ASIO warns of rise in activity from far right groups

They’re pushing the limit, Joe. That’s the problem. We had these conversations about rising Neo Nazi and other far right groups back before the March 2019 terrorist attack in Christchurch. But of course that terrorist attack brought home the the reality of an Australian terrorist could kill people. It’s happened now, sadly. And so there’s been a lot of pressure on these groups, including new legislation banning the swastika, you know, being used for political purposes, banning Hitler salutes, et cetera. But these groups are finding that they can push the limits and test how far law enforcement and the courts want to go. What they’re really after, what they’re hungry for, is publicity. So they wanna be controversial. They wanna be on the Evening News because they figure that’s gonna somehow drive their recruitment. Yeah, there’s talk in this submission about these groups generally wanting publicity and things like that. But there’s also been an increase in the last 18 months, apparently in extremists advocating sabotage in private conversations, particularly pronounced among those who want to trigger a race war. It’s really concerning terminology there. Do you, what do you detect is happening? Yeah, it it’s always concerning Joe when sort of we get a peek behind the curtain at ASIO and they show us as much as they can the conversations they’re listening in on, the messages they’re seeing. So we’ve seen elsewhere around the world there’s a move in the right wing extremist communities towards looking at chances to blow up power infrastructure, power lines or or or water infrastructure. And so no doubt Australia which is very much part of a a global conversation as far as these communities are concerned. People are talking about what they could do here as well as ever. The main concern remains lone actor attacks, whether it’s on, you know, infrastructure or unfortunately on people, as was the case in Christchurch. And that’s really hard to predict and prevent. We didn’t, we couldn’t have predicted what happened in in Christchurch. Even now it’s hard to know what more can be done. So that’s the that’s the conundrum. These groups themselves are not very large. They’re not very powerful. People don’t launch attacks at the name of these groups. Unlike Al Qaeda or Islamic State, they’re not sort of planned and and running as an organization. It’s individuals who tend to be very narcissistic and looking for attention, who want to launch violent attacks which they survive and then appraised for. So that’s a hard threat to deal with. Yeah. And so there’s one group in particular in Australia that seeks media coverage and gets gets it. What what is there beyond that? There’s several of those groups and they they are interrelated. There’s sort of personalities that move between them. But we’re talking of, you know, thousands of people involved, not 10s of thousands, you know, hundreds of people at the core. These are not very large and they’re desperate to get attention. But unfortunately, what they’ve found is that they can push the limits of our laws and largely be unpunished, largely get away with it. So they will keep on trying to do that. And you know, we’re talking about the tragedy in Gaza today, you know, very sad Eid for the people of Gaza because of the way that’s galvanized people around the world with emotions. These opportunistic groups look for a chance to try and gatecrash rallies and and try and do something. So even now there’s a danger that may strike at a, at a, you know, a a peaceful March in the streets because people are, you know, in large numbers representing a soft target in any case, they they want to try and leverage that emotional engagement to to drive their cause. Of course, these groups have historically been anti-Semitic, but in recent decades they’re also Islamophobic, as the attack on the two mosques in Christchurch tragically pointed out. So, you know, between the COVID pandemic and now the the tragedy in Gaza and other global tensions are under what including in the Russia claiming that it’s going after Nazis in Ukraine, which doesn’t make sense. But all of these things are are fodder for these groups to try and generate interest and try and get traction with the public. And some of these groups create crowdfunding campaigns and have training clubs. Could the laws be tightened around this? Yeah, that’s a really good point. I mean we’re being warned that in Australia, as in in other similar democracies, these right wing extremists, these neo Nazis will come together at a gym and ostensibly it’s a Fight Club sort of training club. It’s very hyper masculine, but on the face of it doesn’t appear to be illegal. So that’s got to be the challenge. At what point you decide this activity is illegal? These people are very clever at sailing just one side of the law, being provocative but but not crossing the line more than they have to. So I’m not sure that legal changes are going to be well, there certainly might be a panacea, maybe they’re going to be part of the solution. But I think we need to have a broader conversation in Australian society, including in our politics. I mean, frankly, there are elements of our political discourse about minorities, about migrants, about people who are in their boats, Islamophobic comments, sometimes anti-Semitic comments, which make it easier, give up permissive space, give an opportunity space for groups like this to speak out and and be seen to be as reasonable. And of course, we saw things get much worse in America under the Trump, the Trump presidency. And whether Trump comes back the White House or not, this year’s campaign is upping the stakes in America and that that reverberates in Australia as well. And do Australian authorities appear to be on top of this as much as reasonably possible? Yeah, they that’s the good news, Joe, is they’re putting a lot of resources into it. So that’s that’s positive. The system is working. They do appear to be on top of it, but we have to acknowledge that a lone actor attack like the Christchurch attack could happen, you know, really at any time. Because these people will act as individuals, not the name of a group, they won’t necessarily give a lot of warning if family or friends see something happening with somebody they’re they’re close to speaking up is perhaps the best chance of stopping something tragically happening. But it is a tough challenge.