aw geez
I last updated this guide in July 2020. At the time, I declared 40 different groups and projekts — holdovers from April 2019 — effectively defunct, though it should be admitted that at least one of these — the blog/Facebook page ‘Australian Protectionist Party’ (AKA Taswegian Andrew Phillips) — continues its zombie shuffle, and while the racist dogs of ‘The Convict Report’ were put down following nazi shenanigans inside the NSW Young Nationals, happily, the podcast has been replaced with another, ‘The Racer’s War on Everything’ (sponsored by YouTube).
Curiously, while The Dingoes starred George Christensen and Mark Latham, The Racers can boast an interview with The Syrian Girl AKA Maram Susli, ‘the Damascus regime’s biggest fangirl on social media—at least in English language social media’.
Recent changes to the rules governing party registration (via the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Party Registration Integrity) Act 2021) require that, inter alia, political parties without parliamentary seats must treble their membership lists from 500 to 1,500 to remain officially registered. This may endanger the registration of Jim Saleam’s ‘Australia First Party’ and Kim Vuga’s ‘Love Australia Or Leave’ party. And while ‘Yellow Vest Australia’ (YVA, née ‘Australian Liberty Alliance’ or ALA) was de-registered in September 2020, its Facebook properties have simply re-branded as Canadian propagandist network ‘Rebel News’ and redeployed to boost the career of convicted spousal abuser and serial pest Avi Yemini.
In general, while the milieu/gutter/swamp out of which Reclaim et. al. emerged in 2015 has remained a pool of glistening, principally online talent, its membership has evolved, with some leading elements embracing neo-Nazism and explicit White supremacist doctrines. Others — especially following the collapse of ALA/YVA, Cory Bernardi’s Conservatives and Fraser Anning’s Conservative National Party (CNP) — have returned to the PHONy and Tory fold. For a useful summary of some critical aspects of this (d)evolution, see : The Rise of the Fascist Cadre: Shifts in Far-Right Organising in Australia, C-REX – Center for Research on Extremism, May 18, 2021:
Jordan McSwiney examines the state of the far right in Australia today, tracing its evolution through three recent phases of organising. Beginning with a series of protest mobilisations and followed by a period of electoral growth, the Australian far right is today increasingly coalescing around more extreme and potentially terroristic neo-Nazi cells, raising significant concerns for Australian security.
In terms of media and propaganda, while The Unshackled and XYZ blogs, among numerous other right-wing propaganda outlets, continue to generate a smol number of clicks, the decision by NewsCorpse management to make Sky News Australia an Antipodean Fox News has to some extent eclipsed their appeal among local racists. On the other hand, just as Sky (and NewsCorpse properties generally) shift further to the right, political activists and propagandists on the fringes are blessed with opportunities to assume increasingly ‘extreme’ positions.
Of course, the other critical development affecting the far-right in Australia is the COVID pandemic. Oodles has been published on this subject and there’s little of value I can add to it, but briefly, the general attitude has been one of extreme skepticism and denial, the encouragement of various forms of conspiracist claims regarding the origins and effects of the virus, and opposition to the various public health measures state authorities have implemented in response. In this, rather fertile environment, numerous grifters have been at work, armed with varying degrees of ideological coherence but frequently lending themselves to far-right perspectives. (See : Tom Tanuki @ Independent Australia.)
Finally: I’ve paid less attention to the important role of various forms of Christian fun-da-mentalist thought in informing, supporting and advancing reactionary politics in Australia; post-Christchurch, there’s been a smol explosion of academic interest in the far-right. This work is often (though not always) an extension of state-centric ‘counter-terror’ discourse from the ‘religious’ to the ‘ideological’ domain and proceeds, almost invariably, from some underlying — sometimes explicit, sometimes implicit — commitment to ‘liberal democracy’, with a strong emphasis (frequently under-theorised) on ‘social cohesion’. Not exactly my cup of tea, then, but still important.
Anyway …
Please note that while this list aims to be reasonably comprehensive, it is not exhaustive.
Adelaide Institute
A leading source of Holocaust denial, following the death of Fred Töben in March 2020, earlier this year the Institute website went kaput, and it appears far from certain that the corpse can be re-animated.
