It’s unacceptable for the Minister for the Arts to simply deny knowledge of the selection by his own hand-picked Board of an artist to represent Australia who has repeatedly depicted terrorists and terrorist acts in his work.

It’s right that Khaled Sabsabi will no longer be going on a taxpayer funded trip representing our country. However serious questions remain over why this reversal only came after the Coalition informed the government in Question Time yesterday that his previous works feature former Hezbollah terrorist chief Hassan Nasrallah, Osama Bin Laden, and depictions of the September 11 terror attacks.

Does the Minister – who claims to have had no idea about this appointment – agree with the weak cop-out of a statement issued by Creative Australia which claims that Mr Sabsabi’s appointment has only been reversed to avoid a “divisive debate”, rather than because he has repeatedly depicted terrorists and terrorism?

Yesterday afternoon Mr Burke claimed to be “shocked” by the content of Mr Sabsabi’s previous work. If that is the case, how can he claim to agree with Creative Australia that the issue at hand is the need to avoid debate, rather than the promotion of terrorists?

What else has Creative Australia spent taxpayer funds on that would shock the Minister and Australians?

As the Coalition has repeatedly said, leadership to stamp out antisemitism and glorification of violence has to come from the top.

It is incumbent today on Minister Burke and the Prime Minister to tell Australians whether they agree with Creative Australia, or whether they agree that it is unacceptable that in the midst of an antisemitism crisis for the Government to have chosen an artist who had depicted Nasrallah, Bin Laden and September 11 in his work.

It’s not good enough for the Minister to buck pass all the blame to a Board he created and handpicked. If the Minister claims to be totally unaware of the background of an artist selected to represent Australia on a taxpayer funded trip to a high profile international event, it’s no wonder there’s been no action taken to remove others in taxpayer funded positions who have made antisemitic comments.

It shouldn’t take members of the community and the Opposition to raise these concerns about antisemitism and glorification of violence before the Government acts.