Speaker 1: I'm Ruby Jones and you're listening to seven AM. When
Speaker 1: a group of neo Nazis recently took to the streets
Speaker 1: of Melbourne, the state's premier said that Nazis don't belong
Speaker 1: in Australia. But while that might be a good sentiment,
Speaker 1: is it actually true today? Are and a writer and
Speaker 1: Quikey contributor so less little on Australia's white nationalist past,
Speaker 1: and in how failing to reckon with it, We've set
Speaker 1: the stage for the movement to grow. It's Wednesday, August
Speaker 1: twenty seven, so it's lest I thought we could begin
Speaker 1: by talking about the marches in Melbourne earlier this month.
Speaker 2: Tell me about what we saw on the streets.
Speaker 3: What we saw is an organized group of people assembled
Speaker 3: at a ridiculous time of the day. So I think
Speaker 3: of is it about, you know, midnight one o'clock where
Speaker 3: they decide to take to the streets.
Speaker 4: Revelers enjoying a night out in Melbourne have been left
Speaker 4: stunned after a large group of masked men marched through
Speaker 4: the CBD.
Speaker 3: They were there, they are in numbers, They were a
Speaker 3: threatening group. They were still yelling stuff like Australia for
Speaker 3: the white man, which you know, I don't even have
Speaker 3: the words to describe that sort of sentiment.
Speaker 5: Around one hundred people dressed in all black stormed down
Speaker 5: Burke Street Mall while police kept a watchful eye.
Speaker 3: And we also saw, you know, a bunch of police
Speaker 3: actually enable them to walk through without much of a problem.
Speaker 3: The reports were stating that the only person who ended
Speaker 3: up taking some sort of action to oppose them at
Speaker 3: that hour of the morning was a homeless man and
Speaker 3: he ended up being assaulted by the march attendees.
Speaker 5: All of the masked except for leader, well known neo
Speaker 5: Nazi Thomas.
Speaker 3: So there was a number of them. There was a
Speaker 3: sizeable group, and they were marching for quite a while
Speaker 3: through the city without any problem.
Speaker 2: Well let's talk a little bit more about the response
Speaker 2: from police, from politicians, from media.
Speaker 3: Well, firstly, I just found it extraordinary, and the police
Speaker 3: responses were very much that they couldn't do anything, that
Speaker 3: their hands were tied.
Speaker 4: Powers, police could do little but follow the white supremacists,
Speaker 4: that there was nothing.
Speaker 3: They could do to stop this group.
Speaker 6: Police powerless following the crowd through the heart of the city.
Speaker 3: The fact that police were there and couldn't do anything
Speaker 3: about it.
Speaker 5: That just makes things so much worse.
Speaker 3: And as somebody who had been at the march for
Speaker 3: Palace Stone only a few days earlier, we got so
Speaker 3: opposed by police that they actually shut down a bridge
Speaker 3: with the Public Order Response Team and the amount of
Speaker 3: police and the ordinary police in order to stop a
Speaker 3: group of peaceful protesters from being on a bridge. They
Speaker 3: can mobilize forces and be so aggressive against peace protesters,
Speaker 3: what was their problem doing anything to stop a significantly
Speaker 3: smaller group of Nazis. It was very very select But
Speaker 3: more than that, it was hand ringing from the police
Speaker 3: about how they were powerless to do anything, and then
Speaker 3: the government responding about how you know, Nazis have no
Speaker 3: place in society and they were going to give police
Speaker 3: more powers to do something.
Speaker 6: The premier condemning the group Nazis don't belong in this
Speaker 6: country and they know it. That's why they hide behind
Speaker 6: masks in the dark, not afraid of these goons. But
Speaker 6: we will not tolerate them either.
Speaker 3: So it was like a call and response, if you like.
Speaker 3: And what that actually means is that there's going to
Speaker 3: be tough for controls on any sort of protest.
Speaker 1: And that sort of statement this idea that this sort
Speaker 1: of thing has no place in Australia. You hear words
Speaker 1: like that often from politicians after something like this happens,
Speaker 1: and it sounds good and you'd want it to be true,
Speaker 1: but is it.
Speaker 3: It's not true at all. Australia very much has been
Speaker 3: set up by ideas of racism and white supremacy. This
Speaker 3: country was established on the legal fiction of Terranualius and
Speaker 3: then you know, for decades this country had the White
Speaker 3: Australia Policy, where there was actual barriers put in place
Speaker 3: for non white migration, and this fed a lot of
Speaker 3: the national character. Still see remnants of the Wide Australia
Speaker 3: policy today. So the Constitution still contains the right to
Speaker 3: exclude people from being able to vote based on race.
