A young Liberal supporter is facing major backlash after referencing her Holocaust survivor grandmother in a video where she hit back at being called “racist”.
Freya Leach is a self-described “conservative” and “classical Liberal” who is an avid supporter of the No campaign for the Indigenous Voice to parliament.
The 20-year-old recently ran as the Liberal candidate for Balmain in Sydney’s Inner West, but lost the seat to Green’s candidate Kobi Shetty.
But the loss has not dulled her interest in political matters, with Ms Leach dedicating her social media pages in recent weeks to explain why she is voting No in the upcoming Voice referendum and encouraging others to do the same.
However, one of her most recent TikTok videos has caused a stir after she appeared to use her grandmother’s experience surviving the Holocaust as an example of why she isn’t “racist”.
“Throughout this whole debate around the Voice, the thing that I have struggled with the most is how anyone who is voting against the Voice has been called a racist by the left,” Ms Leach said in the video.
“This is such a horrible way of engaging in public debate and what you do when you can’t attack the argument is you attack the people.”
The Liberal supporter claimed this type of behaviour “says more” about the “lack of compelling arguments” in support of the Voice than it does about those who are voting No.
But it was the next line that really caught viewers’ attentions – and not in a positive way.
“I’m voting No and I am not racist. My grandmother was a Holocaust survivor,” she said.
“She was a German Jew, the Nazis tried to exterminate her people group by putting them into concentration camps and gassing them.”
Ms Leach went on to claim that her grandmother’s experience gave her an understanding of the importance of “doing what is right” by minorities and protecting marginalised groups.
She said there was “absolutely no way” that anyone could claim she is racist.
“I never once looked at a person and judged them differently because of their background, their ethnic heritage. Never ever,” the 20-year-old said.
Ms Leach accused “the left” of toxic behaviour, claiming that they have resorted to calling No voters racist and accusing them of spreading misinformation because they can’t refute the arguments and concerns that are being raised around the Voice.
According to her, this reduces the quality of public debate and is insulting to voters because the “vast majority” of Australians are not racist, adding that it has been “so hurtful” to see the way the debate has played out.
“You are not racist if you vote No. Simple as that. You’re not. The Voice No campaign is being led by two Aboriginal people. The Liberal Party is not racist. There are Aboriginal members of parliament, there are Aboriginals who vote for the Liberal Party,” she said.
“So, the idea that somehow the Liberal Party is racist or anyone who votes No is racist is just not true,” she added, saying such claims were “slander”.
The video has been met with swift backlash, with hundreds of commenters less than impressed with Ms Leach’s latest take on the Voice debate.
One person claimed that her grandmother going through the Holocaust had “nothing to do” with Aboriginal people and the Voice referendum.
“I’m Jewish and don’t appreciate the way you tried to invoke that as if it holds any relevance on this at all. Stop,” another wrote.
One social media user added: “I’m the grandchild of a Holocaust survivor too. That has no bearing on your ability to reinforce and disseminate racist perspectives.”
News.com.au has reached out to Ms Leach for comment.
Adam Briggs, an Indigenous Australian rapper who goes by Senator Briggs, also commented on Ms Leach’s post.
“You don’t have to ‘look at a person and judge them’ to be racist. You do it by upholding and reinforcing the values of a racist system,” he said.
Briggs also filmed a video response to the Sydney woman, telling her that: “Just because your grandmother was a Holocaust survivor doesn’t make you exempt from being racist.”
“If your grandmother was a chef, that doesn’t mean you get to run the kitchen. You benefit from Indigenous, from our, dispossession every day,” he said.
He wasn’t the only well-known personality to respond to the video, with model Jeff Francis Kissubi, who currently lives in Australia, also questioning Ms Leach’s comments.
“OK, I genuinely want to know. What does your grandmother being a Holocaust survivor have to do with Indigenous people in this country having a Voice in parliament?” he said in a TikTok video.
“Please let’s correlate the two things, because they’re not correlating.
“Secondly, it’s not surprising that most of the time that people who say ‘I’m not racist’ then go on to say something that is absurd, aka you. You try and defend why you’re against something that pretty much does not affect you as an individual.”
Mr Kissubi likened Ms Leach’s comments to playing “oppression Olympics”, while also “undermining the oppression of what Indigenous people in this country have gone through for years”.
“Just because your family member has experienced oppression does not absolve you from racism. Get yourself educated,” he said.
This isn’t the first time Ms Leach has garnered attention, with the young conservative making headlines last year when she claimed was unfairly targeted and mocked in a law exam, resulting in the entire class having to complete a new assessment.
She and her second-year criminal law cohort at the University of Sydney were given a fictional scenario as part of an end of semester test in which a character — a uni student named “Freya” — murders one of her left-leaning peers. The namesake character also deliberately infects a sexual partner with HIV.
Ms Leach accused the faculty of mocking her political views and requested an apology from the university, claiming the law school was “incompetent at best, malicious at worst”.