Transcript

LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: You may have noticed a number of anti-Muslim protests in the news in Australia over the last few months. There was another one just this past weekend in the historic Victorian town of Bendigo with about a thousand people.

The thing is though, that protest wasn't led by locals. It was driven by the United Patriots Front, a nationalist group based in Melbourne and Sydney.

It's fighting against what it sees as the growing Islamisation of Australia.

Madeleine Morris have been investigating the organisation.

PROTESTOR: What do we want?

PROTESTORS (in unison): No mosques!

PROTESTOR: When do we want it?

PROTESTORS (in unison): Now!

PROTESTOR II: If Bendigo falls, the rest of Australia will fall.

MADELEINE MORRIS: Fall to what?

PROTESTOR II: Islam.

MADELEINE MORRIS, REPORTER: From around Australia, they converged, a thousand or so protestors nominally here to stop a mosque. In reality though, this demonstration was about much more.

BLAIR COTTRELL, VICTORIAN LEADER, UNITED PATRIOTS FRONT: At the end of the day, you can either be a Muslim or an Australian. It must be either/or because the two do not correlate and do not correspond!

MADELEINE MORRIS: The rally was organised by the United Patriots Front, a nationalist movement that's sprung up only in the last six months. From its birth on social media, it has emerged as one of the largest grassroots anti-Islam organisations in Australia.

SHERMON BURGESS, NATIONAL LEADER, UNITED PATRIOTS FRONT: Hello, my dear patriotic Australians and left-wing traitors who might actually learn something from this.

MADELEINE MORRIS: Its national leader is Shermon Burgess, a former council worker from the Blue Mountains who goes by the online name of "The Great Aussie Patriot". Burgess formed the UPF when he split from the Reclaim Australia movement earlier this year because he thought Reclaim was being hijacked.

SHERMON BURGESS: We also are more hardline nationalist compared to some other groups that are more democratic anti-Islam. Now the problem with democratic anti-Islam is a lot of these movements without even realising it can be diluted, watered down and become politically correct themselves.

MADELEINE MORRIS: His prolific videos on Facebook outline his political views and promote a strongman image.

Burgess was also part of a band, Eureka Brigade, which penned this violent anti-Islam song.

SINGER (Eureka Brigade song): We're sick of your Sharia, burn your f***ing mosques, It's time to show you muzzrats we're the f***ing boss, You thought you had it easy, but you surely lost, Cronulla was Australia's Muslim holocaust.

MADELEINE MORRIS: The UPF wasn't the only group at the weekend rally. There have been a number of different anti-Islam groups that have demonstrated at rallies across the country and in the wake of the Lindt Cafe siege, and now, the Parramatta shooting.

The UPF claims to have gained a following of about 5,000 people in just a few months.

The weekend's Bendigo rally was its biggest outing so far and was supported by plenty of locals who oppose the building of the planned mosque.

RALLY ATTENDEE: The UPF has given us a voice and the rest of Bendigo a voice of what we want.

MADELEINE MORRIS: The UPF has only recently begun protesting what has until now been a local issue.

JULIE HOSKIN, RIGHTS FOR BENDIGO RESIDENTS: They approached us before the last rally and we decided we had mixed feelings about it. We didn't know how to, um - how to deal with it, really.

MADELEINE MORRIS: The local anti-mosque group agreed to work with the UPF ahead of its last Bendigo rally in August. After that rally turned ugly, the group has now disassociated itself from the UPF.

JULIE HOSKIN: Well the UPF have got nothing to do with our group. We've remained very autonomous and focused on what we needed to focus on with planning and legal issues.

MADELEINE MORRIS: Many though in Bendigo support the building of a mosque in the town.

VOX POP: It isn't really gonna make any difference. It's not gonna make any more Muslims appear or anything. It's just gonna be somewhere for them to pray and feel safe.

MADELEINE MORRIS: The UPF has encouraged its supporters to go to other rallies interstate.

UPF SPEAKER (July): We're in Sydney. We're travelling over 10 hours to get to Melbourne. Why are you all going?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Australia!

AUDIENCE MEMBER II: Australia!

AUDIENCE MEMBER III: Australia first!

AUDIENCE MEMBER IV: Aussie, Aussie, Aussie!