Australia First Party (AFP)
Still the central avenue for White nationalism in party-political form, the AFP remains firmly ensconced in the Tempe HQ belonging to its leader, Jim Saleam. Always at pains to distance himself and his party from allegations of ‘nazism’, a war of words has been going on between Saleam and the ‘National Socialist Network’ (NSN), which is viewed as being a potential ASIO honeypot. Consequently, while imprisoned NSN fuehrer Tom Sewell previously sought counsel from The Old Man, there’s little love lost between the pair or their followers. The AFP regularly contests elections, with little success and, given recent legislation, would seem to be in danger of de-registration. Their next electoral bout takes place in December, when Lili Orrock will be joined by Michelle Burgess in a ding-dong battle for a seat representing the East Ward of Penrith City Council.
Australian Council of Nationalists (ACON)
ACON is the successor organisation to (and to be confused with) the ‘Australian Coalition of Nationalists’, and was formed in late 2019 as a grouping comprising the AFP, ‘British Israel World Federation’ (BIWF), ‘Love Australia Or Leave’ and several blogs (Ironbark Resources, National Independent and New Australian Bulletin). A notable departure between times was ‘Nationalist Alternative’ (NAlt), which was instead largely incorporated into the AFP’s enimies in ‘The Lads Society’/NSN. Since last year, Ironbark Resources blog would seem (?) to have departed the Council, while Matthew Grant’s ‘Australian Natives Association’ has joined it.
Australian League of Rights (ALOR)
The ALOR (1960–) remains the cranky and somewhat daggy aunt and uncle of the Australian far right. “God, Queen & Country!” is its slogan — and it’s very dubious about the role of (((You Know Who))) in world affairs — but it otherwise remains within the orbit of (more) mainstream reactionary politics, with a strong emphasis on the doctrine of ‘Social Credit’. It used to have a bookshop in Russell Street, Melbourne but its centre of gravity is now in Adelaide. (Moving to 126 Russell Street in 1975, The Theosophical Society — an unrelated organisation — relocated to its current home at 234 Flinders Lane in 2021.) See also : Eric Butler.
Australian Natives Association (ANA)
Last edition, I got an angwy email from Some Guy castigating me for not including the ANA — Matthew Grant’s new project after the ‘Eureka Youth League’ collapsed — and so here it is. Like AFP and as its name suggests, ANA recycles Australian labourism of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, with a strong emphasis on its white nationalist dimensions. While Grant is based in NSW, the ANA claims members in Melbourne and elsewhere.
(The) Australian Vanguard
He’s a very cranky man, but I thought I may as well give a shout-out to Raymond Foster last time around and will do so again. Armed with a terrific beard and a devotion to nazi politics, Foster would appear to be quite dedicated to building a small White kvlt by way of merch and as part of the YouTube Nazi Army. Last year, Foster made a special guest appearance in Serious vilification and hate crime: The need for legislative reform, published by the Cohesive Communities Coalition (which bases its account on an ECAJ Anti-Semitism Report). One of numerous cooked units inhabiting the extreme-right fringe.
Blood & Honour (B&H)
The neo-Nazi muzak network is still carrying on … and on … and on. Tightly-bound to the Southern Cross Hammerskins, this dynamic duo organises a gig every year in Melbourne to commemorate the good nazi Ian Stuart Donaldson. 2019’s gig got some attention in the media, and an article in The Age declared, somewhat bizarrely, it never happened (but it did). The 2020 celebration of the dead bonehead was delayed by the pandemic, and 2021’s too. See also : 9% Productions.
British Israel World Federation (BIWF)
Another crankypants organisation whose heyday was back in the early 1900s. TLDR : ‘The people of the British Isles are “genetically, racially, and linguistically the direct descendants” of the Ten Lost Tribes of ancient Israel.’ Apparently, there’s a bloke in Victoria and another in Queensland what believes this stuff. And in terrific news for British-Israelites, the Victorian mob is organising a gathering at Grace Chapel in Archies Creek on the weekend of September 23–25 this year!
