The Australia First Party (AFP), founded in 1996 by Graeme Campbell, was a registered party until it was delisted in 2022 by the Australian Electoral Commission for failing to have 1,500 members (it has been delisted and relisted before). The party preaches racial nationalism, wants to return to the racist immigration policies of the past, rejects any form of multiculturalism, and promotes economic protectionism. Its slogans are “The Only Truly Australian Party for All True Australians” and “Australia First.” Campbell left the party in 2001 to run on the One Nation ticket and James Saleam took over. Saleam was a member of the short-lived National Socialist Party of Australia as a teenager during the early 1970s and the founder of the militant Australian white supremacist group National Action. Saleam has served two jail terms, one for property offenses and fraud in 1984 and one for being an accessory before the fact in 1989 for his involvement in the shotgun attack on the home of African National Congress representative Eddie Funde. When running for various posts, Saleem’s platform pushed to reintroduce the White Australia policy and to oppose immigration from China.

Other party members have also been implicated in violence. In March 2019, Australia First member Nathan Sykes, described as a “prolific online troll and a lieutenant of Australia’s most prominent white supremacist Jim Saleam” was charged with at least eight offences, after allegations that he made repeated and detailed violent threats against Melbourne journalist and lawyer Luke McMahon. He had previously made numerous racist and intimidating online comments targeting other high-profile Australians, including an ex-Racial Discrimination Commissioner and a Guardian journalist, among others.

The party has connections to other racist organizations, and its main activities involve distributing racist and anti-immigrant pamphlets and engaging in protest. In 2009, it was reported that the Imperial Wizard of the KKK in Australia, David Palmer, claimed that several Klan members had joined the Australia First party, saying the Klan was “a reserve in case the ethnics get out of hand and they need sorting out.” Saleam denied this, saying, “ In 2014, the party aligned itself with the Australian chapter of Greece’s Golden Dawn and in 2016, via Twitter, the party endorsed former Klan Grand Wizard David Duke in his U.S. senate run. In the 2019 Australian federal election, the party put up three candidates: Susan Jakobi for Lalor, Peter Schubeck for Longman, and Michael Chehoff for Swan. No AFP member has ever won an election. The party has a very active website where news items are posted regularly. In June 2022, the site featured a video interview with the former leader of the racist British National Party, Nick Griffin, pro-Putin and Assad articles, posts about the ‘great reset,’ and attacks on Ukraine. It also includes videos with the likes of Jared Taylor, well-known American white supremacist. Its Twitter feed is filled with racist, anti-immigrant rhetoric.

Founded in 1995 by Pentecostal and Baptist ministers, the Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) is perhaps Australia’s most well-known anti-LGBTQ+ group, similar in many ways to American social conservative organizations such as the Family Research Council. Led by Martin Iles since 2018, with chapters in each state capital, ACL describes itself as “a grassroots movement made up of over 175,000 individuals who are seeking to bring a Christian influence to politics.” The ACL is actually a public company, and its funding mostly comes from individuals. Their headquarters, Eternity House, is a separate non-profit organization. ACL holds public events that feature high-ranking political figures, and its stage has been graced by several prime ministers. Its anti-LGBTQ+ positions have also been denounced by influential people. For example, in 2012, then Prime Minister Julia Gillard, cancelled a speech at the ACL’s annual conference after the organization’s managing director, Jim Wallace, argued that the health effects of homosexuality on individuals were worse than smoking. These types of controversies have long plagued ACL. That same year, Australian Greens leader, Christine Milne, said that the ACL’s “whole focus is to attack the gay community.” LGBTQ+ rights advocate Carl Katter has said that the aim of the group is to “facilitate and perpetuate hate.”

Among the issues ACL is opposed to are various LGBTQ+ rights including same-sex marriage, and prior to that civil unions, LGBTQ+ surrogacy and adoption rights, the existence of transgender people, and they have campaigned to allow religious schools to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. ACL views these issues as “rainbow ideology.” In 2016, the group complained about Queensland Police showing support for gay and transgender people by raising a rainbow flag over its headquarters. ACL has also opposed the Safe Schools program that encourages respect for LGBTQ+ students, arguing that  its funding should be pulled. ACL also believes conversion therapy for minors, should be allowed. ACL was a fervent supporter of a “religious freedom” bill that failed to pass in early 2022. During the legislative debate, ACL argued that removing exemptions that allowed schools to discriminate against transgender students “completely undermined” the bill. The legislation would have granted religious institutions that run schools, care facilities, and other social services, the right to discriminate against people who do not share their faith.