MADELEINE MORRIS: 7.30 filmed this in July ahead of an anti-Islam rally at Victorian State Parliament.

UPF SPEAKER (July): Let's get on that bus and go and show these traitors and radical Muslims what we're about.

MADELEINE MORRIS: The UPF says it's not racist, but it does attract those with far-right views.

ROSS MAY (July): We're gonna kick the Muslims out and the Jews and anyone else who gets in our way. We're gonna kick 'em out.

JOURNALIST: The Muslims and the Jews, you're gonna kick them out?

ROSS MAY: Yeah, we're gonna take Australia back to the white man.

JOURNALIST: You're a neo-Nazi, are you?

ROSS MAY: That's right. I've been a National Socialist all my life.

MADELEINE MORRIS: This is Ross May, known as "The Skull". He's a member of neo-Nazi group Squadron 88. The UPF said it didn't know its political allegiance and it made a point of kicking him off its bus.

UPF MEMBER (UPF video): Well mate, you're getting removed. Alright? Mate, you know as well as I do, alright, that we're not racists.

MADELEINE MORRIS: In Bendigo though, it was clear that the UPF's rallies continue to draw those from the extreme right. These men didn't want to be interviewed on camera, but readily admitted to being members of the anti-immigrant group Right Wing Resistance. They travelled to Bendigo from Brisbane and Adelaide to lend their support.

And one of the UPF's Victorian leaders has been convicted of harassing a rabbi. Last year, Neil Erikson made a number of prank calls and threatened to "come and get" Melbourne Rabbi David Gutnick.

Another Victorian leader, Blair Cottrell, ramped the temperature up a notch earlier this month, filming a fake beheading in front of Bendigo City Council.

At Saturday's rally, Blair Cottrell and other UPF leaders wouldn't talk to the ABC.

BLAIR COTTRELL: I haven't got anything to say, I'm sorry. I've already spoken to a couple of yous. I'm gonna keep moving. OK? Thanks very much.

MADELEINE MORRIS: You don't want to tell us what you think today actually means?

BLAIR COTTRELL: It's a demonstration of community pride and strength. It's not so much a protest as it is a demonstration in which we're conveying a new point of view to the people.

MADELEINE MORRIS: But is it about much more than just the mosque?

BLAIR COTTRELL: Thanks, I'm done. Thank you.

MADELEINE MORRIS: Victorian Acting Deputy Police Commissioner Kevin Casey says the police isn't too worried about what appears to be growing Islam sentiment.

KEVIN CASEY, ACTING DEP. POLICE COMM., VIC. POLICE: I see the UPF as a fringe group that are trying to get traction wherever they can and create disquiet or fear in the community. But they're only a small fringe group, and nevertheless, while we take them seriously, our job is to actually maintain peace and order and encourage the community that they should feel safe.

MADELEINE MORRIS: Victorian Muslim leaders are also playing down the influence of the UPF and similar groups.

KURANDA SEYIT, SECRETARY, ISLAMIC COUNCIL OF VIC.: I'm very confident that the impact that they're gonna have on Australian society will be minimal and to a point where they will start to peter out and probably go back to the rock from which they crawled out from.

MADELEINE MORRIS: However, that's not the message coming from the UPF and other anti-Islam groups. Last month, national leader Shermon Burgess said the UPF is looking to field political candidates in coming elections.

The Rise Up Australia Party's leader Daniel Nalliah also spoke in Bendigo. The party's deputy president says anti-Islam groups including the UPF and Reclaim Australia are in regular contact.

ROSALIE CRESTANI, DEP. PRES., RISE UP AUSTRALIA PARTY: We do have a common ground in that we don't want to see terrorist threats like we saw just in Parramatta. So, we'll leave aside some of the issues we disagree on to say we do have common ground and we all will get candidates into Parliament. We will. We will join together and see what we can do.

PROTEST SPEAKER: Aussie, Aussie, Aussie!

AUDIENCE (in unison): Oi, oi, oi!

PROTEST SPEAKER: Aussie, Aussie, Aussie!

AUDIENCE (in unison): Oi, oi, oi!

PROTEST SPEAKER: Aussie!

AUDIENCE (in unison): Oi!

PROTEST SPEAKER: Aussie!

AUDIENCE (in unison): Oi!

LEIGH SALES: Madeleine Morris with that report.