Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton have both blasted “evil” Nazi sympathisers after a rally in Melbourne on the weekend.
He said right-wing extremism was the most significant threat facing Australia, and said the “time for tolerance of these matters has long gone; people should have a look at the consequences of that hatred” and that theirs was an “ideology of hate”.
His comments came after an anti-immigration rally at Victoria’s Parliament House was held by neo-Nazis on Saturday. In March, an anti-trans rights rally in Melbourne was gatecrashed by right-wing extremists, with a group of men performing a Nazi salute.
Mr Albanese, speaking in Melbourne, said there was “no place in Australia” for such demonstrations.
“There is no place in Australia for the sort of demonstrations that we’ve seen now on a number of occasions here in Melbourne, with people paying tribute to Nazism and evil doctrine that resulted in the mass murder of people on the basis of their religion, on the basis of who they were, on the basis of their sexual preference,” he said.