Much like American social conservative organizations, ACL has recently begun to attack the trans community, enlisting the aid of American anti-trans activist Walt Heyer, and subvert efforts to support medical treatment as well as an effort by Tasmania to ban conversion therapy. ACL established the Lachlan Macquarie Institute as a training organization for public policy advocates. ACL and the institute run a joint program, The Download, for young Christians living in a “post-Christian culture.” It provided seed-funding for the Human Rights Law Alliance, which says it works to protect freedoms ignored by the Australian Human Rights Commission including freedom of speech, religion, conscience, and association, and actively pursues policies and litigation that would restrict the rights of LGBTQ+ people. ACL has a YouTube channel where its videos are monetized.

The Australian League of Rights (ALOR) was formed in 1960 by a merger of various Leagues of Rights organizations based in the Australian states. The League describes itself as Christian and anti-communist.  ALOR pushes the fringe  economic idea of “social credit,” is opposed to Australian republicanism, and argues that Australia must be more tightly tied to Great Britain. Their website rages against Aboriginal rights, claiming that there is a plan to create a “black state.” The website is also filled with conspiracy materials ranting against the Bilderbergers, the radical left, anti-vaccine disinformation, and claiming that the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, USA, was a false flag operation to help advance gun control. The League’s founder Eric Butler died in 2006 at the age of 90. Members of ALOR have a history of Holocaust denial and the group has supported Holocaust denier David Irving. Many believe that the world is run by a secret society of Jews and its members have said that “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” is a genuine Jewish document (it is a forgery). According to the Slack Bastard, the group used to have a bookshop in Melbourne.

The Australian Natives Association (ANA), run by Matthew Grant, claims on its website to be a revived version of a more than 150-year-old racist and male-only organization that represents European-descendant Australians. The group prizes self-help and building community among its members. This involves regular dinners, social gatherings, hikes, and road trips. The group’s charter of principles makes clear its racism, white nationalism, and accountability for the “leadership of their wives.”

It says ANA exists for: “the cultivation of an Australian sentiment based on the maintenance of European-descent ethnic homogeneity;” “the development in Australia of a self-reliant ethnocentric community existing in parallel to preexisting institutions;” and “the promotion in Australia of patriarchal family order.” ANA has also written about how members feel “atomized in an ocean of migrants and rootless ‘globetrotters.’” It claims it is leading its people “down the road to cultural renewal.” ANA held a convention in April 2022 that appeared to have a few dozen participants. They also have created their own, though very small, Australian Wikipedia.

Founded in 2011 by a breakaway faction of the Australia First Party (AFP), the Australian Protectionist Party (APP) is a minor far-right, anti-immigrant party that advocates for protectionism and white nationalism. It was first registered as an official party in 2011, but lost that status in 2015 after failing to file an official notice. Its slogan is “to protect, preserve and defend our identity, heritage, and freedoms.” APP has a long history of protesting against the presence of asylum seekers and Muslims and has also held several protests against Shariah Law’s application in Australia, which are essentially anti-Muslim protests. A January 2022 post about those protesting Australia Day, raged, “Whether it’s the anti-Australian Multiculturalists, Third Worlders, Islamicists, or the destructive and misguided “do-gooders,” there’s always someone out to destroy the heritage of our nation, usually helped along by the traitorous Cultural Marxists and Multiculturalists in the media.” The party is blatantly white nationalist, “Our nation is built upon its people, its culture, its history, and its heritage — but the foundations of the House of Australia are being eaten away by the anti-Australian termites who infest our country.” Echoing the white supremacist “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory, the party writes, “Our people are being replaced and displaced by Third World immigration; our culture is being undermined and destroyed by the pernicious political ideology of Multiculturalism.”

In June 2016, APP in Western Australia hosted a public speaking event in Perth featuring Graeme Campbell, whom APP described as “the Father of modern Australian nationalism.” Campbell founded the Australia First Party and has a long record of racist activism. In October 2016, the Australian Protectionist Party joined with the AFP, Nationalist Alternative, Eureka Youth League, and Hellenic Nationalists of Australia to form the Australian Coalition of Nationalists (ACN), which now appears to be defunct. The APP hailed the election of Donald Trump, claiming it “ushered in a new era.” The group still has a Facebook account but no posts since 2021, and it lost its Twitter account. Its Gab account is filled with controversial material, including conspiracies about the Great Reset and a coming One World Government.

Founded by Raymond Foster, AKA “Nacherel Jesus,” the Australian Vanguard (TAV) appears to be mostly a one-man band. Foster, who ran for senate in 2019, has pushed a host of extremist ideas, particularly antisemitic ones. He has argued on social media that Jews are evil, that a Great Shoah is near, and that Jews should be expelled from Australia. He also believes in the antisemitic “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory, a white supremacist tenet that white people are being replaced by people of color and immigrants in their “home” countries, and wants to expel all non-whites from Australia, excepting the Aboriginal population. He has called for killing Jews and members of the LGBTQ+ population, praised Hitler, and distributed posters fomenting these hateful views. Although he has lost most of his social media accounts, his senate candidate for Queensland page remains live on YouTube as does his personal page on Facebook. The latter is filled with comments complaining about anti-white activism, reminders to remember one’s white roots, and advocating for the protection of Western kind. He also produces hip-hop style videos filled with hateful attacks on people of color and Jews, which have been pulled down from YouTube.