Christian Identity (CI)
Last year I wrote that CI are ‘obscure religious cranks what I assume are still kicking, but could possibly be scratched’. It remains much more of a thing in the US, where according to the Southern Poverty Law Centre, CI is ‘a unique antisemitic and racist theology that rose to a position of commanding influence on the racist right in the 1980s’. According to Charlotte Mears, ‘… the Kingdom of Heaven ministry, a branch of the Christian Identity movement … bases their views on Eve as seen through the ‘Seed Theory’, a racist doctrine that claims only white humanity was created by the union of Adam and Eve.’ (See : ‘The Far Right and Women’s History’ in Far-Right Revisionism and the End of History, Louie Dean Valencia-García (editor), Routledge, 2020.) Note that this particular seed is unrelated to the recent crop of Starseeds, but is about as broeken.
Christian Separatist
AKA Ken Cratchley. An obscure crypto-religious crank that I assumed last time was still kicking, but could possibly be scratched. 2021 : Cratchley is still kicking, and even, it seems, tweeting.
Citizens Electoral Council (CEC)
The name given to the local branch of the La Rouche kvlt, the CEC recently changed the name of its electoral vehicle to the ‘Australian Citizens Party’ (ACP). Largely confined to Melbourne, and with a spot on Channel 31, the CEC/ACP reckons The Queen sells drugs and very fast trains are ace. Or something. 2021 : Still here.
Combat 18 (C18)
More a label than a formal grouping, C18 is (still) responsible for distroing shitty quality B&W stickers around Melbourne town, as it has for umpteen years now. Occasionally, the racist nature of the stickers attracts media attention and more recently one of its members, Dan Newman, allegedly threatened some not-White-enuff-for-his-tastes women outside a stupormarket in Footscray. 2021 : Newman, James Lawrence and Patrick O’Sullivan all got a guernsey in recent reportage about The Nazis Next Door (NSN).
Creativity
AKA a bloke in Adelaide called Cailen Cambeul, who’s ‘presently single and lives alone with his dog, N*gg*r’, along with one or two other losers. Creativity in Australia was once repped by Patrick O’Sullivan, but he’s C18 now apparently, and Cailen and Patrick are no longer frens. Oddly, when Pontifex Maximus Matt Hale was in trouble with the law in the US, Glenn Greenwald was his lawyer; Cambeul was The Creative Pope for a while but in 2021 he is no longer.
Expel the Parasite
South Australian Brett Light continues to pump out nazi propaganda of the entertainingly batshit variety. 2021 : Like erry other nazi, Light reckons COVID Is A Hoax and vaccinations are A (((Communist))) Plot. Ho hum.
Golden Dawn Australia (GD)
In 2021 the political activities of GD in Australia have been much reduced, courtesy both of the pandemic and the organisation being declared criminal in Greece. GD’s Australian franchise continues to distribute their nazi propaganda in Sydney, and has won some support among other Greek communities. In 2020, a formal alliance between GD and AFP appeared to be inert, but they maintain close, fraternal relations, and in 2021 have been joined at various events by Putin fanboy Simeon Boikov and other goons. The Australian GD franchise, like other fascist groupuscules, has also been active in opposing the COVID ‘hoax’ and public health measures.
The Lads Society (TLS)
Following the collapse of Fraser Anning’s CNP, in organisational terms The Lads were more-or-less the logical culmination of Reclaim Australia and the ‘United Patriots Front’ (UPF), and its leading figure was ex-UPF leader Tom Sewell. In 2021, however, The Lads, having lost their headquarters in Melbourne and Sydney, have basically dissolved into Sewell’s NSN.
Love Australia Or Leave (LAOL)
In 2021, SBS star Kim Vuga has definitely proven to be a stayer, and her course has now naturally brought her (and her hundreds thousands of dingbat followers) fully into the orbit of White nationalism by way of ACON. That said, like AFP, Vuga may struggle to find 1,500 members, even if just 10% of her Facebook followers take advantage of FREE! party memberships and join her in her ongoing quest for more guns and less Muslims.
