Australia Outlaws Neo-Nazi Network Under New Hate Group Laws

Australia has outlawed a neo-Nazi network, marking the second organisation to be banned under its new law criminalising hate groups and support for them.

The group, previously known as the National Socialist Network and also referred to as White Australia, had announced its intention to disband after the government passed the law allowing certain organisations to be banned in January.

The legislation was in response to the antisemitic attack on a Hanukkah celebration at Sydney's Bondi Beach last December, in which 15 people were killed.

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said in Canberra on Friday that the National Socialist Network “changed their name, but didn't change the fact that they were still an organisation and were still engaging in the same sort of behaviour that met the thresholds for this legislation“.

Members of hate groups face 15 years in prison

The ban, which would take effect at the end of Friday, makes it illegal to support, fund, train, recruit, join or direct the group, including if it reformed under a new name, Burke said. Breaking the law is punishable by up to 15 years in prison.

The Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir was, in March, the first group banned under the hate speech law. That organisation and the National Socialist Network were publicly identified by lawmakers and officials as the policy's primary targets.

The new law allowed for hate groups that didn't otherwise fit Australia’s definition of a terrorist organisation to be banned. It was among a raft of measures enacted to curtail antisemitic hatred after the Bondi massacre targeting Jews roiled the country.

The national security agency ASIO decides whether an organisation meets the threshold to be designated as a hate group and a government minister must then approve the prohibition. Criteria include that an organisation's behaviour could increase the risk of violence and that it has advocated for or engaged in hate crimes.

“None of this will stop bigoted people from having horrific ideologies,” Burke said. “But it does prevent this group from organising, from meeting, and prevents some of the sorts of horrific, bigoted rallies that we've seen around our country.”

Former neo-Nazi group leader faces charges

The former group's leader, Thomas Sewell, is awaiting trial on charges relating to an attack he's accused of leading on an Indigenous protest camp last August. Black-clad men stormed the camp in Melbourne during an anti-immigration rally, injuring three.

Sewell has pleaded not guilty to the five counts he faces. An independent inquiry into the white supremacist shooting murders of 51 Muslims in Christchurch, New Zealand in 2019 found that Sewell had attempted to recruit the gunman in that massacre, Brenton Tarrant, to another white nationalist group two years before the mosque attack.

Burke dismissed suggestions that the National Socialist Network had disbanded. A post to the group's Telegram channel in January said it would dissolve to avoid arrests of its members, Australian news outlets reported.

The minister said his government was prepared for legal challenges from the outlawed groups.