Neo-Nazis Are Holding Dinner Forums in Melbourne, After a Year of Far-Right Actions

Neo-Nazis gathered at Urban Street restaurant in the Naarm-Melbourne suburb of McKinnon on Saturday 14 September 2024 to discuss “advocating for the rights of people of European descent” and that when it comes to “enemies”, theirs are Islam, the Han Chinese and Judaism.

Jews Against Fascism called out the event that had been held by the National Workers Alliance days later on X, outlining that this was the second dinner forum held by the group, since its inaugural event in June, and with prominent far-right figures such as Thomas Sewell, Joel Davis and Blair Cottrell in attendance, the event was basically a coming together of neo-Nazis.

Nazis have been openly demonstrating on public streets of Australia since March last year, when members of the National Socialist Network (NSN) appeared on the steps at Melbourne’s Parliament House in support of a demonstration led by antitransgender figure Kellie Jay Keen and performed the Nazi salute, while Victoria police focused on antifascist counterprotesters.

As independent researcher Andy Fleming, told Sydney Criminal Lawyers in May last year, the “open espousal of Nazism by groups like the National Socialist Network is a departure from recent past practice by neo-Nazis in Australia”.

Indeed, prior to this mobilisation, neo-Nazis had always rallied under white nationalist banners but refrained from revealing an allegiance to the far-right fascist ideology.

So, while the nation is focused on the Senate inquiry into whether to hold a commission of inquiry into antisemitism at universities, which involves a type of antisemitism that conflates anti-Zionist and anti-Israel criticism as discrimination against Jewish people, the National Workers Alliance events and the NSN mobilisations have been reflecting on the antisemitic beliefs that led to the Holocaust.

Workshopping white supremacy

The National Workers Alliance event this month not only focused on the preservation of European culture, but it was also in aid of stopping mass immigration, and recent weeks have seen mobilisations of neo-Nazis attempting to counter the ongoing Encampments for Permanent Refugees taking place in Naarm, Meanjin-Brisbane and Yerta-Adelaide.

As Jews Against Fascism notes, the two speakers at the Urban Street event were former Neighbours star Damien Richardson and National Workers Alliance founder and ex-Lads Society affiliate Matt Trihey, who opened Kellie Jay Keen’s #WomenWillSpeak event last year, which was when Nazis first mobilised openly in public. Although he did explain to The Guardian afterwards, that he is not a Nazi.

And once the general public got word that Urban Street had its windows blacked out on the Saturday night before last, due to the fact that it was holding a meeting that included neo-Nazis – if not being an outright front for them – such was the public backlash against the business that late last week a spokesperson told the Murdoch press that the owners might be “too scared to reopen”.

Antifascist research group the White Rose Society blew the whistle on an earlier National Workers Alliance event that was held at The Polish Club in the Melbourne suburb of Rowville in June, which again had a focus on stopping mass migration, as well as preventing the “government indoctrination and sterilisation of children”, which is an antitransgender conspiracy theory.

Far-right actions on the rise

The mobilisations of the Nationalist Socialist Network began with two rallies on the streets of Naarm in the first half of 2023, which were followed by a demonstration through the streets of Ballarat, where the group was able to march right up to the local cop shop without causing any disruption. And the NSN also mobilised in North Sydney last January, where it was confronted by NSW police.

The Albanese government raised the terror alert to probable on 5 August, after far-right white supremacist actors had been violently rioting against Muslims and immigrants across the UK for a week.

And the UK far right rioting  appears to have emboldened local neo-Nazis, as they commenced showing up to counter protests in multiple states being held by long-term asylum seekers stuck on temporary visas for more than a decade.

ASIO director general Mike Burgess appeared on the ABC to explain that the raising of the terror alert had more to do with rising far-right extremism than anything else, whilst Islamic terrorism was not really a concern at present and the Israeli perpetrated genocide in Gaza had nothing to do with the decision.

The probable terror alert was also rolled out after three likely far-right actors perpetrated violent incidents in NSW over a four week period. The initial incident saw a young white man enter a Labor MP’s office in Newcastle with a knife hoping to kill him but backing out. Another young man stabbed a stranger outside Sydney University and a third let off homemade bombs in a shopping mall.

Building networks

None of the neo-Nazi rallies have comprised of large numbers. And prior to these recent NSN mobilisations, when far right actors have publicly demonstrated, it had always been under the banner of white nationalism, with an accompanying general antiimmigration focus on the agenda.

However, as Burgess has explained, during the COVID lockdowns, the networking of far-right actors online increased dramatically, to the point that the domestic spying agency’s focus on white supremacists had risen to 30 percent of its counterterrorism caseload in the wake of that crisis and then it continued on to peak at 50 percent last year.

During this period, the NSN and the European Australian Movement had established themselves as networks of decentralised far-right groups called active clubs, according the White Rose Society, and many of those who used to, or would, make up the numbers for groups, like Reclaim the Streets and the United Patriots Front, are now connected to these organisations that have a global reach.

A key criticism of the way Victoria police has been handling neo-Nazis showing up on the streets has been its focus on antifascist counterprotesters, so the scene suddenly involves police officers creating a barrier to protect far right actors from left wing demonstrators. Although in other states, like NSW and Queensland, police officers haven’t been as accommodating.

But as the Australian establishment has attempted to play down the issue of white supremacists mobilising in suburbia over the past decade, and conservative political forces have always had something of an affiliation with these elements, it appears that neo-Nazis have been able to develop networking skills to the point that they consider their beliefs should be part of the public square mix.