Speaker 3: It still contains a race power, so the right to
Speaker 3: make laws against certain races of people, and it still
Speaker 3: contains the right to exclude jewel citizens from entering federal Parliament,
Speaker 3: which is the one that people don't talk about. But
Speaker 3: that jewel citizen ban was actually to stop Indian and
Speaker 3: Chinese and other migrants of color from ever being eligible
Speaker 3: to sit in parliament. Because the Australian Parliament was built
Speaker 3: up to be filled by British subjects who had become
Speaker 3: Australian citizens, not people of color who had migrated, you know,
Speaker 3: during the Gold Rushers and all that. So with that
Speaker 3: history comes a long, long history of white supremacy and
Speaker 3: the ability for fascist to gain grown.
Speaker 1: So how does all of this this history, how does
Speaker 1: it create the conditions that we see today when we
Speaker 1: have marches like the one that we just saw in Melbourne.
Speaker 3: Well, people aren't aware of the Constitution and it's racial
Speaker 3: things that exist to this day. And the more that
Speaker 3: ignorance is allowed to flourish and the less aware the
Speaker 3: people are, the more space that we give for these
Speaker 3: groups to latch onto the disenfranchised and grow their movement.
Speaker 1: Coming up, who's really behind the march For Australia. The
Speaker 1: Victorian government is proposing changes to protest laws. They say
Speaker 1: it's an attempt to crack down on neo Nazi activity.
Speaker 1: They want a ban on face coverings and certain symbols.
Speaker 7: Premier de siner Allen announced an overhaul of existing anti
Speaker 7: protest laws late last year after a series of violent
Speaker 7: attacks on places of worship for the Jewish and Muslim communities.
Speaker 2: What impact do you think that that will have well.
Speaker 3: When we're all in COVID lockdown. There was a massive
Speaker 3: Black Lives Matter rally and technically by wearing face masks
Speaker 3: at that time, we were both breaking and adhering to
Speaker 3: the law. And by that I mean that there was
Speaker 3: the COVID restrictions that are in place that required everyone
Speaker 3: to be wearing masks everywhere, so you know, for health reasons,
Speaker 3: we were adhering to the law, but also we were
Speaker 3: breaking the law because the government was stating at that
Speaker 3: time that wearing face masks at protests was illegal. But
Speaker 3: face masks at rallies are also used as a tool
Speaker 3: to protect protesters from things like paper spray. When police
Speaker 3: decide to be incredibly liberal with pepper spray on protesters
Speaker 3: and talk about banning symbols, who decides what is a
Speaker 3: symbol of protest, what is a symbol of hate and
Speaker 3: hate speech and what's objectionable.
Speaker 4: The legislation we have in the Parliament to make hate
Speaker 4: speech a crime, where it should be to ban face
Speaker 4: master stamp out extremist behavior a protests where there's an
Speaker 4: opportunity to do more, and I will always grab that opportunity.
Speaker 3: And at any given time those definitions can be redefined,
Speaker 3: and protest is a part of a healthy democracy and
Speaker 3: needs to exist. The right to assembly is in the
Speaker 3: UN Declaration of Human Rights. The more that process is
Speaker 3: legislated against, the less able people are to exercise that
Speaker 3: democratic right.
Speaker 2: So what do you think a good response would be then,
Speaker 2: to neo Nazis, to rising fascism.
Speaker 3: I think a real good response for be honesty. I'm very,
Speaker 3: very huge on the truth telling agenda, and the more
Speaker 3: that we talk about Australia's history, and the more aware
Speaker 3: the people are about the Australia's history, the less likely
Speaker 3: they are to reinforce false narratives and therefore the less
Speaker 3: likely they are to give power to Nazi groups. So
Speaker 3: neo Nazi ideals will get more and more marginalized and
Speaker 3: shifted to the side, to the point of where they
Speaker 3: are objectionable by a vast majority of the public, not
Speaker 3: where a vast majority of the public will sit there
Speaker 3: and go, you know, on this front, they kind of
Speaker 3: have a point and start to join them. And that
Speaker 3: honesty needs to extend to how the media and how
Speaker 3: the politicians do respond to neo Nazi groups and neo
Speaker 3: Nazi ideals.
