Nationalists With Attitude ~versus~ Invasion Day in Melbourne/Naarm 2025

In 2025, 237 years after Captain Cook discovered Australia Captain Phillip & Co. — under the orders of and for the benefit of King George III — established a prison camp on Gadigal lands, January 26 discourse is once again thriving in the colony. Thus, with one eye on the forthcoming federal election, the date is currently being mashed into political pulp by aspirant Prime Minister Peter Dutton (AKA Mr Potato Head): an example of what the commentariat call ‘culture wars’. In doing so, the ex-Queensland police officer has offered his Tory base some red meat: a vow to Make Australia Great Again by forcing local councils to perform citizenship ceremonies on that date and to render January 26 a holy day of obligation for Australian nationalism.

Of course, bullying councils over January 26 is not an activity confined to ex-cops. In Victoria, neo-Nazis ‘attempted to disrupt an Indigenous mourning ceremony at Coburg Town Hall’ in 2023 and, in 2025, Matt Trihey’s grouplet Nationalists With Attitude (NWA) has announced that they’ll also be celebrating the day. In this case, by enlightening the tennis-going masses attending the Australian Open through squawking outside of Rod Laver Arena about the benefits of White Australia. As an added Bonus!, their mission has received the blessing of cucked Führer Blair Cottrell:

You may remember Blair from such convictions as arson, stalking and serious vilification. Or such events as Bernie Finn’s March for the Babies! and Damien Richardson‘s 2024 production We Will Not Be Silenced! In any case, having been displaced as leader of Australia’s neo-Nazi movement by his former sidekick Tom Sewell (and lacking the fortitude to challenge him for it), Cottrell now appears mostly contented with this subordinate position and, for understandable reasons, closer to Trihey’s NWA than to Sewell’s NSN.

Finally, while the NSN’s Tim Lutze is obviously excited at Cottrell’s endorsement of the NWA’s stunt, it’s unclear if Tom’s flunkeys will actually be joining Blair’s fans at the tennis. On the one hand, while the NSN has benefited from the flat-footed approach of Victoria Police towards its various publicity stunts in Melbourne, last year police in NSW adopted a much less tolerant approach to their attempt to parade through Sydney on January 26. On the other hand, post-October 7, government authorities and VIPs in the fields of media and politics have suddenly noticed the existence of antisemitism, and police are beginning to take a much dimmer view of groups dedicated to promoting it. Further, while demonising the trans community obviously enjoys a certain degree of popularity, messing with the public image of a multi-million dollar business like #AusOpen is not normally considered a recipe for success …

For those uninterested in joining a smol group of nazi weird0es whining at bewildered tennis fans, there’s many other opportunities to mark January 26. See, for example: Invasion Day 2025: Join your nearest protest /// Survival Day Events.

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Yeah Nah Pasaran! #233 w Bob From Brockley on anti-/fascism in Blighty : January 16, 2025

It’s 2025 and nah yeah: Yeah Nah Pasaran! is back for another year — our sixth! — on Melbourne community radio 3CR.

Our first episode for 2025 features Bob From Brockley [Bluesky], a blogger, anti-fascist and left libertarian based in Sarf London. We talked to Bob about his two decades of writing on — and in opposition to — the far right in the UK: the movement’s history, evolution, contemporary forms, political influence and anti-fascist responses. We also discussed Syria, campism and more …

4.30pm, Thursday, January 16, 2025 /// 855AM, digital, streaming, Community Radio Plus

• This episode will be available as a podcast on Apple, Spotify and other platforms after broadcast.
• We also have a Facebook page for the show, which you’re invited to ‘Like’ and to ‘Follow’, although because the anti-social platform is bloody awful, chances are you’ll never notice it.

