Speaker 1: Already and this this is the Daily.
Speaker 2: This is the Daily OS.
Speaker 3: Oh, now it makes sense.
Speaker 2: Good morning and welcome to the Daily OS. It's Thursday,
Speaker 2: the twentieth of November. I'm Zara Seidler and I am
Speaker 2: so excited to be back on the pod after a
Speaker 2: little time away.
Speaker 3: I'm Emma Gillespian. I'm excited too, Zara.
Speaker 1: Welcome back.
Speaker 3: Really really happy to have you back on the podcast today.
Speaker 2: As am I, look, we are going straight into a
Speaker 2: big topic.
Speaker 1: We're not starting small.
Speaker 2: We're going into a big news topic that I have
Speaker 2: watched across the headlines over the last couple of weeks
Speaker 2: and that culminated yesterday when the New South Wales government
Speaker 2: announced it would amend existing laws to ban public displays
Speaker 2: of Nazi ideology. Now we need to rewind a bit
Speaker 2: to understand how we got here, but it is basically
Speaker 2: come after a group of neo Nazis held in anti
Speaker 2: Semita rally outside New South Wales Parliament a few weeks ago.
Speaker 2: In today's podcast, m we are going to explain what
Speaker 2: happened on that Sunday morning a few weeks back, what
Speaker 2: the fallout has been and how the New South Wales
Speaker 2: government has now.
Speaker 3: Responded, Sarah, As you mentioned, this is a story that
Speaker 3: has been developing for a few weeks now. The context
Speaker 3: of it goes back several years even, but I think
Speaker 3: a good place to start is probably that actual event
Speaker 3: that you mentioned, that neo Nazis held outside New South
Speaker 3: Wales Parliament on the eighth of November, because everything that's
Speaker 3: unfolded since is essentially because.
Speaker 1: Of what happened that day exactly.
Speaker 3: So can you take us through it?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: So I remember we were all texting on a group
Speaker 2: WhatsApp that morning saying, oh my goodness, there is this
Speaker 2: image that has gone viral of essentially sixty men, all
Speaker 2: dressed in black, standing outside New South Wales Parliament, so
Speaker 2: just up the road from where we are now. And
Speaker 2: that was a protest that was organized by a neo
Speaker 2: Nazi group called the National Socialist Network. And what had
Speaker 2: happened essentially was that that group organized to hold that
Speaker 2: protest outside Parliament. They were standing there all in black,
Speaker 2: some of them wearing sunglasses, others masked, but many of
Speaker 2: whom were identifiable, and they were standing with a sign
Speaker 2: in front of them that said abolish the Jewish Lobby.
Speaker 2: Now the Sydney Morning Herald was there at the time,
Speaker 2: and so we do have quite a lot of vision
Speaker 2: of what actually happened that day. But we also understand
Speaker 2: that the group chanted the slogan blood and Honor, which
Speaker 2: we know is a chant closely associated with Hitler Youth.
Speaker 2: The protest lasted about twenty minutes, just to give you
Speaker 2: a sense of the length of it was really really short.
Speaker 2: I saw one journalist refer to it as a made
Speaker 2: for social media protest, and I think that that really
Speaker 2: perfectly encapsulates it, because it was kind of this very
Speaker 2: inflammatory photo that immediately went viral and got the whole
Speaker 2: country talking.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was not one of those protests that you
Speaker 3: see with masses of thousands of people marching through the city.
Speaker 3: It really did feel like a very twenty twenty five
Speaker 3: kind of a protest. So it's a Sunday morning, we
Speaker 3: have these sixty or so men holding up deeply offensive signs,
Speaker 3: chanting Nazi slogans. I think sometimes we see these groups
Speaker 3: try to be maybe a little bit more subtle in
Speaker 3: their approach, if I can say that, But there was
Speaker 3: no denying it here. Immediately there were questions from the
Speaker 3: community circulating online about how this was allowed to go ahead.
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, exactly. That was almost straightaway. So if at
Speaker 2: ten am these images started circulating, I'd say within the
Speaker 2: half hour there were questions being directed to both the
Speaker 2: Police Commissioner and later to the New South Wales premiere
Speaker 2: about how on earth this actually happened in the first place.
Speaker 3: Did authorities know this was going to happen?
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, this is the interesting thing.
Speaker 2: So police did know it was going to happen, not
Speaker 2: the Police Commissioner, and I'll get back to that in
Speaker 2: a moment. But police knew it was happening because they
Speaker 2: received a notice of intention to hold a public assembly.
Speaker 2: It's just a whole lot of words to say. The
Speaker 2: group applied to protests and that intention was made clear
Speaker 2: on the twenty eighth of October, so days before it
Speaker 2: was held.
Speaker 1: The notice of.
