Federal Politics Doesn’t Need a Neo-Nazi Party, as Canberra Has Enough Far-Right Actors

The neo-Nazi booing of Bunurong elder Uncle Mark Brown, as he was performing Welcome to Country at the dawn service at the Shrine of Remembrance in Naarm-Melbourne on 25 April 2025, Anzac Day, was a deplorable act of racism that portends the current rise in white nationalism here and right across the west, but it probably doesn’t reveal a void in politics requiring a federal Nazi party.

Potential next PM Peter Dutton, the doyen of far-right politics, condemned the heckling of the far-right actors confirmed as members of the National Socialist Network (NSN), the nation’s leading neo-Nazi outfit, but the leader of the Liberal opposition then qualified his position in asserting that it’s “over the top” to perform Welcome to Country on Anzac Day as most veterans don’t want it.

The outburst of the white supremacist types amongst the dawn service crowd, calling out statements like “what about the Anzacs” and “Australia for the white man”, sought to convey that the ceremony that acknowledges First Peoples sovereignty somehow threatened white Australians in general, which reveals the sharp rise in overt white nationalism within the current political climate.

The first sign that white supremacist sentiment was on the rise came when the majority voted down the 2023 Voice referendum, and this was reinforced lately, when at the final federal election leaders debate, Channel 7 asked the PM and Dutton whether official Welcome to Country ceremonies should continue, along with the Liberals now having cut a preference deal with One Nation.

Following all these developments, an article appeared in the Age on Tuesday, revealing that the NSN are already in the initial planning stages of launching their own political party to run candidates at the next federal election, however, while this move might provide some light relief, it’s probably an indication that the neo-Nazis have misunderstood their role in the local political setting.

“Australia for the white man”

The National Socialist Network has been upping the ante in terms of its presence in the public sphere. Starting in March 2023, with an appearance at an antitransgender rally before Melbourne parliament, NSN members have been visually mobilising in public, as Nazis and not simply white nationalists, periodically, in capital cities and regional towns in Victoria, NSW, Queensland and SA.

Their last big ruckus was when NSN members rallied in front of the National War Memorial in Yerta-Adelaide on 26 January this year, and 16 of the 30 black-clad “white mans” were arrested.

As the Age put it on Tuesday, after it had its social media accounts and website taken down after the 26 January incident, the NSN has quietly been launching a new site, along with forging fresh social media channels, and the group is now calling on aspiring young white supremacist types to sign up for the legitimate political party it will launch next year, with its sights set on the 2028 election.

According to the article, the dawn service incident is part of NSN rebranding itself, so that neo-Nazis appear like “everyday Australians” fed up with “woke” politics. But this is the exact terrain Liberal National members are currently inhabiting, and if any young white man doesn’t consider Dutton’s belligerence offensive enough, they can already move on down to the local One Nation branch.

The NSN needs 1,500 members to apply to the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) to form a party, and, of course, the word ‘Nazi’ won’t be featured in the party name, and nor will it be overtly obvious in its politicking. However, some far-right actors fear a further law enforcement crackdown after the dawn service incident, while hardliners aren’t too happy with this toned-down approach.

Misreading the Trumpian agenda

The sort of role that a neo-Nazi party with a more publicly palatable policy platform would play in Australian federal politics has been occupied by Senator Pauline Hanson and her One Nation Party since the 1990s. This position entails members taking far-right, often extremist positions, that then shifts the centre of politics further right, which was quite convenient for former PM John Howard.

However, during the 1998 election, Howard made a point of ordering Liberals to preference One Nation last on its how-to-vote cards. So, in a clear example of just how far to the right the local political climate has shifted over the close to three decades since then, the Dutton-led Coalition has determined to place One Nation as second preference in the vast majority of lower house seats.

This shift to preferencing One Nation by the Liberal Nationals bucks a three decade tradition, and like many of the choices that Dutton has taken over the last three months, it has obviously been made more acceptable by the global shift to the far-right in western politics that has been fuelled by the inauguration of US president Donald Trump, and further still, by the onset of the Gaza genocide.

The new Trump administration has been dramatically attempting to reassert a white supremacist colonial dominance long in decline, and the role that grassroots neo-Nazis are to play in this surge of modern fascism was clearly defined during Trump’s first time around, which is to do what the NSN has been doing over the past few years, appear menacingly on the streets because they can.

Hitler is so last century

Days prior to the 3 May federal vote, polls continue to show that the surge against Dutton that began following the Trump administration unleashing its domestic agenda that comprises of destroying social services and civil rights in the name of maintaining tax cuts for the 1 percent, doesn’t appear to look too appetising to “everyday Australians” even if they’re fed up with “woke” politics.

Dutton has been playing Trumpian politics in Australian parliament long before the current US president even stepped into the arena. The Liberal opposition leader knows the role that neo-Nazi types play in respect of his party, as well as that One Nation has now successfully cemented after near on three decades.

The Liberal leader praised Trump as a “big-thinker” on his announcement that the US would illegally acquire Gaza after it is ethnically cleansed by Israel. However, when the US president turned this approach to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy and unleashed his global tariff war, middle Australia wasn’t so keen on having Dutton make Australia great again.

So, as for the splash the coming National Socialist Network’s political arm might make at the 2028 ballot box, well, considering how this Australian election is shaping up at present, it might have missed the boat, which is sailing right now toward the 2025 vote this Saturday.

And the neo-Nazis might come to realise that a modern Australia is for multicultural people of all orientations, and ultimately, the continent is unceded Blak Country, and the myth of a white Australia was only ever that.