Australian Protectionist Party officially endorses mass murder of asylum seekers… or does it?

For those who’ve come across the sea
We’ve boundless plains to share

In one of the more bizarre chapters in the annals of local far-right politicking, in late May Darrin Hodges and Nicholas Hunter-Folkes — two of the leading, Sydney-based members of the NSW branch of the ‘Australian Protectionist Party’ — declared on Facebook that they would be attempting to disrupt a gathering of people they described as ‘refugee lovers’ on World Refugee Day (Saturday, June 23). Bad enough, perhaps, that the pair and their handful of supporters might try to spoil an otherwise innocuous party. But Darrin and Nicholas decided to add further insult by declaring that, not only would they oppose attempts to welcome refugees to Australia, they would do so by organising a counter-rally, one which would publicly demand that the Australian government ‘Torpedo the boats’ upon which some asylum seekers have attempted to enter the country.

As well as possibly being contrary to state and federal laws regarding racial and religious vilification, this public demand for the mass murder of numerous men, women and children naturally attracted to the Facebook event page a range of quite sordid discussion regarding the allegedly sub-human characteristics of those seeking asylum in Australia, supplemented by dark mutterings regarding the traitorous elements deemed responsible for allowing some small fraction of refugees to find asylum on our shores. In the name of the APP, Darrin and Nicholas appealed to Facebook users to:

…come out in support of your future, your children’s future and your country and send the message to the refo huggers, Labor and the other socialist s-bend intellectuals, hand-wringers and assorted bed-wetters, that we don’t want their pets in our country:

TORPEDO THE BOATS!

Such brazen appeals to the murderous hatred some sociopaths feel for asylum seekers is rather disturbing if taken seriously, and so I was somewhat surprised to learn that Darrin and Nicholas claimed that the rally had actually been endorsed by their party. Oddly, the party’s official website [http://www.protectionist.net/], which is routinely used to publicise the party and its activities, contains no reference to the event. So I thought it would be wise to put it to the party via another mechanism: Twitter. The first response I received (June 9) denied that the party endorsed the rally:

@slackbastard 1. NOYB 2. Not an official APP event, but as if they mean that. Try torpedoing Gillard’s ridiculous policies.

— Aust. Protectionists (@AustProtParty) June 9, 2012

Perplexed — after all, both claims (the rally has been endorsed by the APP/the rally has not been endorsed by the APP) could not be correct — I again asked Darrin if the ‘Torpedo The Boats’ rally had received his party’s support, adding that I’d received a denial via the party’s Twitter account. Again, Darrin replied in the affirmative. And so I again put it to the party that somebody was lying. The response I received (June 13) again contradicted Darrin, the party denying any official endorsement.

@slackbastard 1. No, we don’t. 2. That’s our business. 3. Andrew Phillips does not tweet.

— Aust. Protectionists (@AustProtParty) June 13, 2012

Apart from having clarified the fact that, while APP National Chairman Andrew Phillips endorses the contents of a Twitter account he does not in fact read, the back-and-forth between the party and its two leading members suggests that the APP is in reality divided on the subject of the mass murder of asylum seekers. Further, that the possibility of anybody taking the party seriously is almost zero while it maintains such a bizarre and frankly psychotic public image. Finally, that while Darrin’s political career first came to the attention of the public via his participation in White supremacist forum Stormfront, it’s fitting that it should end, at least for the time being, in further appeals for political violence. Over six years ago, following the Cronulla riots, Joe Hildebrand (White supremacists casting a black cloud’, The Daily Telegraph, December 20, 2005) wrote:

Via a series of electronic footprints, anti-Nazi campaigner Mat Henderson-Hau has linked [Stormfront user] “Infidel” to Engadine local Darrin Hodges.

Hodges, who runs a website for a sex toy distributor, yesterday admitted to being a member of the racist Australia First Party but denied being a member of any white nationalist groups or a contributor to Stormfront.

His alleged alter ego is not so shy.

“Friends, today was an historic day, the day Australians stood up against state-imposed multiculturalism,” he wrote on the night of the Cronulla riots.

Accompanying his posting is a series of photographs he took at Cronulla that day, including one of a T-shirt emblazoned with the words “wog free zone” and another of a sign offering free sausages to the crowd, with “no tabouli”.

Infidel also speaks of footage he filmed on the day which Henderson-Hau believes was used in a video released over the weekend that glorifies a mob of rioters bashing various non-whites at Cronulla.

Posted on Saturday, it had been downloaded around 400 times by yesterday afternoon.

It follows an earlier video credited to “White Nationalist TV” and dubbed “The Battle For Cronulla”, which was released on the Stormfront website on the night of the riots and has since been downloaded 1700 times.

After several minutes of footage showing skinheads emblazoned with the iron cross and three-bladed swastika taking part in the Cronulla “gathering”, the video finishes with the words “Not white, not welcome in Cronulla”.

If there was any doubt as to what Infidel and his ilk stand for, consider one of his earlier posts on Stormfront in which he states: “I’m more interested in the purer form of fascism… and while I don’t subscribe to the whole ‘worship Hitler’ thing, his comments on multiculturalism and politics in general are still just as relevant today as they were 70-odd years ago.”

See also : Oh, Darrin! (2008 profile on Hodges by English blogger Denise G) | Your Mission Australia, if you choose to accept it, is: Torpedo the Boats! (June 6, 2012).