Far-right terrorism in Australia
Far-right extremist groups have existed in Australia since the early 20th century, however the intensity of terrorist activities have oscillated until the present time.
However in the 21st century, a rise in jihadism, the White genocide conspiracy theory, and after effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have fuelled far-right terrorism in Australia.
Terrorism refers, on the one hand, to a doctrine about the presumed effectiveness of a special form or tactic of fear-generating, coercive political violence and, on the other hand, to a conspiratorial practice of calculated, demonstrative, direct violent action without legal or moral restraints, targeting mainly civilians and non-combatants, performed for its propagandistic and psychological effects on various audiences and conflict parties;...Researcher Miroslav Mares noted "the line between street violence perpetrated by subcultural networks can quickly blur into terrorist violence".
[2] In Australia, right-wing extremists often believe that there is a threat to some aspect of their existence or society, and then attribute the cause as a particular target group, such as an ethnic community or those who adhere to a different, usually left-wing ideology.
[2] After World War II, the Australian League of Rights (a group still in existence[10]), led by Eric Butler, became active.
From 1963-1973, the Ustaše carried out fifteen attacks and inspired dozens more as part of a terrorism campaign of bombings and assassination attempts across Australia.
[6] Australia "[did not experience] anything like the levels of right-wing extremism and violence that impacted Europe and North America in the 1990s" (2005),[12] but some networks of subcultures, and the "skinhead" counterculture, including groups like the Southern Cross Hammerskins, Combat 18, Blood & Honour, and the Women of the Southern Legion harboured ideologies centred on racial identity.
[16] Australian right-wing extremists celebrated the 2021 United States Capitol attack in Washington, D.C., and experts warned of an increased threat of violence by white supremacists since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Two government backbenchers, Craig Kelly and George Christensen, had aired conspiracy theories relating to the Capitol attack on social media, and the refusal of Prime Minister Scott Morrison to reprimand them was seen as "dangerous" by one expert on violent extremism.
[14] In its 2019–2020 annual report, ASIO rates Australia's national terrorism threat level as "probable", based on the assessment of credible intelligence.
The 2019 Christchurch attack continues to be drawn on for inspiration by right-wing extremists worldwide", and says that these groups are attracting younger adherents of their ideologies.
[17] A report published in March 2021, prepared jointly by the Centre for the Analysis of the Radical Right (CARR) in the UK and Hedayah, a research group based in the United Arab Emirates, and compiled with the policy assistance of the Australian Department of Home Affairs, says: "Australian chapters of more fringe neo-Nazi cells [have been] actively engaged in campaigns of radical right terror and violence".
[16] Joint Counter Terrorism Teams are run collaboratively by the AFP, state and territory police forces and ASIO.
[19] The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security was due to report to the Minister for Home Affairs in April 2021 from its "Inquiry into extremist movements and radicalism in Australia", which lapsed when the membership of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS) ceased to exist at the dissolution of the House of Representatives on Monday 11 April 2022.
This is Community Action for Preventing Extremism, funded by Multicultural NSW, an agency of the New South Wales Government, and run by All Together Now,[16] a not-for-profit organisation that promotes racial equality.
In 1989, Van Tongeren staged a series of racially motivated arson attacks, targeting businesses owned by Asian Australians.
The group's logo features the black sun and Totenkopf (skull head) with an Akubra hat, a laurel wreath and a swastika.
[35] Antipodean Resistance promotes and incites hatred and violence, as illustrated in its anti-Jewish and anti-homosexual posters, with graphic images of shooting Jews and homosexuals in the head.
[40] In March 2021, Victoria Police's counter-terrorism command charged Sewell with affray, recklessly causing injury, and unlawful assault after he allegedly punched a security guard working for the Nine Network in Melbourne's Docklands.
It surfaced in December 2018, when it was revealed that members of the group had suggested on the group's Discord server that Prince Harry was a "race traitor" who should be shot for marrying Meghan Markle, who is of mixed race; that police officers should be raped and killed; and that white women who date non-whites should be hanged.
Some suspected members are thought to have been involved in a previous neo-Nazi group, the System Resistance Network (one of the aliases of National Action), which was linked to various acts of racial violence and arson in the UK.
[48] On 2 March 2021, Australian Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton accepted an ASIO recommendation to label the Sonnenkrieg Division a "terrorist organisation", citing their reach into Australia.
[50] The Base is an American neo-Nazi white separatist hate group, which has been actively recruiting in Australia, Canada and other countries.
The group's founder, Rinaldo Nazzaro, known online as "Roman Wolf" and "Norman Spear", was personally involved in active recruitment.
An Australian who went by the name of Volkskrieger was a key person in the recruitment drive, which focused on finding people with legal access to firearms and security licences.
[57] In December 2019 a member of True Blue Crew, Phillip Galea, was convicted of terrorism charges relating to planned bombings of the Victorian Trades Hall and other left wing organisations in Melbourne.
It self-describes as "an organized unified resistance movement against mass immigration, the Dilution of our European Culture and Pride, and the current multicultural agenda created by the current government networks designed to destroy our colonial rights and identity", and cites its function as "to recruit like minded individuals and groups into an organization of active men".
[67] The Patriotic Youth League (a wing of the Australia First Party),[4] was mainly active in the northern suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne, and played a large role in the 2005 Cronulla riots.
[77] In 2017 neo-Nazi Michael James Holt, aged 26, who had threatened to carry out a mass shooting attack and considered Westfield Tuggerah as a target, was convicted after pleading guilty to several firearm manufacture and possession charges.
[78][79] On the Australia Day weekend in January 2021, the National Socialist Network, a new group created by members of the Antipodean Resistance and the Lads Society under the latter's leader Thomas Sewell, were observed parading Nazi paraphernalia and harassing bystanders at several locations around the Grampians National Park in Victoria.