In 2018, the anti-marriage equality lobby group, Marriage Alliance, rebranded as Binary Australia (BA) in preparation for its fight against rights and equality for transgender, gender diverse, and intersex Australians. In 2017, during the country’s plebiscite on same-sex marriage, BA’s head Kirralie Smith repeated the false idea that this change a redefinition of marriage could lead to legalizing such things as pedophilia. Smith warned her supporters: “It is a socialist Marxist agenda to destroy the family… there are several examples from overseas where same-sex marriage has been legalised and now the push is on for polygamy and other distortions to marriage and family.” Smith’s twitter account bio reads, “Islam/Sharia critic.” BA’s website describes it as being “concerned with the role that gender plays in our society. We affirm the fact that gender is binary. Male and female.” BA is actually a registered company, Gender Awareness Australia, Ltd., and the pet project of Smith, who ran Marriage Alliance and has been an occasional candidate for office. In 2018, BA’s site said, “Our organisation aims to promote and celebrate the inherent differences between boys and girls, men and women…We uphold the biological assertion that there are two complementary genders.”

Its aim is to “challenge the aggressive agenda to de-gender our society in the areas of education, health, military, business, politics, and the law” and to “protect our children from those who would seek to indoctrinate them with programs designed to promote the LGBTI agenda while bullying anyone who opposes it.” BA is aggressively anti-transgender, and produces materials attacking the trans community, most recently information for parents. Smith claims its educational packet, “equips parents with knowledge of their parental rights and how to keep their child safe against radical transgender indoctrination.” She told a Sydney paper, “Barely a day goes by when we don’t hear from another parent concerned about what their child is being exposed to at school; transgender speakers, de-gendering language, pronoun police, explicit sex education programs and inappropriate library books.” When the state of Victoria began its debate on an legislative ban of conversion therapy, Binary Australia criticized the bill, Smith calling it “outrageously bigoted” because of its protections for transgender people from the therapy. “Politicians have condemned vulnerable sufferers to a life of daily medications, possible sterilization and infertility and mutilation via surgery of perfectly healthy body parts,” Smith said. “Every politician who has voted for this bill has … usurped parental rights and put children in danger.” BA appears well attuned to the anti-LGBTQ+ movement in the U.S. Its recent posts have attacked Drag Queen story hours for children, trans athletes and puberty blockers—all popular causes right now on the American far-right.

The European Australia Movement (EAM) is led by Thomas Sewell, a neo-Nazi who has helped form a series of extremist groups including most recently the National Socialist Network (NSN), which EAM often works with. Sewell is one of Australia’s best known white supremacists, though he is New Zealand born. In 2017 Sewell attempted to recruit the perpetrator of the 2019 Christchurch mosque shootings into the Lads Society. In May 2021, Sewell was arrested by counterterrorism police in Melbourne, and faces charges over involvement in an alleged armed and violent robbery in Victoria. He is also facing charges of assault in connection to the beating of a guard at a television network in March 2021.

EAM says it aims to build “a physical and politicised White Australian Community” and its mission is, “The preservation and advancement of White People in Australia.” Its slogan comes from the Nazi regime: “Blood and Honour!” EAM claims it is creating a network of “White Australians across every city, suburb and town who are against the systematic replacement and destruction of White Australians.” For the most part, EAM engages in public stunts, such as a June 2022 unfurling of the group’s extremist banner while members Sieg Heiled in front of children in a park near Sydney. Sewell has long engaged in these stunts, including Nazi protests and a cross burning. In April 2022, he duped a Bavarian beer hall in Docklands into holding a birthday party for Adolf Hitler. In that incident he held up a photo of Hitler while other members at the table performed Nazi salutes. EAM has a presence on fringe social media platforms including the Russian platform VK and Telegram, where the group had 2,225 subscribers in June 2022. Its messaging is overtly neo-Nazi, claiming “the Australian ZOG [Zionist Occupied Government] and mainstream media establishment work together to install fear and division in the Australian people.” The group has worked with the Australian Proud Boys Borderlands chapter and networked with the European neo-Nazi group, Nordic Resistance Movement.

Run by Kim Vuga, the Love Australia or Leave Party (LALP) is a hardline anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim political party that wants a sharp reduction in immigrants, a ban on all Muslims, decertification of Halal designations, and looser gun regulations. It was founded in 2016 after Vuga appeared in a 2015 television documentary called “Go Back to Where You Came From,” which sought to expose ordinary Australians to the situations faced by refugees and asylum seekers. The party is particularly Islamophobic. It also is against multiculturalism, policies to combat climate change, the UN, and a grab bag of other perceived bogeymen. The party seems to consist mostly of Vuga, who uses social media to spread anti-pandemic conspiracies, attack world leaders for siding with Islamists, and post articles about Islamic-inspired terrorist attacks. An image on the website reads, “Islam is Pure Evil.” The party has run candidates in multiple elections, including for posts in the 2019 federal elections in Queensland, New South Wales, and Tasmania, but has failed to win any seats. It was delisted in 2022 for failing to meet the requirement of having 1,500 members.

