
Nazi insult sparks MPs’ slanging match
A SECOND slanging match has erupted in Parliament House today after a Liberal senator was called a member of Hitler youth.
The blow up comes just a day after Michaelia Cash made explosive threats to name young women in Bill Shorten's office who were the subject of rumours while she was being grilled on AFP raids on trade union offices.
It's led to the insulted politician now calling for a collective effort by MPs to improve the level of political debate, saying the profession was at "a lower level of respect than ... at any time in recent years".
Liberal senator James Paterson and Labor senator Kim Carr got into the shouting match in a senate estimates hearing for the Education portfolio today when Senator Paterson made an offhand joke about the Russian Revolution.
"You'd know that - those in the Hitler Youth would understand that only too well," Senator Carr joked.
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Senator Paterson called for him to withdraw the "outrageous" and "seriously offensive" remark but was told: "I'm just being facetious".

"If you took office, I withdraw it - don't be silly," Senator Carr said before erupting when it wasn't accepted.
"You just threw a bucket of s*** at me and you're gonna suddenly say you're offended?," he yelled at Paterson, who responded: "I was joking about revolutions, I didn't call you a Nazi."
Committee chair Lucy Gichuhi attempted to reign in the spat.
Senator Carr called Paterson a "poor petal" for being offended when asked again to withdraw the remarks.
He later apologised to Senator Paterson in the hearing.
Paterson told Sky News after the incident he didn't mean anything by his joke about the Russian Revolution.
"He would have been well within his rights to ask me to withdraw and I would have withdrawn unreservedly but instead he chose to call me a Nazi," he said.
"And yes, that is personally offensive but more important than any personal offence that I take it's extremely demeaning to survivors of the holocaust and their descendants.
"It diminishes their experience - and the Holocaust and Nazism is something that really, there's nothing comparable to it in history.

"For all the political insults we throw at each other, surely that's one we can leave aside."
Senator Paterson called for a collective effort to improve the level of political debate in Australia.
"My profession is at a lower ebb, a lower level of respect than I think at any time in recent years," he said.
"I think we've got a collective task to try and improve it.
"I think it's actually a critical task because it's actually very dangerous for our national institutions to have their public confidence undermined like this."