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Australia’s biggest neo-Nazi group will disband by the end of the week to avoid lengthy jail time as the Albanese government moves to outlaw extremist groups after the Bondi terror attack.
On Tuesday, in an internal announcement from within the neo-Nazi National Socialist Network (NSN) leaked to this masthead, leader Thomas Sewell and his state leadership told members that the organisation would be “disbanded in full” by midnight on Sunday.
Thomas Sewell (centre) at the anti-immigration ‘March for Australia’ rally in Melbourne in August.Credit: Chris Hopkins
The decision came hours after the government released the draft legislation of its new hate speech crackdown, to be debated by parliament next week, which include penalties of up to 15 years’ jail for those found to belong to or support outlawed groups, as well as new offences for radicalising children.
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke has already signalled the NSN and Islamist extremist organisation Hizb-ut Tahrir could be listed under the new laws, but currently operated below the threshold for charges.
Experts who track neo-Nazis call the development a big blow for the NSN, but warn the group, which is not renouncing Nazism, is far from done.
The NSN is one of the most high-profile neo-Nazi groups in the world, with direct ties to designated terror groups overseas, and many of its members have been convicted or charged with violent assaults.
Sewell and his neo-Nazis have been seeking to rebrand of late as “everyday Australians” while they move to form a political party called “White Australia” and coordinate the national anti-immigration rallies, March for Australia.
But online their rhetoric has also been escalating – three Nazis have been charged by the Australian Federal Police in recent weeks over threats to politicians, and Sewell has spoken of his plans for revenge and violent race war to extremists overseas in online livestreams.
Members of the neo-Nazi group National Socialist Network, led by Jacob Hersant and Jimeone Roberts, leave the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court after their leader Thomas Sewell was arrested for his role in the attack on Camp Sovereignty last year.Credit: Paul Rovere
The NSN said the decision on Monday meant that its White Australia political arm, which Sewell had bragged had already attracted more than the required membership numbers to register as a party, would also be disbanded.
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“To mitigate the risk of individuals being arrested and charged under these new Draconian laws, we are shutting down all operations,” NSN leaders told members. “Under the proposed legislation, it is likely that it will be illegal for former members to rebrand and continue the organisations’ activities”, they said, citing a similar move used to disband neo-Nazi groups in the United Kingdom.
Neo-Nazis in the NSN decried the proposed laws online, while key figures in the group urged followers to “trust the plan… hold the line and don’t panic”, as they discussed plans for new replacement organisation that could continue under the guise of a political party, as other neo-Nazi groups have done overseas.
“The decision will be hard for some to accept,” neo-Nazi leaders told their recruits. “However this is simply the end of one chapter. Nothing can stop an idea whose time has come.”
Each state chapter would have a “final meeting” to disband in person at the weekend, they wrote, where “instructions will be given regarding the handling of memorabilia and membership material”. By midnight on Sunday, “all groups, pages and social media of the organisation will be taken down”.
In a public statement posted to social media shortly after telling NSN members of the decision, Sewell and his leadership said the new laws would allow the government to disband any organisation that has performed Nazi salutes in the past, and called it the death of political freedom. They signed off “Blood and honour”, a slogan of the Hitler Youth.
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The NSN had not yet applied to register its planned federal political party, or state parties – seen as a move to exploit loopholes in flagged hate speech laws. The Australian Electoral Commission has very limited grounds to knock back such an application, given it must stay apolitical.
Experts say the group appears to be planning to continue its “active club” model, where members train in boxing at home gyms and go on group hikes, but without their usual black shirts uniform.
Far-right researcher Dr Kaz Ross said the new laws had made it inevitable that the NSN would disband officially, but its “solid core of membership will be undeterred”.
“I think there is now a heightened threat of violence”, perhaps in particular from the group’s associates if not its core members, she said.
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Recent stunts by the NSN, including ambushing politicians on the federal election trail and secretly running the national anti-immigration rallies March for Australia, have been revealed by this masthead as a coordinated neo-Nazi push to funnel more recruits (and money) into their extreme ideologies. The NSN is now aggressively recruiting teenagers through social media propaganda, with the help of the close friend of misogynist influencer Andrew Tate.
Ross said she was “deeply concerned” about the next march planned for Australia Day later this month, given their wild success in infiltrating such protests so far.
Mike Burgess, chief of Australia’s spy agency ASIO, told a parliamentary committee on Tuesday afternoon that he had long flagged concerns over the activities of both the NSN and Hizb-ut Tahrir. Both groups used an “insidious strategy”, he said, to stay just “on the right side of the law as the laws currently are” but he warned they were “driving permission for violence in our society” and should be outlawed.
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke’s office has been contacted for comment.
With Paul Sakkal
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