Australian PM criticised for comparing IS, Nazis

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has been criticised by a Jewish representative over his comments comparing the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group to the Nazis, a media report said on Thursday.

In an interview with Macquarie Radio earlier in the day, Abbott repeated a view he has made public before, saying "The Nazis did terrible evil but they had sufficient sense of shame to try to hide it. These people (IS) boast about their evil," ABC reported.

"This is the extraordinary thing: They act in the way that medieval barbarians acted, only they broadcast it to the world with an effrontery which is hard to credit and it just adds a further dimension to this evil," he added.

The president of the Executive Council of Australian Jews, Robert Goot, said the prime minister should reconsider the comparison.

"I think that there is no question that IS is a profoundly evil organisation, but having said that the prime minister's comments suggesting that it is in some ways worse that the Nazis, those comments were injudicious and unfortunate," Goot said.

"Whilst Islamic State perpetrate horrific deeds they cannot be compared to the systematic round up of millions of people and their dispatch to purpose-built death camps and their death by mass murder as an instrument of government policy. And that's what the Nazis did."

Goot also took issue with Abbott's suggestion that the Nazis were ashamed of the atrocities they committed.

"It had nothing to do with shame. They were shameless," he added.