Golden Dawn Australia (GDA), established in 2012 in Melbourne, is the Australian chapter of the Greek far-right political party Golden Dawn (GD). Its main activities are to support Greeks in Greece through its Australian activities, stand in solidarity with GD, and raise awareness of the organization among Greek expats in Australia. They consider themselves Hellenic nationalists. The Golden Dawn political program is anti-immigrant, racist, and fascist, and the Greek version has worked with many extremists internationally including the German National Democratic Party and the American neo-Nazi National Alliance. Golden Dawn Australia shares it’s political program with the Greek branch of Golden Dawn. GDA is mostly focused on supporting Greeks in their home country by sending financial and other resources back to Greece, and its website speaks at length about the evils of international banks, the political elite, and Greece’s traditional enemy, Turkey. But it is also motivated by white supremacy, taking aim at non-white immigrants in Greece, particularly Turks, as having “invaded” Greece and brought with them “diseases,” crime and terrorism.

After taking nearly 12 percent of the Greek vote in 2013, Golden Dawn sent a retinue to Australia in 2014 to travel the country and evangelize for its efforts in Greek immigrant communities. Their visit was met with protests by trade unions. After some success in Greek elections, the leadership there were given long prison sentences in 2020 for involvement in violent attacks on opponents, leading to the group’s near collapse. Regardless, the Australian branch has continued to leaflet and protest, often joining with like-minded organizations including the Australia First Party (AFP) and other nationalist groups working with expats such as the Serbian Chetniks and Russian Cossacks. These activities often take place in and around Sydney, and GDA continues to have some support among Greek communities. It also appears to have abandoned its attempt to form a political coalition with the AFP, and most of its political energy is directed at assisting fascist organizing back home. Not everyone in Australia’s white supremacist scene welcomed GDA, and members of the neo-Nazi skinhead Crew 38 made a flier saying, “filthy Greek immigrants go back to your filthy country.” Many in the Australian Greek community also were dismayed by the rise of the group.

The LGB Alliance Australia (LGBAA) is an offshoot of the UK LGB Alliance (LGBA), which has chapters in multiple countries. LGBA, the parent organization of LGBAA, describes its objective as “asserting the right of lesbians, bisexuals and gay men to define themselves as same-sex attracted,” and states that such a right is threatened by “attempts to introduce confusion between biological sex and the notion of gender.” LGBA officials have argued that lesbians are in danger of extinction due to a disproportionate focus on transgender issues in schools. They’ve claimed that lesbians are “going” as individuals increasingly identify as transgender, a fear echoed both by trans-exclusionary groups and by some lesbian feminists. The group is particularly supportive of the prohibition on allowing transgender athletes to compete as women. In August 2021, the UK Charity Commission announced that it would be engaging with the LGB Alliance trustees after the Alliance posted a Tweet stating that “adding the + to LGB gives the green light to paraphilias like bestiality – and more – to all be part of one big happy ‘rainbow family,’” a post which was removed by Twitter for violating the platform’s rules. In November 2021, British MP John Nicolson said that the speaker of the House of Commons had referred “abuse and obsessive behavior” from LGBA to security. LGBA ran a fundraising campaign saying, “make a donation to us IN HIS [Nicholson’s] NAME and we will tweet out your message,” subsequently tweeting a number of statements attacking Nicolson, including ones that called him a “rape-enabling politician.” The fundraiser was removed from the JustGiving and GoFundMe crowdfunding platforms for violating their rules. In general, LGBA and its international chapters oppose gender-identity education in schools, medical transition for children reporting gender dysphoria, and gender recognition reform. The group was described by the Labour Campaign for Trans Rights as transphobic in a statement signed by a number of Labour members of parliament. This group was key to the decision by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to exempt the transgender community from the UK’s recent legislation to ban conversion therapy, something LGBA vocally opposes. They view the trans community as a threat to the LGB community and argue that “biological sex is observed in the womb and/or at birth and is not assigned. In our view, current gender ideologies are pseudo scientific and present a threat to people whose sexual orientation is towards the same sex, in the case of bisexuals, to both sexes.

