Australian parliaments and the country’s intelligence and law enforcement agencies are grappling with how to deal with an emboldened cohort of neo-Nazis who have become visible in recent protests.
Former shadow attorney-general Julian Leeser has introduced a private members’ bill to amend commonwealth law so that Nazi symbols — including the notorious salute — are banned from public display.
The Victorian government is looking to amend its legislation banning the Nazi swastika from public display where it is used to glorify Nazism to incorporate the Nazi salute.
Both of these moves are a reaction to recent protests where a group of neo-Nazis sought to gate-crash protests and stage provocations such as raising their arms in a Nazi salute on the steps of the Victorian parliament in March.
These provocations are designed to generate community outrage and obtain media coverage that, according to a specific far-right group’s activist manual, are intended as ways of gaining publicity to recruit disaffected young men to their cause.
The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) says nationalist and racist violent extremists adopt specific imagery and terminology to signal their ideology, build belonging and provoke opponents.
“(The bill) would assist law enforcement in early intervention,” the agency said in a submission to a parliamentary inquiry.
The Buddhist Council of Western Australia supports the move to ban Nazi symbols but wants a clause stating “to avoid doubt, the display of a swastika in connection with Buddhism, Hinduism or Jainism does not constitute the display of a Nazi symbol”.
The Australian Christian Lobby has thrown its support behind the bill but agrees the current wording should be altered.
“We are concerned that the bill’s wording could unintentionally capture the public display of any genuine Christian symbols which may be confused as or appropriated as Nazi symbols. We suggest the draft Bill be amended to expressly exclude that possibility,” it wrote.
When shadow attorney-general Michaelia Cash introduced a similar bill in the senate last month, it prompted a fiery debate. Tensions boiled over as Liberal senator Sarah Henderson cried in the chamber after an exchange with Labor minister Murray Watt.
Most states and territories have or are in the process of banning displays of Nazi symbols, with the salute covered in some jurisdictions.
All existing and proposed bans make exceptions including for Hindus, Buddhists, Jains and other groups for whom the swastika is an important symbol predating Nazism.
If parliament approves Leeser’s private bill, anyone convicted of displaying the Nazi salute and swastika could be fined up to $27,500 or face 12 months in prison.
Leeser said the ban on Nazi symbols was critical to stop any legitimacy being attached to them.
“We must deny these extremists access to such symbols, symbols they used to create fear, spread fear and capture new recruits,” he told parliament on Monday.
“Don’t think this is not happening here right now, our country is dealing with this today.”
ASIO director-general Mike Burgess told senate estimates this week that these groups have been emboldened in recent times.
Burgess said ASIO’s current ideologically motivated extremism cases make up about 30% of the agency’s overall workload but that the number of cases ASIO has investigated has varied in recent years.
“We’ve gone through a trend over the last seven years of sitting at around 5% of our counterterrorism investigation caseload up to about 50% at parity with our other principal threat, which is Sunni violent extremism,” Burgess said.
“Context there though: we’ve seen a rise and a fall in ASIO’s investigations. That should not be a one-to-one correlation in a rise and fall in what’s happening in the country.”
With AAP
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