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.
Read the article by Tom Ravlic in The Mandarin.