In addition, we believe that these ideologies are confusing and dangerous to children. We recognise that sex is binary, female and male, and that (for the vast majority of people) sex is determined at conception, observed at birth (or in utero), and recorded. We reject the co-opting of rare medical Differences in Sexual Development (DSDs/intersex conditions) in order to cast doubt on the binary nature of sex.” LGBAA follows the same advocacy as its UK namesake. LGBAA is particularly concerned in having transgender people portrayed as women. For example, LGAA wrote the Australian Broadcasting Company (ABC) to complain about the program “You Can’t Ask That,” which focused on lesbians, having “a male who calls himself “Rosie.” Rosie is clearly male and talks about his penis and using his penis as a “lesbian.” As lesbians, we are highly offended by the assertion that a male can be a lesbian or that lesbians should include males in our communities and our dating pools. We were also appalled that a bisexual woman (i.e. a woman attracted to both males and females) was included in an episode about lesbians… Lesbians are, by definition, females who are exclusively attracted to other females i.e. same-sex attracted women.” In recent debates about banning conversion therapy in Australia, LGBAA was outspoken against protecting the trans population from these efforts, believing that to be a separate issue. In a submission to parliament in opposition to a proposed ban in Victoria, LGBAA rejected the law as an “unasked for, unnecessary, deceptive bill.” The group added, “This bill violates democratic principles of inclusion and diversity in the creation of this bill and the ‘urgent’ rush for it to be rammed through into legislation unasked for by the Victorian people…Only one perspective, a gender ideology perspective, was put forward by a LGBTQIA+ organization as the primary input into the bill’s creation.” Holly Lawford-Smith, a political philosophy lecturer at the University of Melbourne and a regular contributor to the LGB Alliance Australia YouTube channel and who believes conversion therapy for transgender kids will “ensure minors don’t make mistakes they may regret deeply as adults,” has been banned from both Twitter and Medium for “hateful conduct.”

The group has helped efforts to exclude trans people from certain events. In 2021, LGB Alliance supporter Jessica Hoyle brought a test application for an exemption from the Tasmanian Anti-Discrimination commissioner to hold some single-sex events that would ban trans women. LGBAA reportedly helped Hoyle file the application. The commissioner, Sarah Bolt, wrote in a July 2021 letter to LGB Alliance Australia: “The exemption application made by LGB Alliance seeks to go further than asking a person’s sexual orientation by requiring people to provide intimate information about their body to gain access to the proposed events, as attendance will be limited to people who are not ‘biological men’…I do not see how this can be done without intrusive questioning and completely undermining a person’s right to privacy,” Bolt said, adding that doing so would be “offensive, humiliating, intimidating, insulting and ridiculing” and amount to “sexual harassment.” The state’s anti-discrimination commission ruled lesbian events that exclude trans-women carry a “significant risk” of being illegal. Hoyle is taking the case to the High Court. Equality Tasmania, which works to protect LGBTQ rights, warned that if the court rules in Hoyle’s favor it could throw LGBTQ+ rights into jeopardy. “If Ms Hoyle succeeds it would set a dangerous precedent that would disadvantage not just LGBTIQA+ Tasmanians but all Tasmanians at risk of discrimination,” said the advocacy group’s spokesperson, Dr. Lucy Mapstone.

It is unclear if National Alternative is still functioning, but the group was active at least until the end of 2021. Founded in 2014 and closely related to Reclaim Australia, which is now defunct, the group spreads white nationalist messaging mostly online. A typical position is that “Our struggle is not to safeguard the state, but to safeguard the nation.” They have advocated for the idea of white genocide, that “liberal Jews” are destroying the white race, and that Australia is a white country. According to the Slack Bastard, Nationalist Alternative “is one of the more enduring fixtures on the far right,” and has produced several notable far-right figures, including Blair Cottrell, Thomas Sewell, and others. The group is led by Mark Hootsen, who was also a member of the Lads Society. Hootsen was also at one point a moderator on “Stormfront Downunder,” the Australian section of the Florida U.S,-based first hate site on the web. In October 2016, the Australia First Party joined with the Australian Protectionist Party, Nationalist Alternative, Eureka Youth League, and Hellenic Nationalists of Australia to form the Australian Coalition of Nationalists, as a framework for cooperation between these entities. The Coalition has a website, but it also appears to be defunct.

The National Socialist Network (NSN), founded in late 2019 or early 2020, is the most prominent neo-Nazi group in Australia. NSN is Melbourne-based and active in several cities, reportedly in 2021 having 12,000 supporters online. On its website, NSN says it sees itself as “a revolutionary movement” that fights for a “White Australia.” They openly declare that “we are racists” and oppose what they call “the non-White invasion of this continent.” They assert that “the rightwing is inundated with cowards and traitors,” and declare their loyalty “to National Socialism and nothing else.” Pictures of Hitler and attacks on Jews are common within the group, which also recruits from other neo-Nazi groups including Combat-18. NSN was formed by members from some of Australia’s most active, but now defunct, white supremacist groups, the Lads Society and the Antipodean Resistance. It was the brainchild of longtime neo-Nazi and Lads founder Thomas Sewell, perhaps the most well-known Australian neo-Nazi and an ex-army soldier. Sewell, who was born in New Zealand, has said, “I decided that the Lads Society mode had some great ideas to it, but it was not strong enough or explicit enough … it tried to create a ‘broad tent’ approach instead of forming a strong cadre of men who would create the stem cell of our future leadership of White Australians.” Sewell is also mentioned in the New Zealand Royal Commission report into the Christchurch terror attacks, with investigators concluding that Australian terrorist mass murderer Brenton Tarrant was an online follower and contributor to the United Patriots, a now defunct neo-Nazi group Sewell had been involved in, and that Sewell had later contacted Tarrant and invited him to join The Lads Society. Tarrant, an online member, declined Sewell’s offer so he could pursue his New Zealand plot.

