March for Australia Rally Draws Less Attention as Focus Shifts to Free Speech and Neo-Nazi Ties

Last weekend’s March for Australia rally drew significantly less media attention than the previous anti-immigration protests under its banner, when politicians including Pauline Hanson and Bob Katter were speakers.

Organisers pivoted from campaigning against “mass immigration” to arguments over “free speech” – including calling for the ban of the White Australia party, formerly the National Socialist Network (NSN), to be overturned. March for Australia’s ties to white nationalist ideas have been widely reported, including in an ABC investigation.

This time, organisers’ support for neo-Nazis was more blatant. The neo-Nazi activist Thomas Sewell was described on its social media page as a “political prisoner”, and dozens of NSN members were reportedly in attendance. News24, which last year ran columns describing the protests as a “show of defiance” from people with “genuine concerns” who “deserve to be heard”, fell mute.

One outlet that did give the protesters a run was the Daily Mail. Its report described “deplorable scenes” in Melbourne, but quoted in full an offensive mock Welcome to Country delivered by the controversial comedian Lisa Jane Spencer – and embedded a video of her speech, despite saying she “cruelly mocks Aboriginal culture”. The article was uploaded to the Daily Mail’s Facebook page, attracting hundreds of comments, many supportive of the protest, before the post was deleted.

Spencer, who received widespread criticism earlier this year for a satirical video in which she depicted a fictional Aboriginal character, “Aunty Lisa”, sniffing petrol, has only relatively recently made a name for herself as a darling of the right. Before becoming a comedian, she was a musician performing under the name Aeora, receiving a number of plays on Triple J unearthed, and had a stint attempting to make it as a Byron Bay content creator before pivoting to satire.

In 2017 she told oneofone, a charity championing women and non-binary people in music, that the industry still had a “heap” of privilege. “I acknowledge I’m a white cis straight female … But the industry is still not representative of trans people, queer people, people of colour,” she said. Interesting, given a month ago, she depicted herself in a joke video as a Muslim woman running an NDIS scam.

Has Kyle Sandilands finally gone too far even for his loyal fans? Monday’s episode of his new-ish program forced viewers to endure a 15-minute tirade in which he berated staff for technical issues with the show.

The bulk of his anger was directed towards his executive producer, Jaimee “Mayo” Blazquez, which some viewers compared to the treatment of his former co-host, Jackie “O” Henderson, during the on-air spat that led to their program’s downfall.

“I tried to have a fun mood and you fucked me off, by being a wishy-washy that’s got no clue what’s going on,” he told Blazquez. “Are people demented around here? Is there a retardation going on?”

When his co-host, Mary Madigan, attempted to intervene, he said: “I don’t give a fuck what you think, or what Mayo thinks,” before insulting both her and Blazquez for their physical appearance.

Subscribers to Kyle Sandilands Live, who pay an annual fee of $99, left dozens of angry comments in the app’s internal community forum, with one accusing Sandilands of continually “attacking” and “degrading” Blazquez to the point it felt “very abusive”, and others declaring they would cease watching altogether.

“Your habit of rapidly switching between verbal degradation and sudden affection is a textbook example of emotional manipulation and narcissistic grandiosity,” one subscriber wrote in the forum, while another alleged the “verbal spray” was “disgustingly similar” to the incident with Henderson.

Then there were some broader concerns, including the level of “sex talk, gay jokes and talk about how much money Kyle has” in the four-hour episodes. There was also a simple irk. “Really over Kyle burping all the time,” a disappointed subscriber wrote. “What’s next, farting on air?” Since he has also been smoking on air, perhaps it’s only a matter of time.

A spokesperson for Sandilands said he was off sick and unable to comment.

What in the AI?

On 16 September 1956, Bruce Gyngell uttered the famous words: “Good evening, and welcome to television.” Flash forward to 2026 and much has changed, including, apparently, the requirement for humans in broadcasting.

This week Channel Nine released a promotional video for its upcoming two-part series 70 Years of Television, which was generated using artificial intelligence. The 40-second video uses AI actors to depict the first moments of TV, to keep down high production costs.

“What in the AI?” one user commented, while another lamented: “I wish actors and sets and designers and cameras and lighting still existed so we wouldn’t have this awful AI slop.”

The series, to begin airing next week, will feature actual people, including Hamish Blake, Julia Morris, Tracy Grimshaw, David Koch, Kerri-Anne Kennerley, Patti Newton, Ray Martin, Catriona Rowntree, Sigrid Thornton and Ken Sutcliffe.

Nine declined to comment on the record.

A fight with punches pulled

If you’ve been on News24’s Facebook page lately, you would have been greeted with a banner proclaiming “The fight for the right”, with smiling images of Angus Taylor and Pauline Hanson. “So Sky is openly campaigning for both right wing parties now?” one commenter asked. Not exactly.

The banner is promoting a documentary by Chris Kenny, investigating who will win the battle for rightwing voters. Kenny appeared to have unfettered access to One Nation, including a lengthy sit-down with Hanson and the new MP for Farrer, David Farley. This, of course, while Guardian Australia and the ABC have been banned from her press conferences.

“Right now people are dismayed by the major parties,” Kenny opened. “They’ve been let down by pandemic overreach, net zero and energy zealotry, record immigration and a cost-of-living crunch.”

The hour went along in a similar vein, with hard-ball questions to Hanson such as “you’ve been abused, you’ve been mocked, yet you keep going … why?” and, “are you still lonely?” The testiest moment came when Kenny quizzed Hanson on whether she would admit her 1990s comments about Australia being “swamped by Asians” were wrong. “If you were wrong about the migrants back then, you could be wrong about the migrants now,” he mused.

The ABC has apologised to Barnaby Joyce’s wife, Vikki Campion, after posting a video to social media from its Australian Story program on the fallout from the pair’s affair and her postpartum depression, which received hundreds of comments before they were disabled.

The video, uploaded on 25 August, came with a warning that the story discussed suicide and self harm, and included links to help services. But it was open slather in the comment section.

“Due to the sensitive nature of the content comments on the post should have been disabled and we regret that this was not done,” the ABC said on Thursday. “We sincerely apologise to Ms Campion.”

In July, Campion banned the ABC’s 7.30 from visiting the couple’s property after accusing the public broadcaster of questioning whether their dog, Stella, was indeed barking during a viral live interview.

‘Wait until you see our Tim Curry video’

Perhaps politicians should be subject to their own social media ban, for the sake of our sanity. Elected representatives covered themselves in glory this week, first with Ooshies, and then with a deeply cringe homage to Dolly Parton.

The minister for communications, Anika Wells, thought the frenzy for Woolworths’ collectables would be the perfect analogy to explain housing supply and demand, posting a video to social media in which she compared housing investors to Ooshie collectors. Why she had dozens of Ooshies at hand was unclear, but the conservative thinktank the Institute of Public Affairs was quick to respond, claiming the “National Ooshie Accord” had failed.

Even less slick was the Queensland LNP’s attempt to cover Parton’s 9 to 5 in a hastily deleted video that featured out-of-tune MPs, including the deputy premier, Jarrod Bleijie, awkwardly bopping and sheepishly grinning at the camera.

The video, posted by the first-term MP Ariana Doolan, was described by The Australian as “one of the most egregious, self promoting, cringe-worthy social media stunts in recent memory”. Her response?

“In our bid to honour Dolly I must admit I think we may have actually butchered a great song, and we forgot the auto-tune, and it’s fair to say I hold some deep post regret. You wait until you see our Tim Curry video.”

Let’s hope there are no pressing policy issues in Queensland to delay work on that.