Speaker 2: Intention was filed by a group called White Australia. So
Speaker 2: per your previous comment about not obscuring what we're talking
Speaker 2: about here, and they made what they wanted to do
Speaker 2: really clear. I won't go into the specifics of how
Speaker 2: the actual process of applying to protest works because I
Speaker 2: know that you guys covered that in a pod a
Speaker 2: little while back. It's nice to you know, have these
Speaker 2: threads throughout the podcast. But essentially police did not object
Speaker 2: to the application to hold this protest and so it
Speaker 2: was allowed to occur. So it wasn't necessarily that they
Speaker 2: ticked and it was approved that way. But because they
Speaker 2: didn't object to it and it therefore didn't make it
Speaker 2: to the courts, it meant that.
Speaker 1: They were allowed to proceed. Okay.
Speaker 2: The Police Commissioner, though, as I just said earlier, didn't
Speaker 2: know the protest was taking place. He said that was
Speaker 2: because of a communication error internally within the police force
Speaker 2: and because he didn't know about it, he said he
Speaker 2: obviously couldn't tell the New South Wales government about it,
Speaker 2: and so they didn't know about it either.
Speaker 1: Interesting.
Speaker 3: I wonder if, because of the smaller scale of this protest,
Speaker 3: if it slipped under the radar in some way. We know,
Speaker 3: when there are thousands of people expected to attend a
Speaker 3: protest that that requires you know, streets to be shut down,
Speaker 3: extra police to be on duty, safety precautions and the
Speaker 3: likes thereof.
Speaker 1: So I wonder if it just sort of slipped through
Speaker 1: the cracks.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, every other time we've spoken about a protest
Speaker 2: on this podcast, we've been talked about tens of thousands
Speaker 2: of people and public safety and everything that comes with that,
Speaker 2: But you're right, this was obviously a much smaller scale,
Speaker 2: but there were still rightly questions about how it was
Speaker 2: allowed to proceed, and we know.
Speaker 3: It proceeded despite the scale that it dominated headlines a
Speaker 3: few weeks ago, and in the days since, both the
Speaker 3: government and police were questioned by journalists on many occasions
Speaker 3: about how this was allowed to go ahead, And then
Speaker 3: this week the attention really turned to who the men
Speaker 3: in that protest actually were, because, like you mentioned, Zara,
Speaker 3: many of them were visibly identifiable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I do want to shout out just some excellent
Speaker 2: journalism that I've seen here, because so much of the
Speaker 2: work that has gone into identifying who these men were
Speaker 2: were done by journalists who either attended or have been
Speaker 2: able to identify these men based on things like a bracelet,
Speaker 2: so yeah, and then being able to verify it against
Speaker 2: other photos. So there's been some really incredible journalism done
Speaker 2: in the last couple of days. But as you said,
Speaker 2: we have now got a fuller picture of who was
Speaker 2: actually in attendance, who those sixty men actually were, and look,
Speaker 2: they include people like an engineer, a teacher, an employee
Speaker 2: of Australia Post. These are, you know, men who are
Speaker 2: working everyday jobs who have then on the weekend gone
Speaker 2: and protested in this neo Nazi rally. I do want
Speaker 2: to focus on one of the men. He has really
Speaker 2: dominated the headlines. His name is Matthew Grutter. Now, based
Speaker 2: on the ABC's reporting, we've learnt that Gruter attended the
Speaker 2: rally and that he was wearing I said before that bracelet.
Speaker 2: He was wearing a bracelet engraved with blood and honor.
Speaker 2: Again that's the Nazi slogan. The reason there's been so
Speaker 2: much interest in Gruta specifically is because he's actually a
Speaker 2: South African national. He is not an Australian citizen, and
Speaker 2: he is in this country on a and since he
Speaker 2: was identified by media and organizations working to help identify
Speaker 2: who was there, he has since had his visa revoked
Speaker 2: and he will be deported from this country.
Speaker 3: We'll be back with more of today's deep dive right
Speaker 3: after a quick word from our sponsor.
Speaker 1: So Zara.
Speaker 3: We've got Matthew Gruder. He was identified by that bracelet.
Speaker 3: Then his visa was canceled. I'm assuming that that was
Speaker 3: a decision by the Immigration Department. We've had a few
Speaker 3: kind of high profile visa stories lately.
Speaker 1: Tony Burk's been very.
Speaker 2: Busy, he has and it was Tony Burke who announced
Speaker 2: the decision this week. I do want to read out
Speaker 2: something he said. He said, We've got a really strong
Speaker 2: principle here. If you're on a visa, you are a
Speaker 2: guest in Australia. If someone turns up for the purposes
Speaker 2: of just abusing people and wrecking the place and damaging
Speaker 2: the cohesion, you can ask them to leave. That is
Speaker 2: exactly what Tony Burke and the Immigration Department has asked
Speaker 2: of Matthew Gruter. And there was an immigration raid. It
Speaker 2: was like a seven am, very early morning immigration raid.
Speaker 2: After he was identified and he was detained.
Speaker 1: He is now at Villawood Detention Center where.