The amount of hatred spewed by the NSN is astounding. They have described Indigenous Australians as “subhuman and monkeys,” and traded in antisemitism and racism. One of their more notable protests involved about 40 young white men who paraded Nazi symbolism and shouted offensive slogans in the Grampians region over the Australia Day weekend in January 2021. In March 2021, Victoria Police’s counter terrorism command charged Sewell with affray, recklessly causing injury, and unlawful assault after he allegedly punched a security guard working at a television station. The assault took place prior to the broadcast of an A Current Affair report about Sewell’s organization. In May 2021, Sewell was arrested again by counter-terrorism police for an alleged armed robbery in Taggerty. In 2021, the celebrated TV report of right-wing extremism in Australia by The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, and 60 Minutes identified 24 members of NSN, including some with gun and security licenses and others working for the government. The reporting was largely based on the work of a source who infiltrated the neo-Nazi group. For the most part, NSN has been involved in protests, stunts, and propaganda distribution, as well as fight training. But the group celebrated the violence on January 6 during the U.S. Capitol insurrection. On January 7, 2021, a post on an NSN social media account hailed the “brave white men in Washington DC” who, the group wrote, “have lit a flame that will never go out…The enemy’s spell has been broken forever … those Jews and traitor politicians who had crowed so loudly about confronting White supremacy and racism ran and hid in the basement like the rats they are!” The post was accompanied by a photo of a sticker reading, “white revolution is the only solution.” It had been placed at Commonwealth Place in Canberra, only a short walk away from Australia’s federal parliament. There have been repeated calls by public figures to proscribe NSN. Sewell praised US shooter Kyle Rittenhouse as a “hero”, and encouraged his followers to “destroy multiculturalism”, “faggotry” and the “Jewish empire of evil”.

One Nation Party (PHON) is mostly known for its anti-immigrant leader, Pauline Hanson. It was founded in 1997 by Hanson, David Ettridge, and David Oldfield after the Liberal Party removed its endorsement from Hanson in the 1996 federal election. They dropped Hanson, who remained an MP, after she made disparaging remarks about Indigenous Australians in a letter published in the Queensland Times. It read, “How can we expect this race to help themselves when governments shower them with money, facilities and opportunities that only these people can obtain no matter how minute the Indigenous [sic] blood is that flows through their veins and that is what is causing racism.” After a series of scandals Hanson left and then rejoined PHON in 2016. In 2017, Hanson arrived at the senate dressed in a burka and demanding this type of clothing be banned. The following year party members tried to pass a senate motion endorsing the white supremacist slogan, “it’s ok to be white.” Arguing that other political parties are out of touch with mainstream Australia, One Nation runs on a broadly populist and protectionist platform and is against globalization. It promises to drastically reduce immigration and to abolish “divisive and discriminatory policies … attached to Aboriginal and multicultural affairs.” PHON rejects multiculturalism as a “threat to the very basis of the Australian culture, identity and shared values,” and argues that past government policies in regards to immigration were causing “the Asianisation of Australia.”

Its slogan on Facebook, where it had more than 100k followers in June 2022, is “We’ve Got the Guts to Say What You’re Thinking.” Regardless of its extremism, the party is still popular in parts of the country, with an MP in Queensland and four senators until 2022, two in New South Wales and two in Western Australia (Hanson was reelected in 2022 along with another PHON senator, but the two others were not, reducing their power in that body). The senators had worked to block efforts on climate change, which PHON senators have called a scam and a plot by the UN, and other progressive issues. During the pandemic, the party was against lockdowns and spread misinformation about vaccines and continues to regularly attack the WHO’s efforts in the pandemic in its social media posts.

