Neo-nazi group ‘White Australia’ listed as banned hate group

White Australia, the neo-Nazi group, has been designated as a banned hate group under the government’s new laws.

Home Secretary Tony Burke said the neo-Nazi Nationalist Socialist Network, which was disbanded earlier this year, had been re-formed and “phoenixed” into a group known as White Australia.

“What they did, or rather, was they got a phoenix, changed their name, but didn’t change the fact that they were still an organization and still engaged in exactly the kind of behavior that met the thresholds of this legislation,” he told reporters today.

ASIO told the government on April 22 that White Australia had likely met the thresholds to be considered a hate group – advocating and participating in hate crimes.

Burke said examples of their hateful actions were widely reported in the media.

“We have seen specific acts of violence in Melbourne that you have all reported on. We have also seen a series of threats, some of which are several arrests that you have reported of people motivated by white supremacist ideology,” he said. 

Following the March for Australia protest in Melbourne late last year, a group led by notorious neo-Nazi Thomas Sewell attacked a sacred Indigenous site, injuring several people.

With the support of the opposition, the group will be officially declared a hate group at midnight. 

“This means that supporting, financing, training, recruiting, joining or directing this group is a criminal offense with a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison,” Burke said. 

In January, in the wake of the Bondi attack, the government introduced tough new hate laws to allow them to list and ban a hate group.

White Australia becomes the second group to be listed under the law, after Hizb ut-Tahrir as the first.

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