Tagged with Young Nationals

antifa notes (may 29, 2019) : 2019 Australian federal election edition

Joy of Fools!

Briefly:

• To the surprise of pundits and pollsters, the ruling Liberal-National Coalition won majority government at the 2019 Australian federal election, with a likely total of 77 seats in the 151-seat parliament. Rah rah rah! They’re going to smash the oiks!

• Many blame rural and regional Queenslanders, along with the good burghers of western Sydney, for Labor’s loss. In Queensland, Labor’s equivocal position on the Adani coal mine has been blamed for it obtaining an extraordinarily low primary vote; further, ‘Labor was decimated in Queensland, but an examination of the “Adani” coal mining seats of Dawson, Capricornia and Flynn for example show a negligible increase in the LNP primary vote but a collapse in Labor’s vote and subsequent increase in One Nation’s vote’ (Labor has a problem and its name is Pauline, Jody Fassina, The Sydney Morning Herald, May 28, 2019). In Sydney, ‘Labor bled votes in its heartland of western Sydney because aspirational voters feared its economic policies, while social conservatism was another factor cited by experts and insiders for the party’s loss of supporters’ (Why Labor bled votes in its Western Sydney ‘heartland’, Rashida Yosufzai, SBS, May 24, 2019). See also : It wasn’t Bob Brown who lost the election, it was the Labor Party, James Norman, ABC, May 26, 2019 | It’s a myth that Aussie battlers handed the Coalition its election victory, Shaun Ratcliff, The Guardian, May 24, 2019 | North Queensland is just at the sharp end of what’s happening across Australia, Jason Wilson, The Guardian, May 21, 2019.

• Preference flows from Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party (PHONy) and Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party (UAP) voters appear to have secured victory for the Coalition in a number of seats in Queensland, but the billionaire mining magnate failed to (again) get bumped into parliament, none of UAP’s candidate obtained more than a handful of votes, and while PHONy didn’t do too badly — its national primary vote doubled — it too failed to gain any further seats, with Senator Peter Georgiou (WA) out and Malcolm Roberts (QLD) in.

• Outside of PHONy and UAP, the right-wing micro-parties — Dr Jim Saleam’s Australia First Party (AFP), Fraser Anning’s Conservative National Party (FACNP), Rod Culleton’s The Great Australian Party (GAP), Kim Vuga’s Love Australia Or Leave (LAOL), Danny Nalliah’s Rise Up Australia Party (RUAP), Debbie Robinson’s Yellow Vest Australia (YVA) — fared poorly at the ballot box. Still: ‘Rising White Nationalism Was The Real Story Of Australia’s Elections’, according to James Muldoon, who argues that ‘It’s too early to obtain exact figures, but it looks like over 1,000,000 first preferences were directed towards right-wing minor parties – xenophobes were spoilt for choice.’ On the other hand, white nationalist Queensland Senator Fraser ‘Final Solution’ Anning — that dawg — failed in his attempt to retain his spot in the Senate, receiving less than 30,000 votes (about 1.3%), while in the Lower House, no FACNP candidate managed to break thru the magical 4% barrier, with most receiving 1 or 2% and generally being ranked last or near-last. And why did Anning and his party fail? According to the reject(ed) senator: ‘I think we got dudded at the counting stations. We’re investigating that now. But that’s what you’d come to expect from a socialist government.’ *Note that Max Towns, the over-enthusiastic fascist teenybopper and Anning fan who allegedly assaulted overly-critical journalists at the launch of FACNP’s campaign in Cronulla a month ago, pleaded not guilty at a hearing on May 17; he returns to court on June 27.

• See also : Australia’s Federal Elections and Far Right Normalisation, The White Rose Society, Hope Not Hate, May 17, 2019 | Labor’s election defeat reveals its continued inability to convince people it can make their lives better, Geoffrey Robinson, The Conversation, May 19, 2019 | Ten piping hot takes on Labor’s election defeat, The Banner Bright, May 21, 2019 | ACTU launches review of $25m election campaign after Labor defeat, Lisa Martin, The Guardian, May 24, 2019 | Shocked by the rise of the right? Then you weren’t paying attention, Gary Younge, The Guardian, May 24, 2019.

Swastika Cupcakes!

Last week, in a joint investigation by the ABC and 9/Fairfax, several articles were published about a Canberra-based neo-Nazi couple, Justin Beulah and Lisa Sandford. You may remember Beulah and Sandford from the failed attempt to infiltrate the NSW Young Nationals late last year — or perhaps as some of the voices on AltRight podcast ‘The Convict Report’.

‘Swastika cupcakes’: private chats of neo-Nazis who stacked Young Nats, Patrick Begley, The Sydney Morning Herald, May 23, 2019:

Secret conversations between neo-Nazis who tried to take over the NSW Young Nationals have been uncovered in a leak of online chat logs that also reveal contact with a leading US alt-right figure.

A joint Herald-ABC investigation has identified several Australians within a previously hidden online world, where racists post memes, share gun pictures and discuss real-life meetings …

…. a fascist Australian couple … courted each other online with talk of “swastika cupcakes” and “jokes” about killing non-white people.

