Name John Bennett | ||
Education University of Melbourne | ||
John Tuson Bennett (12 November 1937, Horsham, Victoria – 22 July 2013) was a solicitor and president of the Australian Civil Liberties Union, who was most notable for being a leader in the Holocaust denial movement in Australia.
Bennett graduated with honors from the University of Melbourne in both law (1958) and arts (1966) and subsequently worked for over 20 years from 1974 to 1996 in the Legal Aid Commission of Victoria. He also helped establish the Victorian Council for Civil Liberties (now Liberty Victoria) 1966 and serviced as its secretary until 1980. After his expulsion from the group, he went on to start an organisation called the Australian Civil Liberties Union, which has been characterised as "one of Victoria's foremost racist and Holocaust denying organisations."
Bennett was closely associated with the Adelaide Institute as well as the United States-based Institute for Historical Review, two groups known for their involvement in Holocaust denial. He was on the board of The Journal of Historical Review, and was the author of a handbook called Your Rights, known for criticising "multiculturalism and Asian immigration" in addition to criticism against the Jewish community and traditional beliefs about the Holocaust.