This is the official Australian branch of the American-based Proud Boys (PB), a white nationalist and misogynistic group founded by Canadian Gavin McInnes in 2016. They believe western culture in general and white men in particular are under siege from political correctness, Islam, and feminism. The group’s rhetoric touches on men’s rights activism, racism, libertarianism, and the white supremacist “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory. Canada banned the group in 2021 after several of its members were charged for involvement in the American January 6, 2021 Capitol insurrection. The Proud Boys stage frequent rallies in the U.S. that often descend into violent street riots where members openly brawl with counter protesters. Many members have been incarcerated over the years for various forms of violence, and some of its leadership, including PB head Enrique Tarrio, are charged with seditionist conspiracy over their involvement in the January 6 Capitol insurrection. It is unclear how large the Australian contingent is, but their activities are similar to those of the home branch, including protesting, recruitment, and leaf-letting. In a sign of the Australian branch’s importance to the group overall, McInnes attempted to launch a tour of Australia in 2018 but was denied a visa for “bad character.” In 2021, PBA members threatened businesses and critics by protesting at their homes in the Albury-Wondonga area, on the New South Wales-Victoria border. In videos, the then-head of the borderlands Proud Boys group, Jarrad Searby, who left the group in May 2021, and a group of followers filmed themselves arriving at a car dealership in Wodonga searching for their critics. Searby, who describes himself as a “philanthropist and entrepreneur,” ran a mixed martial arts gym in the Albury-Wodonga area. Searby was filmed in 2021 talking to an infiltrator working deep inside the neo-Nazi National Socialist Network (NSN). The infiltrator said PBA had been set up as a front to funnel young men through martial arts training, then through “anti-white guilt” conditioning and on to full-fledged neo-Nazism.

The secret recordings obtained by The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and “60 Minutes” showed that NSN operated a cult like breeding ground for extremism, and, once in, recruits become part of a linked network of domestic and international groups considered by counterterrorism authorities to be far more dangerous than the Proud Boys. Searby was introduced to the mole by Tom Sewell, founder of the National Socialist Network. By late April 2021, Searby had agreed to start training neo-Nazis, travelling to Melbourne to teach MMA to National Socialist Network recruits. Like other far-right groups that have co-opted the pandemic for their own agenda and recruitment, the Proud Boys Australia were also prominent in anti-lockdown and anti-vaxx movements, where PBA sought people trained in combat to help confront police during anti-lockdown protests in Melbourne in 2020. Many of PBA’s social media posts speak of the “globalist agenda” to force vaccinations on people. In 2021, several men wearing the Proud Boys logo on their clothing took part in rallies protesting the cancellation of the official Australia Day parade. One clashed with protesters and was briefly detained by police. In November 2021, members of PBA were seen among the crowds at Sydney’s Freedom Rally. That year, the Labor Party pushed the Australia governing coalition to proscribe the Proud Boys just as Canada had done after the January 6 insurrection. Now that the party is in power, it remains to be seen if they will take that action.

Founded in 2010, the Rise Up Australia Party, renamed to Rise Up Australia (RUA) in 2019 after being delisted as a political party, is a far-right, Christian organization whose slogan is “Keep Australia Australian” and which advertises itself as “The Christian Conservative Patriotic Voice.” The party was founded and is led by Pentecostal minister Danny Nalliah, who is originally from Sri Lanka but has also spent time living and working in Saudi Arabia with his wife and children. In 2004, he campaigned for a senate seat on the Family First Party slate. He didn’t win, but his candidacy caused considerable controversy when National Party Senate candidate Barnaby Joyce launched an attack on Family First and highlighted a quote from one of Nalliah’s brochures that asked parishioners to pray that God would pull down “Satan’s strongholds,” including brothels and casinos, but also religious institutions including mosques and temples. Joyce used Nalliah’s derogatory statements about minority groups to denounce deals with Family First. Nalliah left the party after the incident.

At the same time, Nalliah argued that the discovery of an adolescent “satanist” black mass site in Canberra meant the federal government was under attack. He blamed witchcraft, pro-choice laws, and pro-LGBTQ+ policies as the “reason” behind an apparent spate of parliamentary marriage crises. The group’s policies are nationalist—protect Australian customs and way of life—and Christian fundamentalist. Its website rails against the possibility of Sharia law being imposed in Australia and pushes Nalliah’s book, “The 21^st Century Culture War in the West,” which attacks Islam. It is opposed to Islam in Australia and opposes same-sex marriage. In a 2011 interview with Out in Perth, Nalliah stated that gay people can be made straight through education and through Christ. “As a political party, while we love the homosexual community and want to get to know them better, we also have a stand where we say, children need to be protected. We would love to see every man and woman come together, there’s a time in life when you do things, and maybe you feel yes you are locked into an agenda… [our position] is that homosexuality is not OK.” He also said that “Children should not be exposed to [public displays of homosexual affection] and other practices that go beyond morality.” The party opposes multiculturalism, which it claims leads to “ethnic enclaves that create parallel societies… An example of this is in parts of some European cities in England and France where Muslim extremists have set up ‘no-go’ zones for non-Islamists under the real threat of violence.” The group wants to preserve Australia’s “Judeo-Christian heritage” and has called for cuts to Muslim immigration. During the pandemic, the group also agitated against lockdown measures. In June 2022, it celebrated the overturning of Roe v. Wade in the United States.