Justin Beulah was a Young Liberal university student at the time of the 2017 messages. He and his now wife Lisa Sandford, a former One Nation member, then joined a far-right attempt to branch stack the NSW Young Nationals last year.

The couple say they have now abandoned the “toxic” white supremacy movement and urge others to do the same.

Married to the alt-right, Elise Worthington, ABC, May 23, 2019:

The clandestine activities of an Australian neo-Nazi couple and their network have been exposed in a leak of hundreds of thousands of secret messages from a forum used by American white supremacists.

A joint investigation by ABC News and The Sydney Morning Herald reveals the pair also tried to recruit others to their cause and spread their views to mainstream political parties.

The messages, which date back from 2017, show that they engaged in racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic slurs, as they conversed in a closed community of like-minded zealots.

The investigation identified the couple as Canberra newlyweds Lisa Beulah (née Sandford) and her husband, Justin, who say they have now renounced their former lives.

For what it’s worth, I don’t believe that Beulah and Sandford have had a genuine change of heart, nor that this supposed shift took place post-Charlottesville (August 2017) as they claim. Thus in reality, both celebrated Heather Heyer’s murder. Sandford:

Sandford’s account of how she drifted from ‘anti-feminism’ to antisemitism/white supremacy/neo-Nazism is also contradicted by the biographical one she provides on Discord, in which she attributes responsibility for her adult worldview to her father, a bonehead, who fed her a steady diet of war propaganda growing up:

There’s numerous other problems with Beulah and Sandford’s account, but I’ll leave it up to the reader to detect them. As I see it, the story is really one in which, under media scrutiny, a newly-married (February 2019) couple has decided that distancing themselves from their neo-Nazi beliefs is probably A Very Good Idea. Thus while claiming to have abandoned the “toxic” white supremacy movement, when contacted by media about her views and opinions, Lisa sought counsel from leading Melbourne neo-Nazi Blair Cottrell (whose trial for religious vilification fangirl Lisa attended). In any case, anybody interested in reading the thousands of comments the couple made on Discord should consult Unicorn Riot’s logs. See : MsNatSocialist (Discord ID: 279874893846413313) and Brad Small (Discord ID: 211098280761884672). *Note that Clifford Jennings (‘The Dingoes’) was also active as ARA1788.

Serial Pests!

1) E r i k s o n

A few months ago, Melbourne’s premiere neo-Nazi serial pest, Neil Erikson, made a number of claims about meeting and organising with several Coalition MPs, viz, Andrew Hastie and Ian Goodenough in Perth: Hastie denied all knowledge. Erikson later claimed to have attended, along with his mate Ricky Turner and FACNP candidate and Erikson’s former ‘United Patriots Front’ comrade Scott Moerland, another meeting on the Gold Coast last year, organised by Liberal Party hacks in order to discuss how-to stack a branch with ‘conservatives’. (Moerland ran for Pauline Hanson’s former seat of Oxley, and received a little over 1,400 votes (1.6%) for his troubles — as a RUAP candidate in 2013, Moerland got just 400 votes, so well done Scott.)

Guest speakers at the Queensland recruitment drive included David Goodwin – a former LNP Senate candidate and former president of the Young Nationals and the Young LNP – and Victorian conservative Elliot Watson.

At the function, which is understood to have been held at a private residence, Goodwin and Watson both spoke about the need to recruit more conservatives into the party.

Watson, who is reportedly one of a number of Mormons appointed as party delegates in the Victorian Liberal Party, is credited with playing a “leading role” in recruiting conservatives to the Victorian branch of the party.

The Victorian branch of the party has been riven by factional divisions, amid claims that an insurgent group led by hardliner Marcus Bastiaan is pushing the Liberals too far to the right.

At the time of the Gold Coast meeting in June 2018, Erikson had acquired some sugar-daddies: Queensland businessmen, failed political entrepreneurs and Mormons Ben and Dan Spiller (AKA ‘AE Media’ and ‘Future Now Australia’). Thus the meeting appears to have taken place at the same time that Erikson and Turner paid an unscheduled nocturnal visit to the private residence of David Pellowe, a sometime rival of the Spillers on the AltRight tour-circuit.

Erikson later claimed that he met with former Victorian Liberals leader Matthew Guy during the Victorian state election campaign of last year (a claim Guy strongly denies). For its part, Victoria Labor issued a statement (May 6, 2019) demanding that ‘Victorian Liberals Must Explain Extremist Links’. The saga to that date is summarised by Richard James in Here’s Everything We Know So Far About Far-Right Activist Neil Erikson’s Alleged Meetings With The Liberal Party (Buzzfeed, May 7, 2019), but under pressure and having already lost almost all of his Facebook and Twitter accounts, Erikson eventually closed his gab account too, along with his wesbshite (neilerikson dot com).

