Neo-Nazis have lodged a constitutional challenge in the High Court against new federal laws outlawing them as a hate group, as they fight to form a political party.
The National Socialist Network disbanded on paper in January in an attempt to escape the government’s crackdown on extremism that could see its members and supporters face up to 15 years in prison.
But on Friday, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke proscribed the group anyway, noting members had continued to organise covertly, “phoenixing” under new names such as White Australia.
Within days of the NSN disbanding, its leader Thomas Sewell had fundraised a war chest of more than $150,000 for his efforts to challenge the laws in court.
Documents released by the High Court on Monday reveal the group plans to use the reinstatement of the once-banned Communist Party of Australia – its ideological enemies – in the appeal, arguing that a government banning even “an unfashionable political party” infringes on the implied right to political freedom in Australia, and gives punitive power to the government without judicial review.
The group is seeking an immediate injunction voiding the proscription of the NSN until the appeal is heard. The case was filed by Sewell’s long-time lawyer, Matthew Hopkins, who has himself posted antisemitic and racist views online.
Despite claiming to have disbanded, neo-Nazis of the NSN have continued to meet in person throughout this year, including under the banner of the March for Australia anti-immigration rallies they helped organise around the country.
Last week, Sewell and other senior NSN figures admitted they had also continued with their plans to form a neo-Nazi political party, submitting the paperwork to register the “White Australia” party – with Sewell as party president – to the Australian Electoral Commission on Anzac Day.
On Friday, hours before the group’s midnight designation as a hate group, Sewell posted a video, which he said he hoped was not his final address.
“If our High Court injunction fails, then the fate of liberal democracy dies with the fate of white Australia, and you will be able to say to your grandchildren you were present when honorable men tried the peaceful method of resisting a government that is hell-bent on the destruction of our people,” he said.
Elsewhere online, prominent neo-Nazis told followers to research US neo-Nazi terror group the Order, which the NSN lionises, as their political options “dried up”. “Democracy is dead,” wrote one former NSN member. “Act accordingly.”
A new Telegram channel set up by the NSN in recent weeks, called Australian Vanguard, shut down on Friday as the news of the proscribing broke. Before it went dark, the channel warned that if all legal and political avenues were exhausted, “what avenues do [the government] think realistically remain? Do they think whites will submit?”
In January, this masthead revealed the extent of the NSN’s entanglement with terrorists and extremist groups overseas, and uncovered a secret chatroom run by March for Australia organisers and the NSN where an alleged $10,000 plot to kidnap Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, along with other threats, had led to multiple police raids.
The NSN’s political push – as revealed by this masthead in April – is part of its broader efforts to rebrand as “everyday Australians” concerned about immigration in order to recruit followers and use political expression as a shield against hate speech laws.
In outlawing the group on Friday, the home affairs minister noted the NSN’s involvement in violence, including an alleged attack on women and elderly people at an Indigenous camp in Melbourne last year, over which more than a dozen members, including Sewell, now face charges.
The federal government has also designated fundamental Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir as a hate group under the new laws, again at the recommendation of spy agency ASIO.
Since the NSN formally disbanded, Sewell has increasingly appeared on far-right manfluencer podcasts online, including alongside designated terrorist James Mason.
Some right-wing associates of the neo-Nazis said they were seeking legal advice about the proscribing on Friday, and March for Australia lead organiser Bec Freedom wiped her group’s main Telegram chat.
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