The SA Mens Health Club is a small group of neo-Nazis that only came to light after two of its members were arrested in June 2022, one pleading guilty to possessing extremist materials and weapons charges. The group was led by Cameron Brodie-Hall who is now in prison. Up to that point, the group described itself as a fitness group and engaged in community activities, including hikes and beach clean ups. The arrests revealed that a small cell of neo-Nazis was active in the area.

The Society of Western Australian Nationalists (SWAN) is a regional breakaway from the defunct Lads Society. The Perth-based extremist group was started by ex-Liberal party campaign worker David Donis, an associate of neo-Nazi Tomas Sewell. Donis claims SWAN is not a neo-Nazi organization, but his group includes militant neo-Nazis of interest to law enforcement. Police raids in 2021 targeted SWAN member Matthew Golos. Police said they launched the raids against SWAN members because “some individuals were agitating for the group to transition to a more aggressive posture.” During the raids, they found that Golos was acting on behalf of The Base, a now proscribed neo-Nazi group, to recruit young men to their cause. During a vetting call with Golos and The Base’s American leaders in November 2019, one of Golos’ Base recruits said he got “enjoyment watching … [terrorist Brenton] Tarrant do his thing.” The recruit also told Golos he wanted to help “build a group of networked survivalists across the country with access to firearms, legal access to firearms, so there’s no questions asked by the alphabets [the AFP and ASIO].” This recruit was one of at least five Australians who Golos helped The Base recruit in 2019 and 2020.

The True Blue Crew (TBC) is a white nationalist organization that emerged in 2015 at a series of anti-Muslim protests reportedly led by Kane Miller. Beginning in 2014, members of what would become the True Blue Crew were involved in the “Voices of Bendigo” and “Stop the Mosque” Bendigo protests that opposed the establishment of an Islamic community center in Victoria. Various far-right groups, including Reclaim Australia, the Australian Defence League, and others were also involved. TBC was created by former members of Reclaim Australia and other far-right organizations. Over time, their focus mostly shifted to immigrants in general. Members have been arrested with weapons and on terrorism-related charges, and it has been described as a group “committed to violence.” In May 2016, the group attended an anti-mosque protest of about 150 in Melton along with members of the United Patriots Front (UPF), opposing a housing development which they falsely claimed was being built for Muslims only. In January 2018, United Patriots Front and True Blue Crew members were reported by a local news station to be attempting to arrange vigilante patrols to monitor black people, whom they claimed were engaging in crime and violence. TBC has also held events with the Australian Proud Boys. During the pandemic, the group took up anti-vaxx and anti-lockdown positions. Phillip Galea, a fixture at rallies organized by the True Blue Crew, was charged in 2016 with planning a terror attack.

In 2020, Galea, a member of Reclaim Australia and the True Blue Crew, was found guilty of preparing for a terrorist act and making a document likely to facilitate a terrorist act. His conviction stemmed from planned bombings of the Victorian Trades Hall and other left-wing organizations in Melbourne. It was the first time Australia’s federal terrorism laws had been used to target far-right activities. In the wake of the Christchurch mosque shootings in March 2019, it emerged that the shooter had three years earlier praised Blair Cottrell, leader of the United Patriots Front, on the now deleted UPF and TBC Facebook pages, singling out Cottrell for praise. UPF was banned from Facebook after posting Islamophobic messages in the wake of the Christchurch massacre. Members of TBC have been linked to One Nation candidate Nikhil Reddy, with members of both groups volunteering for one another.

Apparently launched in April 2020 according to its Facebook page, White Wellbeing Australia (WWA) describes itself as an  “alternative and holistic health service” on the platform. WWA actually is a white nationalist group that fearmongers about the erasure of white children, spreading the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory along with other bigoted and hateful materials. For example, on March 12, 2021, WWA ran a piece that said, “This is not a joke. Your enemy is promoting black people as the ultimate partner for your children. The enemy does not fight you directly. It just wants to eliminate your race by targeting your children.” WWA also links to YouTube videos by Mark Collett, a British neo-Nazi who used to head the Young BNP, the youth chapter of the racist British National Party.

Collett has a number of ties to the American white supremacist scene. How the group has held onto its Facebook page, which has nearly 500 followers, for so long is unclear, as the group caused the company a PR headache in July 2020 when Facebook was found to be running its ads on the same day that the company released its first civil rights audit and just after then-Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg wrote on her personal page that the company “stands firmly against hate.” For four days, Facebook ran the ads until they were disclosed in press articles. WWA reacted strongly to its ad being taken down. On the Australian white nationalist XYZ blog, the group wrote, “This is an outrageous abuse of Globalist Corporate money power. This proves that the war on whites is a global war.” WWA hasn’t posted since November 2021, though it is listed on Australian websites as having an office in Cairns.