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Blogging 2024 : A Summary

As in 2023, here’s a brief review of what appeared on the blog in 2024.*

In January, I wrote several posts about … nazis … and — also — Invasion Day: Tom Sewell’s gang planned to parade thru Gadigal lands for the occasion but, sadly, NSW police proved to be less cooperative than their Victorian counterparts have been. Oh, I made some notes about defunct yoof gang the ‘Southern Cross Soldiers’ too.

Apart from several posts about Yeah Nah Pasaran! (see below), I made one token post about #ausunions on Gaza in February. (See also : Official Myths and Enduring Fantasies, Backlash, March 19, 2024.)

While February was when Tim Lutze’s nazi boxing gym formally closed (though Mr Lutze continues to train the boys for RaHoWa), I noted this in March, along with some local anarchist talks, a statement on the fifth anniversary of the Christchurch massacre, Moira Deeming’s legal aktion versus John Pesutto, and a rather pathetic repetition of Lady Parker’s original (March 18, 2023) publicity stunt. The reenactment also starred a very womanly ex-Lad named Matt Trihey: a self-described ‘free speech advocate’ (and ah, white nationalist) who recently got a brief mention in Former Neighbours star Damien Richardson charged by Victoria Police for performing Nazi salute at Melbourne event (David Estcourt, Mike Lorigan, Alysia Thomas-Sam, ABC, December 18, 2024). Another supportive fellow in attendance was Mr Phillip Simpson, an ‘alleged neo-Nazi accused of performing a Hitler salute and threatening to kill a police officer’ who last week ‘had his hearing adjourned after experiencing a “severe panic attack”’.

In April, I noted the existence of a federal government inquiry into ‘Right wing extremist movements in Australia’ — which published its Report this month — and also some thing called ‘May Day’.

Yeah Nah May.

June saw naughty li’l nazi and ex-Tory Stefan Eracleous get a slap on the wrist from the courts (and be subject to allegations of ripping-off Sewell & The Gang), the current crop of VIP Tories declare ‘Never Again’ and, not entirely un-relatedly, VIP mourning over the death of Stefan Romaniw.

July 25th is the International Day of Solidarity with Antifascist Prisoners.

In August I wrote a bit about the weirdness inre Active Clubs at the government inquiry into RWE in July, how the CFMEU got into heaps big media trouble (and placed into government administration; though, as of this date, while many officials have exited the organisation, there’s been very few criminal prosecutions), and finally about how some local binfluencers announced their intention to bring batshit right-wing propagandist Candace Owens Down Under.

There were more National Socialist Network shenanigans in September (and in the boys’ spiritual heartland), while Lauren ‘The Great Replacement’ Southern (among others) lost an important source of income with the exposure of Putin’s gangsta state’s sponsorship of propaganda network Tenet Media.

October saw old mate Jacob Hersant be judged a very naughty boy, Chairman Cottrell join the Ordinary Dumbs & Mads of Patriotic Alternative in Merrie Old England, and a boys’ parade in Corowa. Finally, Candace Owens met Fortress Australia and Vashti Fox authored “I believe in the sun. Even when it’s not shining:” Militant antifascism in Australia, 1970-2016 (UWA, 2024).

There were Rising Tides in November, Cheet0 Mussolini RETVRNED and there was some wonderful (and completely non-Nazi) poetry sadly unread in court.

In December, I wrote this.

*For radio/podcast, see also: Yeah Nah Pasaran!, which this year comprised interviews with Nicole Nguyen, Cam Wilson, Betsy James Quammen, Jason Wilson, Tarek Younis, Rae Jereza, Arun Kundnani, Audrey Truschke, Claudia Leeb, Chris Wilson, Tyler West, Alex Hanna, Fran Amery, Jordana Silverstein, Stephanie Wescott, Amy Cooter, Spencer Sunshine, Shane Burley & Ben Lorber, Aurelien Mondon, Tinfoil Tales, Rachel Withers, Susannah Crockford, Tomas Rothaus, Joe Mulhall, Gabriel Kuhn, Ariel Bogle, Lucy Hamilton, James Hogg, Talia Lavin, Rebecca Yeo, Noelle Cook, David Neiwert, Amanda Moore, Benjamin Moffitt and Elise Thomas.

