Peter Abetz is an Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

n politician. Peter Abetz holds a Bachelor of Agricultural Science

Bachelor of Science

A Bachelor of Science is an undergraduate academic degree awarded for completed courses that generally last three to five years .-Australia:In Australia, the BSc is a 3 year degree, offered from 1st year on...

 and a Bachelor of Divinity

Bachelor of Divinity

In Western universities, a Bachelor of Divinity is usually an undergraduate academic degree awarded for a course taken in the study of divinity or related disciplines, such as theology or, rarely, religious studies....

. In the 2008 Western Australian state election

Western Australian state election, 2008

A general election was held in the state of Western Australia on Saturday 6 September 2008 to elect 59 members to the Legislative Assembly and 36 members to the Legislative Council...

, he was the Liberal Party

Liberal Party of Australia

The Liberal Party of Australia is an Australian political party.Founded a year after the 1943 federal election to replace the United Australia Party, the centre-right Liberal Party typically competes with the centre-left Australian Labor Party for political office...

 candidate for the Labor

Australian Labor Party

The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...

-held seat of Southern River

Electoral district of Southern River

Southern River is an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly in the Australian state of Western Australia.The district is a marginal seat based in the southern suburbs of Perth.-Geography:...

. He defeated the sitting member, Paul Andrews

Paul Andrews (Australian politician)

Paul William Andrews was an Australian politician. He was a Labor member of the Western Australian Legislative Assembly from 2001 to 2008, representing the electorate of Southern River....

, and subsequently took his seat in the Western Australian Legislative Assembly

Western Australian Legislative Assembly

The Legislative Assembly, or lower house, is one of the two chambers of parliament in the Australian state of Western Australia. It sits in Parliament House in the state capital, Perth....

.
Abetz emigrated with his parents to Australia in 1961. His father, a radio technician, decided to emigrate after reading in a newspaper that a trade mission led by the minister responsible for the Tasmanian Hydro Electric Commission was visiting Stuttgart in search of skilled workers for employment in new 'Hydro' power schemes. His father was one of those employed by that scheme. He is the brother of Tasmania

Tasmania

Tasmania is an Australian island and state. It is south of the continent, separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania—the 26th largest island in the world—and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 507,626 , of whom almost half reside in the greater Hobart...

n Senator

Australian Senate

The Senate is the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of Australia, the lower house being the House of Representatives. Senators are popularly elected under a system of proportional representation. Senators are elected for a term that is usually six years; after a double dissolution, however,...

 Eric Abetz

Eric Abetz

Eric Abetz , has been a Liberal Party member of the Australian Senate since February 1994, representing the state of Tasmania. He is currently Leader of the Opposition in the Senate. He was educated at the University of Tasmania and was a barrister and solicitor before entering politics...

 a Liberal Party member of the Australian Senate since February 1994, representing the state of Tasmania and is currently Leader of the Opposition in the Senate.

Peter Abetz's great uncle was Otto Abetz

Otto Abetz

Dr. Heinrich Otto Abetz was the German ambassador to Vichy France during World War II.-Early years:Abetz was born in Schwetzingen on May 26, 1903. He was the son of an estate manager, who died when Otto was only 13...

, a high-ranking SS officer who sent tens of thousands of Jews to their deaths. Otto Abetz served as Hitler's ambassador to France from September 1940 until 1944, during World War II, and was close to Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop

Joachim von Ribbentrop

Ulrich Friedrich Wilhelm Joachim von Ribbentrop was Foreign Minister of Germany from 1938 until 1945. He was later hanged for war crimes after the Nuremberg Trials.-Early life:...

. Otto Abetz was convicted in a French court for war crimes, including the deportation of French Jews to death camps. He also looted Jewish art worth millions of dollars.

Stop and Search Laws

On the 10th of November 2009 in a debate in the West Australian Parliament, Peter Abetz supported proposed new stop and search laws which were to give police officers the right to stop and search individuals without warrant. These searches could take place in the absence of reasonable grounds to suspect. Peter Abetz made the statement that "I asked my mother, “How come you and so many of the German people got sucked in by Hitler?” My mother said to me, “You know when I was a teenager the streets were not safe. It was anarchy, so
Hitler provided security to get people to follow him. People want security more than their liberty." That is the point." The following day, Peter Abetz came under fire from the member for Mindarie, MR John Quigley who said that Abetz had a reconstructed view about how WA needed the laws to "stop us from becoming Nazis" and that the real situation was that the effect of the laws would radically change the relationship between the citizen and the state.