what the government, by its previous decision, was
doing is, I think, an injustice and an offence to natural
justice which the judges have now recognised in their
decision. COMPERE. Can you tell us, then, how long you'll be in the
country? It was originally intended you'd spend a month
here. IRVING: I think this time we're looking at six weeks
because of the increased interest. A lot of Australians have
contacted me in the intervening months and have written me
letters. A lot of students want to hear me speak. A lot of
students want to hear me debate, in fact, and if anybody's
willing to debate against me, then I'm not frightened. I'm
perfectly capable of holding my own in debate. COMPERE: Yes, I'd like to get to that in a moment, but,
in a sense, this, what the government has done has helped
you, hasn't it? It's helped your cause because it's given it
more attention? IRVING: That wasn't my intention. I think the opponents
have scored what we in England would call an own goal. If
they had left me alone to repeat what I've done in Australia
on two or three previous occasions, I would have spoken to
small rural community audiences, sometimes as small as five
or six people and so to which, again and again, I've been
able to speak by satellite television or by the radio
telephone link to millions of Australians and so they're
able to form their own Impressions. I do appreciate that a lot of Australians will not hold
my views but I want my views to be heard. COMPERE. I'd suggest to you the majority of Australians
probably don't support your views but perhaps some support
your right to put them. IRVING: I don't think they know my views yet. My views
haven't really properly been put to the Australians. Very
distorted views have been put to the Australians by my
opponents. For example, they call me a Holocaust denier. That's a
cheap shot. I'm not a Holocaust denier. I'm a Holocaust
questioner. I'm not prepared to buy the whole package, but
even that isn't true, because I've not written any books
about the Holocaust. I've not even written any articles
about the Holocaust. COMPERE: They also say that you incite racism and support
Nazi views? IRVING: These are the tactics they've had to use to try
and get me banned from Australia. These are people with a
vested interest in protecting their own particular legend
and in order to try and get me banned, they've had to put
about these perfectly absurd stories about me holding racist
views and making racist speeches and the rest of it. They've done it by pasting together pieces of newsreel
film, by photo montages, by outrageous lies about what I've
said and, in fact, a lot of these people are now trembling
in their shoes because now I'm coming in person to Australia
I'm going to prosecute these people with the full majesty of
the law. COMPERE: Prosecute them for defamation? IRVING: Indeed, yes. We've started five libel action
against newspapers and against individual personalities in
Australia already and I think a lot more are now going to
follow now can come in person to prosecute these people. COMPERE. That seems a I little strange for a man who has
sort of got contentious views and arguing the rights of free
speech, that you head to the courts when the debate is
raised. I mean, free speech goes both ways, doesn't it? IRVING: Free speech does cut both ways but when somebody
stands up as my opponents did and said 'Mr. Irving has
served prison sentences in Germany', which is just an
outrageous lie, then what am I supposed to do? Just grin and
bear it and say 'Oh, well that's your opinion'? It's not an
opinion, it's somebody stating a statement of fact which is
an outrageous barefaced lie. Why should I put up with
it? COMPERE: The one that's perhaps gained the most currency
is that you have attended and supported a number of neo Nazi
or Fascist rallies in various parts around the world. Is
that true? IRVING: I've seen when this matter was debated in
Australia four or five months ago, there was a newsreel clip
repeatedly being shown showing me addressing a rally in
Eastern Germany in Halla on the back of a truck, and then
they clipped into it scenes of skinheads giving the Hitler
salute and so on. What they didn't show on the television film was me
immediately rounding on these people and saying, 'You
idiots, why are you giving these outdated slogans from the
past. Why are you shouting these slogans from the past when
you young people are Germany's future? COMPERE: Why were you even addressing a Neo Nazi
rally? IRVING: It wasn't a Neo Nazi rally. Just because people
come along and listen to speakers in Germany doesn't make it
a Neo Nazi rally, but this is the kind of label which is
used by opponents to smear me. COMPERE: What was the rally, then? IRVING: A rally of young East Germans who, I don't know
if you know the political situation in East Germany, there's
a lot of unemployment there, rather like what's going to
happen in Australia under Paul Keating in the next year or
two, I think. There's a lot of very ugly unemployment, a lot of
poverty, a lot of desperation and particularly in Eastern
Germany the former Communist part of Eastern Germany, the
young people are growing increasingly despairing. I went along and addressed a rally of these young people
and warned them that they were Germany's future, that they
were Germany's youth and the rest of Germany was looking to
them. COMPERE: Can you tell us what the general thrust of your
speaking engagements will be in this country? IRVING: Oh, very little of it will be about the
Holocaust. You wouldn't believe this from the media
attention. Most of it's concerned with my 30 years of
research as a historian. I've written books about -- I've
written 25 or 30 books about Adolf Hitler, about the Third
Reich, but also about Winston Churchill, about German atomic
research, about the Hungarian uprising, and very little of
what I've written is about the Holocaust. A lot of historical students want to come along and hear
me talk about methods of historical research and the need to
be able to think sideways, the need to accept that there are
different interpretations of history that are possible. For the British, it's very important. We've got to
understand how it is that we lost our empire, how
effectively we lost World War Two, having won it, was it
right what we did to the empire. Was it right what we did to the sheep farmers, to the
farmers of New South Wales? That kind of thing. COMPERE: Mr. Irving, look I'm afraid i have to go, but
just one last question. Do you accept that your visit will
hurt people here? I mean, I have talked to survivors of the Holocaust. They
will hurt. It will disturb them. It will hurt them. Do you
accept that? IRVING: I have to say that I don't give a tuppenny fig if
they hurt. They have hurt me very substantially -- COMPERE: Oh, no, no, no, no. But these are just good
people who have suffered- IRVING: --worried about me and now I am coming' to hit
back -- COMPERE: No, no, no, no. I'm talking about old people,
old women who have lost families amd gpne through it. They
have hurt. You've got to give a tuppenny fig about them? IRVING: You know my very first book was 'The Destruction
of Dresden' when we British, the Australians, Canadians, we
went over and set alight to a city and we burned 130,000
people alive in the space of half an hour. They hurt too.
History has two sides, you see. COMPERE: Yes, but it doesn't make it -- you have to care
about those people. IRVING: -- tried to monopolise history and now they don't
like it that history is going to have two sides again. COMPERE. So you don't give a tuppenny fig for the
survivors? IRVING: I don't give a tuppenny fig for people who have
hurt, who have tried their utmost to hurt me over the last
six months, and I'm coming back and they're going to
hurt. COMPERE I'm starting to change my view on whether you
should be in this country. IRVING: Okay. COMPERE Goodbye. Oh. David Irving. That man claims to have -- oh, he's got a
right to his views, the man claims to have compassion. What
an absurd thing to say. Ends * * * * | 
David Irving