March for Australia Demonstrators Appeared to Harbour Racist Sentiment, Despite Denials

The second March for Australia took place on Gadigal land in Hyde Park North on 19 October 2025, and following the fallout from the original 31 August neo-Nazi-infused turnout, the non-Nazi elements of the antiimmigration movement had been at pains to insist that they’re against immigration, but not racist. Yet, on rallying again last week, this group failed to dispel such ideas.

Thousands of majority white Australians draped in Southern Cross flags, with some holding signs that read “Stop Mass Immigration”, gathered in the Sydney CBD last Sunday, without any Nazis this time. And as speakers addressed the crowd on the need for a restoration of White Australia, a soundtrack playing 1980s greatest hits – think AC/DC and Paul Kelly – hinted at what golden past is now lost.

Sydney organiser white Australian man Jesse Stewart addressed the Sunday crowd in the park first up, and to set the scene around what the so-called ‘scourge of mass immigration’ that’s plaguing Australia looks like, he described scenes of “suburbs with enclaves of hostile foreigners with ideologies and religions that are fundamentally against the founding culture of this nation”.

As Stewart addressed the crowd, he asserted that Australia had once been the greatest nation on Earth, and he lamented the fact that “traitors from government… have sold out our people and flooded us with an infinite, unrelenting flow of immigration for the purpose of their financial… gain”. Jesse added that these “hordes of ethnic foreigners” have led to the dissolution of Australian culture.

Standing in the sidelines waiting to speak was Freedom movement darling and ‘once serious contender for PM’ former United Australia MP Craig Kelly, along with NSW Libertarian MLC John Ruddick. And as the crowd repeatedly chanted “send them back”, Sydney Criminal Lawyers couldn’t help but question how elected MPs might consider this cause a legitimate entity to lend support to.

“Import the third world, become the third world”

“After August 31st, a lot of people walked away feeling like the day was amazing. They were filled with adrenaline, full of pride and they couldn’t wait to go again,” Bec Freedom, national coordinator of the March for Australia events, told the crowd on Sunday. “The media knew this though. The government knew this. So, they had to try and diminish these feelings and squash that pride.”

“My goal was to get people speaking about the problems we are seeing in Australia in terms of mass immigration. The negative side effects and the impacts on Australians,” the organiser continued. “I wanted to hear people discussing how important it is to fight to keep our national identity, to protect our way of life and to protect our Anglo Saxon and European heritage and culture.”

Freedom outlined that the movement has succeeded in putting mass immigration on the political agenda, along with having reasserted pride in the nation’s white heritage. The white Australian woman further insisted that the country’s heritage is white, just like the people on the First Fleet. Yet, the crowd appeared blissfully unaware of the First Nations people of this continent.

The March for Australia national organiser added that following the 31 August 2025 March for Australia rally, the media, which people “cannot hate enough”, only showed the violence of the event, along with showcasing the fact that the Nationalist Socialist Network, or NSN neo-Nazis, were prominent participants. Freedom added that the media framed all the male participants in August as toxic.

“The Labor Party doesn’t exactly scream patriotism,” Freedom further underscored. “They are ignoring the homeless people living on the streets. Ignoring the Australians losing their well-paying jobs, just to get replaced with cheaper immigrant workers. But worst of all, they are ignoring the concerns of safety due to high levels of immigrant crime taking over our streets.”

Making Australia great again

The March for Australia movement developed out of the COVID-19 era Freedom movement that once upon a time had chief concerns that involved the avoidance of vaccinations, the ability to cross borders and being able to leave home without a reasonable excuse, but over recent months, this group has reformulated its position to the currently much-more-charged issue of mass immigration.

The nationwide 31 August 2025 March for Australia events were notable in that some of the mass of white Australians mobilising against migration embraced NSN participation, while in Naarm-Melbourne, not only were Nazis accepted but they tended to take over the program, as they brawled with counterprotesters in CBD streets and even attacked First Nations site Camp Sovereignty.

Just as the Freedom movement protests during the COVID pandemic lockdowns were conducted alongside a broader movement across the western world, the current outpouring of white nationalist sentiment is not occurring in isolation. Gigantic Unite the Kingdom rallies have been marching in the UK since early 2025, and indeed, the British movement has inspired those here to act.

In the US, significant far-right white supremacist mobilisations began during the first Trump administration with the 2017 Unite the Right protests that sprung up in Charlottesville. Ad with the second coming of the Trump administration commencing in January, street demonstrations are no longer needed, as the ever-increasingly authoritarian White House is now leading the fascist charge.

Tech billionaire Elon Musk, who, despite seemingly falling out with the Trump administration at the end of his stint with the US Department of Government Efficiency, made a televised appearance before the largest UK antiimmigration demonstration ever in September, and he openly called on the white British public to rise up against their government, due to the onslaught of immigration.

The NSN has been openly demonstrating on the streets as neo-Nazis since they lined up out the front of Victorian parliament in March 2023. The difference between the NSN mobilisations compared to the white supremacist protests involving Reclaim Australia and other groups, like United Patriots Front, mid-last decade is these same white nationalists now openly espouse Nazism.

And many of the regular March for Australia crowd that aren’t affiliated with the umbrella group that is the National Socialist Network, are likely to have participated in the white nationalist, anti-Muslim outpourings of a decade ago. However, again, the difference with their current iteration involves their not being neo-Nazis, but they’ve aligned with and marched beside such extremists in public.

“We need to send them back”

“Gang violence, machete violence, rape, home invasion: the list is endless,” warned Freedom. “The people who committed these crimes came here for a better life, but instead, they’ve chosen to treat Australia the same as their former home. What was that quote Jesse said earlier? Oh, that’s right, ‘import the third world, become the third world’.”

These statements from Bec and others on the stage, along with ideas about foreigners in suburban enclaves tinkering away at social discord and the demonising of countries where immigrants come from, tends to reflect a parochial understanding of the globe, as does the crowd’s idea that this nation is completely devoid of any links to or responsibility towards the Gaza genocide.

Footage from the August rally showed protesters quoting immigration figures recently cited by 2GB shock jock Ben Fordham, as he suggested that 1,544 new immigrants arrive in Australia every day, which the ABC’s Media Watch later revealed was a bit of spin. There was also a video clip involving an Indian man, who addressed the first protest, being shoved and heckled by white participants.

As NSW Libertarian MLC John Ruddick took to the stage on Sunday, he remarked that it was fantastic to see that the crowd was “making the Australian flag great again”, and he praised Bec Freedom for the bravery she had shown in putting together the demonstration in the face of much criticism.

“I am here because I believe that the three most important issues facing Australia are immigration, immigration and immigration,” said Ruddick.

“I will tell you what immigration is like. Imagine if you are having a party. Your friends come around. Your family comes around. You are having a good time. Such a good time, that people you do not know start crashing it. They wreck the party. Once what was a great party is now an unhappy party.”

After this revelation, Ruddick then presented the solution to the problem of immigration to the crowd, which he believes is halting it for 5 years, over which time the nation can have a debate about the best way to move forward with immigration, and the MLC considers that after the half-decade-long discussion, Australia will decide to continue without any immigration.

“The funny thing is, I read in the media this week that this was actually a Nazi rally,” Ruddick continued. “Now I was sceptical of that, and I have talked to a lot of people today, and you seem like the happiest, nicest people I have met in many, many years.”

“So, I would like to do a test, if you are here and you are not a Nazi can you please put up your hand. You will have to put up your left hand, not your right one,” the MLC quipped, as most of the crowd raised their hand. “Now that is pretty much everybody here. What that means is we were lied to in the media. They want to bad mouth this movement, because they can see that it is catching on.”