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Yeah Nah Pasaran! #232 w Elise Thomas on information & online propaganda : December 12, 2024

On this week’s episode of Yeah Nah Pasaran! — our final for 2024 — we talk to Elise Thomas [Bluesky]. Elise is a Senior OSINT analyst at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, an investigator at the Centre for Information Resilience and a previous guest of the show in June 2023. On this occasion we spoke to Elise about the year in dis-/mis-information, information management, infotainment and propaganda.

4.30pm, Thursday, December 12, 2024 /// 3CR /// 855AM / streaming live on the 3CR website

• This episode will be available as a podcast on Apple, Spotify and other platforms after broadcast.
• We also have a Facebook page for the show, which you’re invited to ‘Like’ and to ‘Follow’.
• I have a Patreon account which youse are also invited to support.

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Yeah Nah Pasaran! #231 w Benjamin Moffitt on Populism : December 5, 2024

This week on Yeah Nah Pasaran! we talk to Benjamin Moffitt [Bluesky]. Ben’s an Associate Professor of Politics at ACU (Melbourne) and the author of three books on … populism! Populism (Polity, 2020), Political Meritocracy and Populism: Curse or Cure? (with Mark Chou & Octavia Bryant, Routledge, 2020), and The Global Rise of Populism: Performance, Political Style and Representation (Stanford University Press, 2016). We spoke to Ben about … populism: its (recent) origins; influence, meaning and significance; dominant forms; popularity as a political designation … and more.

See/hear also : Fascist bedfellows, Elle Hardy, The Monthly, December 2024–January 2025 /// How a pro-Putin TikTok star topped Romania’s presidential poll, Marton Dunai, Financial Times, November 26, 2024 | Yeah Nah Pasaran! #218 w Aurelien Mondon on race riots in the UK : August 8, 2024 /// Yeah Nah Pasaran! #091 w Cas Mudde on Populism & The Far Right : October 21, 2021.

4.30pm, Thursday, December 5, 2024 /// 3CR /// 855AM / streaming live on the 3CR website

• This episode will be available as a podcast on Apple, Spotify and other platforms after broadcast.
• We also have a Facebook page for the show, which you’re invited to ‘Like’ and to ‘Follow’.
• I have a Patreon account which youse are also invited to support.

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Yeah Nah Pasaran! #230 w Amanda Moore on Trump 2024 : November 21, 2024

This week on Yeah Nah Pasaran! we talk to Amanda Moore [Twitter/X]. Amanda is a freelance journalist who spent time Undercover With the New Alt-Right and recently wrote about how A Trump Field Director Was Fired for Being a White Nationalist. We last spoke to Amanda about going undercover with MAGA in February 2022: this time around, we talked about the Trump campaign’s composition and organisation, its historical background, appeal and eventual success, and the meaning of another four years of The Donald as The President.

4.30pm, Thursday, November 21, 2024 /// 3CR /// 855AM / streaming live on the 3CR website

• This episode will be available as a podcast on Apple, Spotify and other platforms after broadcast.
• We also have a Facebook page for the show, which you’re invited to ‘Like’ and to ‘Follow’.
• I have a Patreon account which youse are also invited to support.

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Yeah Nah Pasaran! #229 w David Neiwert on Trump 2024 : November 14, 2024

This week on Yeah Nah Pasaran! we talk to David Neiwert [X/Twitter], a writer and the author of many books, including most recently The Age of Insurrection: The Ongoing War on American Democracy (Melville House, 2023). We spoke to David back in May 2020 about US militias, Trump and more. On this occasion, we asked him about Cheet0’s RETVRN to the White House and its meaning for US society.

