A New Zealand radio presenter has been suspended after saying that “Jews were expendable”. The ‘Breakfast’ show DJ and television personality David Fane told a media event: "Would you roast an HIV person? You’d roast them because they’re expendable, like the Jews. Hitler had a right, you know.”

Fane’s words have caused outrage amongst members of the Jewish and gay communities in New Zealand. Stephen Goodman, president of the New Zealand Jewish Council, called the comments “very anti-Semitic” and said: “While we wish to preserve the rights of freedom of speech, he went over the line."

Fane admitted his remarks were “dumb words, said by a dumb man. It was a stupid, stupid mistake.”  In a letter to Goodman, he apologized to the Jewish community for causing offense.  “There are many faces to bigotry and sadly I have added mine, to speak and make light of the plight faced by so many defies belief let alone intelligence, so to the families of those who suffered and to the wider Jewish community I am deeply sorry. I am also aware that I have caused offence to friends and colleagues who are Jewish and though I have apologized personally to some of them this makes me additionally remorseful for the damaging nature of what I said,” Fane wrote.