A neo-Nazi group that staged a frightening protest in a regional city on Sunday poses a serious threat to national security and community safety, experts have warned.
About 30 men wearing all black, as well as balaclavas and sunglasses to obscure their identities, marched through Ballarat in Victoria just after midday.
Vision of the group, holding a sign that read “Australia for the white man” and bearing the name National Socialist Network, shows a sole unmasked man fronting the demonstration.
Community groups and politicians have condemned the scenes, while terrorism and extremism experts have warned the group should be taken seriously.
John Coyne is the Head of Strategic Policing and Law Enforcement at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute and has been involved in researching far-right extremism since the early 1990s.
“Their commitment to their cause clearly isn’t so strong given that they protect their identities by wearing masks,” Dr Coyne said.
“That’s not brave. But in any case, it’s absolutely disgusting in 21st Century Australia to see a demonstration of this nature.
“The vast number of Australians would look at abhorrent behaviour like this for what it is – small-minded and ill-informed.”
The group yesterday did not perform Nazi salutes or don swastikas, which are now criminal acts in Victoria, but they did chant “Heil Victory”.
Josh Roose is an expert on extremism at Deakin University and the Chief Investigator on an Australian Research Council study currently underway on the far-right movement.
“The numbers we saw yesterday suggest the group’s membership isn’t growing, but while the group might be small, it’s very active,” Mr Roose said.
“But we should always take extremism seriously. If history teaches us anything, it’s that groups and individuals who idolise Hitler and Nazism should not be ignored.”
He also noted that individuals in the National Socialist Network have a track record of violence, including group leader Thomas Sewell and his right hand man Jacob Hersant.
Group’s violent history
Sewell and Hersant appeared in court in October after pleading guilty to violent disorder against bushwalkers who filmed a large National Socialist Network gathering in the Cathedral Range State Park in mid-2021.
In sparing the duo from jail time, Judge Kellie Blair described them as “young fathers” whose offending was “at the lower end of the spectrum”.
Judge Blair expressed hope for the prospects of rehabilitation, before saying: “Good luck with the future, gentlemen.”
Moments later as he left court, Sewell told the waiting media: “Heil Hitler.”
Sewell was previously convicted of affray and recklessly causing injury, but sentenced to time already served, over a horrifying attack on a black security guard, who he repeatedly punched in the head outside Channel 9’s studios in Melbourne.
Hersant, who was with Sewell at the time, had called the man a “monkey” and filmed the assault. Hersant was not charged over the incident.
In April, two members of National Socialist Network, Duncan Robert Cromb, 38, and Jackson Trevor Pay, 23, faced court after being found with multiple documents instructing how to commit a terrorist act, including details on making bombs and carrying out assassinations.
In sentencing the men to two years’ jail, Judge Joanne Tracey described their actions as “abhorrent and distressing”.
Also found in their possession were “recordings of the Christchurch terrorist attack … images consistent with supremacist ideology … handwritten sketches and white supremacy stickers”, Judge Tracey said.
Sewell was once filmed comparing Brenton Tarrant, the Australian-born white supremacist who massacred 51 people in attacks two mosques in Christchurch in 2019, to civil rights icon Nelson Mandella.
Rising risk of right-wing extremism
Mike Burgess, chief of the country’s spy agency the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, said right-wing groups now account for half of all terror-related investigations.
“What they [neo-Nazis] are prepared to do, or some of them are prepared to do, to make [a race war] happen … is of grave concern to us, and should be of grave concern to all Australians,” Mr Burgess told 60 Minutes in 2021.
“This is spread across every state and territory, and it’s regional and rural, as well as capital cities … so it is of concern to us.”
The typical face of neo-Nazi extremism has changed over the years, with Mr Burgess saying people as young as 16 are being recruited by white supremacist groups.
“That concerns us. They’re middle-class, well educated, they understand the ideology. They look like everyday Australians, and they’re not openly showing their true ideology and not openly showing their violent beliefs or their use of violence, which they believe is justified.”
Greg Barton is the Chair of Global Islamic Politics at the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation at Deakin University and said groups like the National Socialist Network pose a serious risk.
“It is easy to dismiss them as being a bunch of attention-seeking fantasists, but the danger is greater than it appears,” Mr Barton wrote in an article for The Conversation.
There’s a risk the public antics of “neo-Nazi bullies” who “move in packs and hide being balaclavas” could inspire violent attacks, he said.
“For the most part, this results in more noise than fury. But both the violent storming of the US Capitol and the gunning-down of 51 worshippers in Christchurch are reminders of where this hate can lead.”
Minster for Home Affairs Clare O’Neil has warned of the threat posed by “ideologically motivated, nationalist and racist violent extremists, or what is sometimes called right-wing extremism”.
Commenting when ASIO lowered the country’s threat level from ‘probable’ to ‘possible’ late last year, Ms O’Neil said risks still remain.
“I want all Australians to understand that a lower threat level does not mean a lower operational tempo for our security agencies,” she said.
“As the Director-General of Security Mike Burgess has said: ‘Possible does not mean negligible.’”
Ms O’Neil warned that the proliferation of extremist content online means individuals can be radicalised very quickly – “potentially in days and weeks”.
Another “significant challenge” facing security agencies is the “radicalisation of minors”, she said.
Mr Barton said groups like the National Socialist Network appear to be targeting “desperate” young men “searching for something to hang on to “and a community to belong to”.
Neo-Nazi demonstrations should be “a wake-up” call, he said.
“In an age in which fear turns all too quickly to loathing, we can’t afford to take the values of liberal democracy for granted.”
‘Hate-fuelled behaviour’
Dvir Abramovich, Chairman of the Anti-Defamation Commission, said “Hitler must be smiling” at the sight of the group “invading the streets of Ballarat”.
“This beyond despicable display of depravity belongs in Germany of the 1930s, not in our state,” Dr Abramovich said.
“Imagine the grief a Holocaust survivor in Ballarat or their children would have felt confronted with this outrage, which they probably thought they would never see in their lifetime.”
The group’s “hate-filled behaviour” is also akin to “spitting on the memory” of Australian diggers who fought and died in World War II, he said.
It’s not just Jewish people groups like the National Socialist Network hate, he claimed, but also “Indigenous Australians, Muslims, the disabled, members of the LGBTIQ+ community, and other ethnicities”.
“What is driving this campaign is ‘The Great Replacement Theory’, the belief that the white race itself is threatened with extinction by a ‘rising tide of non-white immigrants’ controlled by a cabal of Jews.
“This atmosphere of vilification and dehumanisation can lead to murder, as we saw in lone wolf shootings around the world — Brenton Tarrant, whom this group tried to recruit, actually used the slogan ‘The Great Replacement’.”
Dr Abramovich called on the Victorian Government to outlaw all promotion and glorification of Nazism.
Ballarat Mayor Des Hudson told news.com.au the actions of the “cowards cloaked in masks” were not representative of the community.
“We are a welcoming and respectful city,” Cr Hudson said.
“It was very disappointing to see this happening on our streets. It’s not something our community welcomes nor supports.”
He believes the group did not include any locals.
However, a spokesperson for Victoria Police said officers are investigating reports of a bystander performing a Nazi salute during yesterday’s protest.
“Police spoke to a 15-year-old boy who was not attached to the demonstration group, and he is assisting police with their inquiries,” the spokesperson said.