4.30pm, Thursday, November 14, 2024 /// 3CR /// 855AM / streaming live on the 3CR website

• This episode will be available as a podcast on Apple, Spotify and other platforms after broadcast.
• We also have a Facebook page for the show, which you’re invited to ‘Like’ and to ‘Follow’.
• I have a Patreon account which youse are also invited to support.

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antifa notes (nov 8, 2024) : vEry bad poetry (and even worse prose)

¡Viva Presidente Trump!

So Cheet0 Mussolini defeated Kommunist Kamala and will now RETVRN to his Golden Throne in the White House. TLDR : this is (Very) Bad News for workers and the environment but Good News for Christian nationalists in the United States and a major shot in the arm for right-wing authoritarians the world over. Further, having already stacked the Supreme Court, Trump’s re-ascension to the Presidency has been further augmented by his party gaining control of the Senate and, possibly, the House of Representatives (and thus Congress as a whole).

Insofar as Number 47 has a coherent political program, the implementation of ‘Project 2025’ means the ‘mass deportation’ of migrant workers, purging the US federal government of civil servants who aren’t loyal to him, dismantling critical elements of the public education and healthcare systems (including imposing even harsher restrictions on abortion access and reproductive freedoms generally), the near-total abolition of environmental protections and so on and so forth.

In response, the Australian government has declared its unwavering support for AUKUS and former Prime Minister now US Ambassador KRudd has deleted some unfortunate tweets.

See also : The Rise of the Online Villains, KT Nelson, The Idiot Box, November 7, 2024 /// Milestones, Mark Korov, n+1, November 6, 2024 /// History Repeats Itself: First as Farce, Then as Tragedy (Why the Democrats Are Responsible for Donald Trump’s Return to Power), CrimethInc, November 6, 2024 /// Trump’s victory: “Manipulable, Aggrieved, Gullible, Ahistorical”, Louis Further, Freedom, November 6, 2024.

Nazi Deadshit Poets Society

In the film Dead Poets Society, maverick teacher John Keating returned in 1959 to the prestigious New England boys’ boarding school where he was once a star student and used poetry to embolden his pupils to new heights of self-expression. In the Nazi-inspired drama known as the National Socialist Network (NSN), University High School graduate Jacob Hersant found himself before the courts (again) on November 8, 2024, when he was sentenced to one month in prison for composing some astonishingly overwrought poetry saluting An Her0 Adolf.

Hersant’s sentence — which, like his conviction, he’s appealing while on bail — comes just a day after police detained him and three other NSN members: NSN lvl boss Tom Sewell, and two of his other flunkeys (Nathan Bull and Will Casdorff). They’re collectively alleged to have engaged in serious racial vilification, grossly offensive public conduct and intimidating police. (See : Man charged with threatening police, three others expected to be charged over serious racial vilification, ABC, November 7, 2024.) Hersant received a Community Correction Order for 14 months on 27 October 2023 and was instructed to ‘not commit any offence punishable by imprisonment for the next 14 months’ or the length of his Order, with Her Honour Judge Blair stating ‘If you do not comply with the conditions of this order then you will be in breach and you will be brought back to me and I may have to resentence you’.

Sad!

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Yeah Nah Pasaran! #228 w Noelle Cook on JAN 6, conspiracists & right-wing women : November 7, 2024

This week on Yeah Nah Pasaran! we talk to Noelle Cook [X/Twitter].

Noelle is an ethnographer and the associate producer of The Conspiracists, which focuses on a woman convicted for storming The Capitol on January 6th as she embarks on a road trip with director, Liz Smith and ethnographer, Noelle Cook, aiming to “awaken” them to her 5D world. As they encounter various conspiracy theorists along the way, the film explores the dangerous impact of such beliefs on society.

She is also currently working on a book with the working title of The Conspiracists: White Women, Extremism & the Lure of Belonging.

4.30pm, Thursday, November 7, 2024 /// 3CR /// 855AM / streaming live on the 3CR website

• This episode will be available as a podcast on Apple, Spotify and other platforms after broadcast.
• We also have a Facebook page for the show, which you’re invited to ‘Like’ and to ‘Follow’.
• I have a Patreon account which youse are also invited to support.