Nationalist Alternative (NAlt)
Another Melbourne-based groupuscule, NAlt is one of the more enduring fixtures on the far right, and produced Blair Cottrell, Sewell and various other personalities. NAlt’s leader, Mark Hootsen, is (or rather was) also a member of TLS. In 2021, Hootsen & Co. continue to spruik White nationalism, kinda, but like others have largely been eclipsed by the NSN, and Hootsen himself now has A Very British Career to pursue …
National Socialist Network (NSN)
Memorably described by the AFP as being comprised of gangly teens whose entire knowledge of the world comes from social media. Except for the one book they’ve almost all read more than halfway through, Mein Kampf, in August 2021 the NSN starred in an exposé by 9Fairfax (see also : “The NSN is dead! Long live the NSN!”, September 9, 2021). As noted previously, the NSN formed in late 2019/early 2020 after some internal debate over whether to go ‘full nazi’ or stick to pretending to being civil rights advocates for White dudes (see : ‘European Australian Movement’) and thereby maintain some relationship with Ordinary Mums & Dads/The Quiet Australians of tabloid/Tory myth. Since then, its fuehrer Thomas ‘Tom’ Sewell has been imprisoned and awaits trial for assault and various other offences. So too, apparently, does his temporary replacement, Jacob Hersant.
Apart from being publicly exposed, the other potential difficulty facing these budding génocidaires is the proscription of the NSN as a ‘terrorist’ entity: this partially explains why some of the boys have resumed employing the EAM label. They’re also very shirty about the arrests of their kameraden. A recent missive (September 14, 2021) tearfully declares:
Mitchell Priest appears to be guilty of having views that the ruling class hates and little else, just like Thomas Sewell, Jacob Hersant, Simon [‘The Nazi Sparky’] Hickey and Tyler Jakovac. Literally nobody would know about so-called far-right “terrorism” without the lies and synthetic hysteria of system pigs in journalism, police, intelligence agencies and establishment politics. Who has been killed by the far-right? What has been damaged by the far-right? It’s totally artificial and solely aimed at the further disenfranchisement of the masses.
Of course, leaving aside the mass murder committed by their ‘Saint’, whether or not Mitchell Priest — just like Thomas Sewell, Jacob Hersant, Simon Hickey and Tyler Jakovac — are indeed guilty of criminal activity will presumably be determined by the courts; certainly, none have been accused of merely having stoopid ideas. (See also : Bail refused for third man charged after counter-terrorism operation on NSW South Coast, Jessica Clifford, ABC, March 23, 2020.) As to whether or not knowledge of far-right terrorism (outside of the NSN) is critically dependent on meanies in (((The Establishment))): yeah nah.
Beyond proscription, there’s also noises being made by the Victorian government and New South Wales Labor to criminalise the public display of the swastika, sounds which have at least stirred the Institute of Public Affairs to join the NSN/EAM in declaring, in typically understated prose, that such measures constitute ‘the most vicious attack on free speech ever contemplated anywhere in Australia’.
Finally, despite protests to the contrary, it’s hard to imagen that the NSN really appreciated its recent exposure. In any case, the nazis published the video below in response, in which they burn an Aboriginal flag while singing ‘We’ll Have Our Home Again’ (a song by nazi warblers The Mannerbund) and chant ‘Hail Sewell!’.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
New Australian Bulletin (NAB)
An online shitsheet for the AFP, the NAB blog replaced the now-defunct blog ‘United Nationalists Australia’. NAB regularly publishes cranky, tabloid-style treatments of subjects dear to its author(s) heart, and frequently takes aim at the AFP’s enimies on the far right, especially those belonging to a younger generation who’ve signally failed to appreciate Dr Jim Saleam’s political brilliance. 2021 : Nathan Sykes is still carrying on like a pork chop.
One Nation Party (PHONy)
See : Pauline Hanson. Along with former Labor Party leader Mark Latham and space pixie Malcolm Roberts, PHONy is a regular feature on tabloid media, and remains most popular in Queensland (with one member, Stephen Andrew, in the Legislative Assembly). Despite its fairly minimal support outside of The Sunshine State (two MLCs in NSW, Mark Latham and Rod Roberts, and — formerly — two in WA), PHONy plays a very important role in the Australian Senate, and is one of the key links in the chain of anti-environmental and reactionary politics in STRAYA. 2021 : At the May election in West Australia, the PHONy vote plummeted, and Robin Scott, (ex-PHONy) Charles Smith and Colin Tincknell all lost their seats in the Upper House.
Aside from generating sizeable incomes, shits and giggles for Pauline, Mark, Malcolm, Stephen and Rod, PHONy also plays a useful role as a political laboratory for the Tories. Thus, while a PHONy Senate motion in October 2018 to declare the 4chan meme ‘It’s OK To Be White’ the official position of the Australian Senate was narrowly defeated despite government support, in June this year another cracked PHONy attack on ‘critical race theory’ was successful.
