As the government prepares to introduce legislation into parliament for an Australia-wide ban on Nazi symbols, it’s timely to revisit the extensive coverage of this issue in ASPI’s Counterterrorism yearbook 2022.
The yearbook placed the threat of ideologically motivated violent extremism in all its forms, including nationalist and racist behaviour, in a national context to explain why action must be taken to deal with it and how lawmakers could avoid some unintended consequences.
Early last year, notwithstanding the elevation of foreign interference as Australia’s top national security priority, the director-general of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, Mike Burgess, identified terrorism and extremism threats as ‘significant and constantly evolving’. Burgess also warned of a nationwide escalation in militant extremist behaviour and said:
As a nation, we need to reflect on why some teenagers are hanging Nazi flags and portraits of the Christchurch killer on their bedroom walls, and why others are sharing beheading videos. And just as importantly, we must reflect on what we can do about it.
In a detailed chapter setting out the case for banning Nazi symbols, former NSW police officer Kristy Milligan writes that the urgency of banning symbols may seem more immediate in places such as the US and some European nations with more actively violent and coordinated far-right extremist organisations.
Read the article by Justin Bassi and Brendan Nicholson in The Strategist.