Australia First, refugees… last?

Props to Australia First Party members in Adelaide for getting some media attention by jumping on the increasingly-crowded anti-refugee bandwagon. A previous stunt in August — when some Queensland members joined a Mission Australia protest — also drew some attention. (Sadly, a promise to protest at the inquiry into Tyler Cassidy’s shooting failed to materialise.) On a slightly confusing note, Daniel Wills (Extremists warn of immigrant ‘invasion’, The Advertiser, November 17, 2010) writes:

The party is registered in New South Wales, where it contested the 2007 state election and 2010 federal election.

Re-elected Prospect councillor Bruce Preece left the party more than a decade ago after it lurched toward the extreme right after an internal power struggle.

In reality, the party is registered in both NSW and Federally, and has, in one form or another, been contesting elections — local, state and federal — since its inception in 1996. The party split several years ago between an inactive rump in rural Victoria, the NSW-based party with Dr James Saleam as its leader, and the group which soon thereafter formed the rival ‘Australian Protectionist Party’.

As for Bruce Preece, in another article examining claims of bullying, Brittany Dupree (Serial bullying claims, City North Messenger, November 9, 2010) writes:

In 2006, the then Standard Messenger reported Cr Preece was a member of the reputedly white supremacist Australia First Party (AFP) when elected that year.

He resigned from the party five days after the election after telling the newspaper a month earlier he was vehemently opposed to “bringing party politics into local government”.

Saleam himself can be found posting on “reputedly” white supremacist website Stormfront (founded by convicted terrorist and former Ku Klux Klown Don Black) as ‘radnat’, and unlike most other leaders of Australian political parties, has criminal convictions for violence (organising a shotgun assault upon the home of the ANC representative to Australasia) and fraud.

About @ndy

I live in Melbourne, Australia. I like anarchy. I don't like nazis. I enjoy eating pizza and drinking beer. I barrack for the greatest football team on Earth: Collingwood Magpies. The 2024 premiership's a cakewalk for the good old Collingwood.
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