Australian Labor Party MP Alannah MacTiernan reportedly wrote an e-mail to an unnamed Greek-Australian Labor party member who stated concern over her position on the renaming of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM). In her response to the citizen, MacTiernan wrote that it was not clear if “the original Macedonians can be described as ‘Greek'”.

Her remarks were triumphantly published by the Skopje-based Macedonian English Language News Agency. Later, speaking with Greek-Australian newspaper Neos Kosmos, the MP refuted that she made comments in response to a Greek-Australian politician. She said that this was a “fabrication”. She added that after press coverage of her Woolongong visit where she expressed support for the recognition of the name ‘Republic of Macedonia’ she had received abusive email and social media feedback from Australians of Greek origin.

In retaliation to criticism concerning her views she said: “In classical accounts, [the original Macedonians] conquered the Greeks and unified them into the Macedonian kingdom, which was then Hellenised,” wrote the member for Perth, before adding that “the Battle of Chaeronea, where the Macedonians defeated the Greeks in 338BC, was said to mark the end of Greek history and the beginning of the Macedonian era”.

Victorian coordinator of the Australian Hellenic Council, Peter Jasonides, described MacTiernan’s comments as “inept and opportunistic”. He suggested he looked at history in a “non-political way, as it has been written by internationally recognized historians and not by propagandist spin-doctors.”