The chilling story we’ve thrown everything at covering

3 weeks ago 5

Opinion

November 14, 2025 — 6.00pm

It has been a big week at the Herald as we grapple with the fallout from Saturday’s chilling neo-Nazi rally outside NSW parliament. I thought today’s note would be a good chance to explain to you my thinking on this issue, and why the newsroom has thrown everything at covering it.

I am very proud of the way our reporters, photographers, designers and editors have rallied to give this appalling act of antisemitism the attention it deserves. Our coverage has been the Herald at its best, and many readers and community members have been in touch to praise our work.

More than 60 members of the National Socialist Network attended the rally outside state parliament on Saturday.

The Nazi story has been on the front page for five days in a row now, and will stretch into the sixth on Saturday when we publish an investigation by chief reporter Jordan Baker and national security correspondent Matthew Knott examining the complex problem that is the National Socialist Network (NSN).

Over the course of this week we have explored how and why the rally was approved by NSW Police, why the police commissioner and premier weren’t notified in advance, what new laws may be introduced as a result of the saga, and unmasked some of the NSN members who gathered on Macquarie Street. The day jobs of some participants include an English language teacher, a postie, train guard, security contractor, IT expert, bar manager and civil engineer.

Their rally should have been blocked – although I accept there is a legitimate debate about whether existing laws would have allowed that. Crime reporter Riley Walter explored this complex issue in this terrific piece of analysis published on Thursday.

Premier Chris Minns is exploring new laws to make future gatherings of the NSN easier to stop, and potentially easier to break up in real-time. The Herald will examine these laws when they are unveiled before forming a view.

But while we should always respect the right to protest in NSW, surely we can all agree that it is intolerable to have Nazis standing outside our state parliament shouting Hitler Youth slogans, attacking Jewish people, and spruiking antisemitic tropes about power and influence. Racial hatred of any kind has no place in Australia, much less at the steps of its oldest parliament.

Many people would like this story to fade away. It is deeply embarrassing for police and politicians. There is a well-reasoned argument that giving the NSN the attention it craves could boost its membership ranks. ASIO director-general Mike Burgess made this point in a speech only last week.

While the Herald has been careful about what we do and don’t publish about the group, its members and what they say, I am not convinced that a series of stories in the Herald exposing them for the racist trash they are would have any real effect on how many people sign up to be members. Most of the radicalisation is occurring in online chat groups and the darker corners of the internet, not via respected outlets such as the Herald.

I believe it is the media’s job to call out white supremacists and make sure the public knows how serious the threat is. As David Ossip, the president of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, wrote this week, the chilling images and despicable words that emerged from the gathering have stopped us all in our tracks and finally woken up the community at large to the nature and extent of the growing threat confronting our society.

“It may be tempting to dismiss them as fringe figures, best ignored and starved of the attention they crave,” David wrote. “But evil left unconfronted becomes evil that is normalised. That is the lesson of history, and it is one that we ignore at our peril. The hate that initially targets the Jewish community rarely stops there – and other Australians are already in the crossfires of these racists.”

The Herald first exposed the emerging neo-Nazi challenge in 2021, when investigative reporter Nick McKenzie and Joel Tozer (who is now the excellent executive producer of the ABC’s 7.30 program) took readers deep inside Australia’s white supremacist network. The threat has only increased in the years since, and I can assure you our team will stay on this story.