Speaker 2: He is awaiting deportation, which Burke says he expects will
Speaker 2: happen very soon.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 3: So this South African national is essentially in federal custody
Speaker 3: awaiting deportation. So just to recap Zara, we had at
Speaker 3: the beginning of the month, this rally held by Neo
Speaker 3: Nazis outside New South Wales Parliament. Police knew it was
Speaker 3: going to happen, although the Police Commissioner did not. Since then,
Speaker 3: people who attended the rallies have been identified. We know
Speaker 3: many of them are quote unquote everyday people in the community,
Speaker 3: working everyday jobs. One of them is facing deportation. Has
Speaker 3: the government responded to all of this? What has been
Speaker 3: said at that level?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a really good question and we got the
Speaker 2: I guess fullest answer yesterday in the form of legislation
Speaker 2: from the New South Wales government. So they announced on
Speaker 2: Wednesday that they were going to introduce amendments to the
Speaker 2: Crimes Act that would crack down on public displays of
Speaker 2: Nazi ideology by giving police and courts greater powers. Now,
Speaker 2: just to be clear, Nazi symbols things like the swastika,
Speaker 2: for example, are already banned in New South Wales. You
Speaker 2: cannot be publicly displaying that. But these changes will target
Speaker 2: the actions that we saw specifically at that rally outside parliament.
Speaker 3: Right, So it's about where you protest and where these
Speaker 3: messages are broadcast.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's one of the things that's going into it,
Speaker 2: but it's also what was being said, So you know,
Speaker 2: a swastika is imagery, for example. But these men were chanting,
Speaker 2: and so it's really doubling down on things like that.
Speaker 2: So chance and slogans, the kind of Nazi retrick that
Speaker 2: we were talking about, blood and honor.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is really targeting that sort of thing. Got it.
Speaker 3: So those like emblems, the swastika, the imagery. I guess
Speaker 3: this is a little bit of a loophole that has
Speaker 3: existed since that crackdown, which the New South Wales crackdown
Speaker 3: triggered a national crackdown. That's a symbol that is now
Speaker 3: federally outlawed.
Speaker 2: You're exactly right, They specifically, the New South Wales government
Speaker 2: specifically said they've already you know, made actions in this space,
Speaker 2: but clearly there is a need to strengthen the laws,
Speaker 2: and that's what this is trying to do.
Speaker 1: Got it. So just to talk about what would.
Speaker 2: Happen in the instance where you know, this rally were
Speaker 2: to go ahead again, anyone who engages in the conduct,
Speaker 2: which includes as we just said, using Nazi chants or
Speaker 2: slogans in public, would face up to a year in
Speaker 2: prison or a maximum fine of eleven thousand dollars. Now
Speaker 2: you referred just then m to the location when somebody
Speaker 2: is you know, using this sort of slogan or chant,
Speaker 2: and this legislation really zeros in on that because it
Speaker 2: says those penalties will increase if the offense is committed
Speaker 2: near a synagogue, so a Jewish place of worship, or
Speaker 2: a Jewish school or the Jewish Museum which is a
Speaker 2: Holocaust museum here in Sydney, and in that instance the
Speaker 2: offender would be facing up to two years imprisonment or
Speaker 2: a twenty two thousand dollars fine. So we're exactly doubling
Speaker 2: in the instance that this is happening near a Jewish
Speaker 2: landmark as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you mentioned police powers changing as well under this
Speaker 3: New South Wales legislation.
Speaker 1: What's the update there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so the amendment would also give police new powers
Speaker 2: to order an offender to take down the suspected Nazi symbol,
Speaker 2: so something like that sign that we saw outside parliament.
Speaker 2: In announcing the new laws, New South Wales Attorney General said,
Speaker 2: the deplorable stunt we saw outside New South Wales Parliament
Speaker 2: has no place in our society. Nobody should be subject
Speaker 2: to this vile hatred because of their background or faith.
Speaker 2: We are giving police and the courts additional powers to
Speaker 2: hold Nazi extremists to account for their abhorrent views. Very
Speaker 2: clear language being used there from the New South Wales government.
Speaker 1: And so just to finish off this law.
Speaker 2: Just in terms of the process from here, yep, it's
Speaker 2: been sent to a committee. Legislation often is, so a
Speaker 2: committee will have a look at it, see if there
Speaker 2: are any concerns with it, give some recommendations. Then it
Speaker 2: will be back to the House to be voted on.
Speaker 2: And we will absolutely keep our listeners updated as to
Speaker 2: where that legislation ends up.
Speaker 3: A really important and fascinating stories. Ara, thank you for
Speaker 3: making sense of all of that.
Speaker 1: For us, and it's so nice to have you back.
Speaker 1: It's so good to be back, and thank you for
Speaker 1: listening to.
Speaker 3: This episode of The Daily Ours. We'll be back a
Speaker 3: little later on today with your evening news headlines, but
Speaker 3: until then, have a great day.
Speaker 2: My name is Lily Madden and I am a proud
Speaker 2: Arunda Bunjelung Calkatin woman from Gadigol country. The Daily oz
Speaker 2: acknowledges that this podcast is recorded on the lands of
Speaker 2: the Gadigol people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and
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Speaker 2: the first peoples of these countries, both past and present.