And oh yeah: a PHONy candidate in WA was exposed as a recruit to the neo-Nazi terrorist organisation ‘The Base’.
Proud Boys (Australia)
The bastard children of Canuckistanian dingbat Gavin McInnes, the PBs were very soon imported to Australia, but seem to have largely subsided in the last year or two (McInnes tried and failed to mount a speaking tour of Australia several years ago). Given that the group’s presence on Facebook was recently Zucced, it’s unclear how much longer it will be before the Boys grow up, but in the US those who haven’t drifted off have typically drifted into more determinedly radical neo-Nazi and White supremacist groups. 2021 : Speak of The Devil, local Proud Boy Jarrad ‘Jaz’ Searby dumped the Boys in order to join the NSN and teach the Lads how to better punch black and brown faces. See : Gateway Extremism: How Australia’s neo-Nazis use combat sports to radicalize and recruit as ‘Karim Zidan delves into Australia’s far right National Socialist Network and how they weaponize combat sports for recruitment and radicalization’ (Bloody Elbow, August 26, 2021).
Southern Cross Hammerskins (SCHS)
One of the only remaining bonehead crews still kicking, and of some longevity. Associated reich ‘n’ roll band Fortress periodically reforms to play shows in Australia and to much larger audiences in Europe.
The Unshackled (AKA ‘The Unhinged’)
An AltLite/AltRight blog helmed by former Liberal Democrat activist Timmeh! Wilms of Melbourne. Wilms enjoys long walks on the beach at sunset, interviewing right-wing losers, and celebrating right-wing death squads. Indeed, Wilms has seemingly never met a fascist, reactionary or conspiracist kook he hasn’t wanted to talk to, and to that end he’s partnered with various other right-wing micro-celebrities in order to produce propaganda. This includes (or has included) Kiwi Dieuwe de Boer (in a regular feature called ‘Trans-Tasman Talk’), David Hiscox and Matthew Roebuck of XYZ blog (in a CANCELLED! series called ‘The Uncuckables’) and neo-Nazi goon Jarrad ‘Jaz’ Searby in another YouTube gem called ‘The Brawler and The Brain’. Of late, fascist filmmaker Richard Wolstencroft has become a regular feature on Timmeh!’s blog (‘Report From Tiger Mountain’). Wolstencroft is still trying to sell MUFF, but word is slowly (and politely) circulating that ‘The Melbourne Underground Film Festival is *not* a film festival you want your film screening at’.
Women for Aryan Unity (WAU)
A tiny neo-Nazi groupuscule mostly consisting of the wives and girlfriends of boneheads belonging to SCHS. These lovely Aryan ladies publish a zine, maintain a website, and raise funds for neo-Nazis overseas, mostly the remnants of defunct US terrorist grouplet ‘The Order’. 2021 : LL Cool A. Still.
XYZ
XYZ the blog was established several years ago as a political outlet for a handful of cranky local Tories AKA ‘Classical Liberals’. By 2020 it had developed into an antisemitic and White supremacist propaganda organ, featuring the incredible talents of editor David Hiscox, budding neo-Nazi terrorist Ryan ‘Only joking!’ Fletcher, failed journalist Matthew Roebuck and various other angry middle-aged losers. Years of racist and sexist invective on Facebook finally came to an end when Hiscox & Co. made the mistake of publishing some batshit ‘satire’ directed at beloved TV personality Waleed Aly, shortly after which its page finally got Zucced (June 23, 2020). YouTube, however, remains firmly in its corner. 2021 : Roebuck recently quit XYZ after a doctrinal dispute with Hiscox’s very funky and rational kamerad James Fox Higgins, while David himself both: a) featured in the exposé on the NSN and; b) had his YouTube channel — launched shortly after his tearful break-up with Roebuck — become another victim of Cancel Culture.
Sad!
PS. For discussion of QAnon and other, related matters not referenced above, see also : ‘Yeah Nah Pasaran!’. For a recent, Very Good examination of contemporary anti-fascism, see : Post Internet Far Right by 12 Rules for WHAT (Dog Section Press, 2021).
