Nazi warning as threats rise against election candidates

6 days ago 6

The nation’s neo-Nazis are trying to get into a more “political space”, the Australian Federal Police has warned, amid claims the May election was the most violent on record as intimidation and threats at polling booths were recorded across the country.

The parliamentary inquiry into the May 3 election was told on Friday that threats against candidates had climbed by almost a fifth, though the election was overwhelmingly peaceful and enjoyed high levels of turnout, even compared to other Western democracies.

Threats against political candidates soared at the last election.

The inquiry is considering issues including a possible increase in the number of MPs and senators, as well as the growing threat posed by artificial intelligence to electoral campaigns. Its recommendations will guide rules for the next election, due by May 2028.

Acting AFP deputy commissioner Nigel Ryan said there had been a 17 per cent increase in threats against parliamentarians and candidates this election, with 70 per cent of them personal threats or threats posted to social media.

There were 51 “matters” that came to the attention of the AFP, of which 15 were fully investigated. Four people were charged.

Six hundred AFP officers were involved in the campaign, providing everything from close personal protection to covert specialist operations to protect candidates.

He said there were signs that the neo-Nazi National Socialist Network was trying to become more central to the political system.

“The NSN, in particular, we’re aware of them dropping flyers with political aspirations,” Ryan said.

Deputy electoral commissioner Kath Gleeson told the inquiry that while the election ran largely without incident, there were electorates where the “temperature” was higher than normal.

“There were pockets ...particularly in metropolitan Melbourne and metropolitan Sydney where we saw concerning behaviour,” she said.

Labor member for the Queensland seat of Blair, Shayne Neumann, pushed back at Gleeson’s description, saying in his own electorate he had seen violence and behaviour unlike anything in his political career.

“At times, there was violence against people,” he said.

Australia is one of only 13 per cent of democracies around the world to have compulsory voting. The 2025 election had about 90 per cent turnout, slightly more than in 2022, according to the Australian Electoral Commission.

The inquiry, which is held after every election, has been inundated with submissions from members of the public expressing concern about events at certain booths.

The Jerrabomberra Residents Association, which covers a suburban area near Canberra in the marginal NSW electorate of Eden-Monaro, noted in its submission that the Liberal Party candidate was supported by “Plymouth Brethren Christian Church” volunteers.

It said some of these volunteers directed “verbal aggression” at people representing other political parties, intimidating non-Brethren volunteers and of “accosting voters and forcefully encouraging them to vote” for their candidate.

A Labor Party branch from Narooma, a coastal town also in Eden-Monaro, said Brethren volunteers had stood in front of other volunteers to prevent engagement with voters, “clustered around, often older, voters in a manner that bordered on intimidatory”, and attempted to remove how-to-vote pamphlets of rival candidates from voters as they entered the polling booth.

Gleeson said there may be a need for a code of conduct to govern volunteers.

The Brethren have previously denied making an organised campaign push.

“If individual members of our church – or indeed any church – wish to be involved in the political process by volunteering or donating, it is a matter for the individual,” a church spokesman said previously.

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