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Rising Tides

Blue

Later in November …

The People’s Blockade of the World’s Largest Coal Port
Newcastle Protestival: November 22-24
Newcastle & Canberra, Australia

Organised by way of Rising Tide Australia:

We are the rising tide of ordinary people, called by extraordinary times. We are a diverse movement demanding Australia honours our commitment to the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement. We are prepared to take whatever peaceful actions are within our power to defend the climate.

Currently, NSW police are in the NSW Supreme Court trying to stop ‘ordinary people’ from stopping the operations of the world’s largest coal port by way of challenging Rising Tide’s ‘Form 1’ (a notice of intention to hold a public assembly).

Rising Tide has published a statement on the action which you can read here.

See also : NSW Police try to stop People’s Blockade of world’s largest coal port, Isaac Nellist, Green Left, October 30, 2024 /// ‘Wicked problem’: five charts that show how the climate crisis is making Australia more dangerous, Graham Readfearn, The Guardian, October 3, 2024 /// Australia must earn right to host UN climate conference by phasing out fossil fuels, Stephen Long, The New Daily, October 31, 2024 /// Honest Government Ad | COP31 /// A Fair COP31: The 2026 UN Climate Conference, Tom Hawking and Polly Hemming, The Australia Institute, June 9, 2023.

In other news, ‘Spain mourns as death toll passes 150 in catastrophic floods’ (BBC, October 31, 2024), with dozens missing as as a result of ‘torrential rains and flash floods, which largely affected Valencia, as well as Castilla-La Mancha in Andalusia, and as far south as Malaga’. As reported by the ABC, ‘Scientists say a warming planet is at play, and extreme weather events are occurring more frequently and in much greater strength than ever before’.

Red

Forensic Architecture has produced a report — A Spatial Analysis of the Israeli Military’s Conduct in Gaza since October 2023 — to produce ‘A Cartography of Genocide in Gaza’:

Since the start of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza in October 2023, Forensic Architecture has been collecting data related to attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure by the Israeli military. Our analysis of this conduct reveals the near-total destruction of civilian life in Gaza. We have also collected and analysed evacuation orders issued by the Israeli military directing Palestinian civilians to areas of Gaza designated as ‘safe’. These orders have resulted in the repeated, large-scale displacement of the Palestinian population across Gaza, often to areas which subsequently came under attack.

The patterns we have observed concerning Israel’s military conduct in Gaza indicate a systematic and organised campaign to destroy life, conditions necessary for life, and life-sustaining infrastructure.

In addition, Francesca Albanese, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, has produced a report on ‘Genocide as colonial erasure’ which:

… examines the unfolding horrors in the occupied Palestinian territory. While the wholesale destruction of Gaza continues unabated, other parts of the land have not been spared. The violence that Israel has unleashed against the Palestinians post-7 October is not happening in a vacuum, but is part of a long-term intentional, systematic, State-organized forced displacement and replacement of the Palestinians. This trajectory risks causing irreparable prejudice to the very existence of the Palestinian people in Palestine. Member States must intervene now to prevent new atrocities that will further scar human history.

In the meantime, ‘The Albanese Government has referred antisemitism at Australian universities to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights for inquiry and report’. This follows a series of recent incidents, including a cake stall at USyd, arrests at a protest at UWS and, in a ‘highly irregular’ move, students at UniMelb having claimed ‘to have begun the process of referring the university to the ICC, saying they have evidence of partnerships linked with weapons companies and operations on occupied Palestinian land’.

And so on.

Further, Wollongong Friends of Palestine are organising a picket:

See also : Israelism: The awakening of young American Jews, which ‘sparked huge debate on American campuses even before the events of October 7, 2023’ and of course: NEVER READ THE COMMENTS.

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