'Ask them to leave': Victorian minister in hot water over 'Irish heritage' comments


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Minister for Consumer Affairs Marlene Kairouz has upset the Irish community after warning locals to ask people with Irish accents who knock on their door to “leave” following a string of con artists targeting the elderly in Melbourne.


It follows the release of a campaign video to warn locals about travelling con men looking for unassuming targets.


A video released from Consumer Affairs Victoria featured 79-year-old Thelma, who says was allegedly scammed out of $4,500 when tradesman didn’t finish fixing her leaky roof.


“Unfortunately, Thelma isn’t the only one to be taken advantage of – we received 207 reports about travelling con men in 2016-17, with more than $477,000 lost” a statement read.







Following the video, Ms Kairouz told the media: “if anybody knocks on your door that has an Irish accent, automatically ask them to leave.”


Some members of Australia’s Irish community were outraged and took to social media to slam the comments as “ignorant”.


“I think the phrase you used was “if anyone who has an Irish accent knocks on your door automatically ask them to leave”. Using the example of one group to then say it is all Irish is ridiculous. There are plenty of hard working Irish doing the trades young Australians don’t want to do,” one Facebook user wrote.




Ms Kairouz later apologised on Twitter for “causing offence” with her comments.


“Yesterday I made a comment at a scam awareness campaign launch that caused offence to people with Irish heritage,” she wrote on Twitter.


“Recent scammers have been backpackers from the UK Ireland I was giving this info to the public. I admit I delivered this msg poorly. I sincerely apologise for causing offence and my poor choice of words.”


SBS News has reached out to MP Marlene Kairouz for comment.


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