Nazi messages encoded to a luxury vehicle’s personalised number plate have sparked widespread outrage and calls to have them revoked immediately.
A shocked passer-by took a photo of the Victorian plate on a Lexus sports car parked at Westfield Doncaster in Melbourne’s north-east that read ’88-SS’.
The number 88 is a neo-Nazi code for ‘Heil Hitler’ and the SS was the notorious branch of Nazi Germany’s military that was chiefly tasked with exterminating Jews and others considered undesirable by the regime leading up to and during World War II.
Anti-Defamation Commission chairman Dvir Abramovich told Daily Mail Australia on Tuesday night that the ‘stomach-churning’ number plate was pushing a ‘vile agenda’ and was
This personalised Victorian number plate that contains a coded Nazi message and a reference to Hitler’s infamous murderous paramilitary the SS has caused outrage
‘VicRoads needs to ensure that vanity number plates that contain anti- Semitic and racist acronyms and terms are revoked immediately or not approved in the first place,’ Mr Abramovich said.
‘At a time when anti-Jewish hatred is skyrocketing across the country, and we are seeing a dangerous surge of unabashed white supremacists who are determined to push their vile and dark agenda into the real world, this type of is the last thing we need.’
‘We can’t afford to be asleep at the wheel and permit heinous references that incite violence and glorify bigotry to appear on our cars.’
Mr Abramovich called on VicRoads to follow the example of NSW, which recalled personalised number plates that read ‘OCT7TH’ in an apparent celebration of the Hamas attacks on Israel last year that sparked bloody fighting in the region.
Images of a white Ford Ranger with the NSW number plate were widely shared on social media.
Last Thursday NSW Main Road minister John Graham announced he had acted to get the plates recalled.
As soon as I heard about this, we issued an order for it to be recalled,’ he told Sydney radio station 2GB.
‘That process used to take up to a month before plates could be called back in. Transport has acted immediately.
This number plate that appeared to be celebrating the bloody attack by Hamas on Israel on October 7 was recalled by the NSW roads minister last week
‘Given the tensions around the world I wasn’t happy with that. As roads minister, we’ve shortened that process, and the request is now that these plates are [recalled] in within 48 hours.’
Mr Graham said if the owner doesn’t hand in the offending plates, the car’s registration will be ‘cancelled altogether’.
Ms Leach said an X follower informed her the plate had been ‘registered a few years prior’ to the attacks labelling it a ‘very unfortunate coincidence’.
Transport for NSW rubbished the claims telling news.com.au the offensive number plate was registered in December 2023 – after the attacks.
The Hamas attacks in southern Israel left around 1,200 Israelis dead with hundreds more abducted.
Anti-Defamation Commission chairman Dvir Abramovich ((pictured) called on Victoria to follow the NSW example by recalling the offensive number plate
It sparked an all-out war between Israeli forces and the militant group that controls the Palestinian area of Gaza .
According to the Hamas-controlled Health Ministry, the death toll in Gaza has passed 27,000.
Some 85 per cent of Gaza’s civilians have been displaced due to the air raids and ground operations.