Speaker 2: Can we talk a little bit about that, about the
Speaker 2: media and the way that you think these issues should
Speaker 2: be covered, because you know, it's obviously the interest of
Speaker 2: these groups to get media reports about what they're doing.
Speaker 2: It gives them publicity, but you know, ignoring them entirely
Speaker 2: is obviously awesome a problem. So what do you think
Speaker 2: the right conversation is to be having about what is
Speaker 2: a growing white nationalism threat?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like, for me, this is a really live question
Speaker 3: because some people do argue that the more media coverage
Speaker 3: they get, the more they're able to build their momentum.
Speaker 3: So you know, if they gain the publicity, more people
Speaker 3: notice that they're gathering, more people take an interest and
Speaker 3: seek them out, and therefore they can grow their movement
Speaker 3: and there is merit in that. But for me, I
Speaker 3: sort of see and perhaps I'm approaching this as somebody
Speaker 3: who is Indigenous and a woman, but you know, if
Speaker 3: you try and pretend that they don't exist, then you
Speaker 3: are kind of contributing in a way to this great
Speaker 3: Australian silence and array that I'm very very much opposed to.
Speaker 3: So I do feel that they need coverage, and I
Speaker 3: do feel that there needs to be honesty in that coverage.
Speaker 3: I think that perhaps the media needs to get better
Speaker 3: at framing the fact that these are objectionable, you know,
Speaker 3: far eye actors who threaten our society.
Speaker 1: And this weekend Celesti, there are marchers planned in every
Speaker 1: capital city. They're being builders the March for Australia, and
Speaker 1: the people claiming to organize these say that they are
Speaker 1: ordinary Australians who are worried about migration. But the slogans
Speaker 1: do have something in common with the protests that we've
Speaker 1: just talked about when Nazis say things like Australia for
Speaker 1: the white men. So how should we interpret this?
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's been a lot of dialogue with regards to
Speaker 3: who's actually organizing it, and the organizers themselves have been
Speaker 3: taking up space in social media spheres refuse claims that
Speaker 3: the marches are being organized by neo Nazis. But the
Speaker 3: fact of the matter is that there are a lot
Speaker 3: of anti fascist researchers out there who spend a lot
Speaker 3: of time drilling down into the telegram groups and exposing
Speaker 3: them and seeing what it is that they're doing. So
Speaker 3: a lot of the key figures who have been behind
Speaker 3: these march are neo Nazi figures that this country is
Speaker 3: already quite aware of. They're using some calling and rallying
Speaker 3: chants about you know, this great country and all that
Speaker 3: sort of stuff in order to bring people into the
Speaker 3: fold who might feel threatened by the invasion, a process
Speaker 3: that happen every year now or by the Palestine protests.
Speaker 3: People from the mainstream who do feel a little bit
Speaker 3: disenfranchised by the way they see Australia going to them
Speaker 3: all or except society are probably latching on and thinking
Speaker 3: this is a way to express themselves without doing the
Speaker 3: research as to what they're actually affiliating themselves in. But
Speaker 3: it is very deliberate to pick up on these people
Speaker 3: within white Australia who are disenfranchised and bring them into
Speaker 3: the fault by using a degree of subterfuge. And in
Speaker 3: my opinion, that's what the March for Australia is, a
Speaker 3: broader manifestation of wellthless, thank you so much for your
Speaker 3: time today, no worries, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: Also in the news today, Iran's ambassador to Australia has
Speaker 1: been expelled and we'll have seven days to leave the country,
Speaker 1: along with three other Iranian officials. It follows Asio announcing
Speaker 1: it has intelligence that Iran directed at least two major
Speaker 1: anti Semitic attacks in Australia in twenty twenty four, Lewis's
Speaker 1: Continental Kitchen in Sydney on October twenty and the Addas
Speaker 1: Israel Synagogue in Melbourne on December sixth. AZEO says the
Speaker 1: attacks were directed by Iran with the aim of messing
Speaker 1: with social cohesion in Australia, but the Iranian embassy was
Speaker 1: not involved in the attacks, nor any Iranian diplomats in Australia.
Speaker 1: And two police officers are dead after a shooting at
Speaker 1: a rural property in Poora Punka in northeast Victoria. The
Speaker 1: police were attending the property, about three hundred kilometers northeast
Speaker 1: of Melbourne to serve a warrant. I'm Ruby Jones. This
Speaker 1: is seven am. Thanks for listening.