He still maintains a YouTube channel but. See also : Far-right activist admits: ‘I lied about meeting WA MPs Hastie, Goodenough’, Nathan Hondros, WA Today, May 21, 2019.

via Puf Pitchers

On May 12, the pest was it again, only this time in the company of AltRight chum Claudia Benitez (AKA ‘Dia Beltran’), who together decided it would be fun! to interrupt a church service at West Hawthorn Uniting Church, it having been selected by the pair on account of its queer-friendly status. To cut a long story short, it appears as though — apart from anything else — Benitez lost her job at a local orthodontic clinic as a result of her participation in the idiotic stunt.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Having disturbed a gathering of “faggots” on Sunday, on Monday Erikson was in court, along with Turner, to face charges arising from the Milo stoopid of December 2017. Erikson was later found guilty of affray & assault with a weapon, and received a 120-hour community corrections order as punishment; Turner accepted a plea deal of a $1,000 fine and a 12-month good-behaviour bond. (Last month, Erikson’s olde nazi chum Richard Whelan had his charges dropped, and earlier Dwayne McKenzie and Garry Hume received diversion orders, as did Soldier of Odin Garry Mattsson.)

Convicted racist Neil Erikson spared jail despite assault and affray conviction
Genevieve Alison
Herald Sun
May 16, 2019

Convicted racist Neil Erikson has been spared prison for his role in a Right-wing riot after begging a magistrate not to jail him because he is soon to become a father.

After a two-day hearing, Erikson, 33, was this week found guilty of affray and assault with a weapon in a brawl during which hundreds of protesters clashed with police.

A charge of inciting riotous behaviour was dismissed.

Erikson’s lawyer, John Bolton, unsuccessfully argued his client had been acting in self-defence during a confrontation with a group protesting against a speaking appearance by Right-wing commentator Milo Yiannopoulos in Kensington on December 4, 2017.

Erikson told police he had been “in fear” and only stepped in to protect his friends because police “were nowhere”.

And Mr Bolton argued in the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court that Erikson was forced into the confrontation and had been protecting his mates when he punched, kicked and hit protesters with a pole.

But after viewing hours of CCTV footage from news media and police bodycams, which showed dozens of riot squad officers rushing to break up the violence, magistrate Michael Smith said Erikson had entered the affray voluntarily.

“No one was attacking him at the time,” Mr Smith said.

“He’s standing on the edge and voluntarily entered the ­affray with his banner.”

Erikson told the court he regretted the incident and was “never looking for any trouble that day”.

He pleaded with Mr Smith not to lock him up, because he was about to become a father.

The far-Right activist said while he received a small income from making “political videos”, he had been jobless for some time after finding it difficult to get a job because of his “political history”.

Erikson is one of the first people in Victoria to have been charged under racial vilification laws.

In 2017, he and two others were convicted of inciting contempt for Muslims and fined $2000 after they filmed a video of themselves beheading a mannequin outside Bendigo council offices in 2015.

The film was meant as a protest against the construction of a local mosque.

And last year, he was found guilty of contempt of court for failing to observe orders that he take down social media posts of himself wearing a uniform of a former employer.

One of those posts showed him haranguing former senator Sam Dastyari in a pub.

Mr Smith sentenced Erikson to a 12-month Community Corrections Order.

2) Y e m i n e m

Also experiencing some legal difficulties at the moment is Erikson’s rival serial pest Avi Yeminem. (Note that Yeminem’s party, Yellow Vest Australia, held a fairly desultory rally in Melbourne on May 4: a few dozen attended, while at the federal election just under 1,800 (0.06%) voted for the party for the Senate in Victoria — a drop of 0.60% since 2016.)

Avi Yemini in court over assault, knife-throwing charges against woman
Jon Andrews
Caulfield Glen Eira Leader
May 2, 2019

Activist and self-defence guru Avi Yemini has appeared in court facing charges that he injured, harassed and threw a knife at the face of a woman.

Mr Yemini, whose real first name is Avraham, pleaded not guilty to eight charges at Moorabbin Magistrates’ Court yesterday morning.

The 33-year-old’s case was adjourned until next month, with his lawyer saying he will contest the case.

Court documents released to the Leader state he has been charged with recklessly causing injury to a woman at a Caulfield North premises on March 18, 2016.

Police allege on the same day he also recklessly engaged in conduct by throwing a knife at the victim’s face that placed her in danger of serious injury.

They also believe in December 2015, three times in July 2017 and again in November last year he used a carriage service to harass her.

A summary of his alleged offending was not released.

The self-proclaimed “proud Ozraeli” promotes himself as someone who empowers women through self-defence classes.

A former Israel Defence Force soldier, he has a large Facebook following under his page Avi Yemini Unbanned and is an avid Twitter user, reaching out to his more than 43,000 fans.

His website states he is a voice for “issues relating to self-defence, counter-terrorism, being pro-Israel in Australia and the Jewish community in Melbourne”.

Considered as a far-right political activist, he failed in his bid last year to become an Upper House Victorian MP.

His lawyer, Deborah Mandie, told the court she believed the reckless cause injury charge was likely to be withdrawn, and the knife-throwing incident was disputed.

She said the defence needed statements regarding the carriage service to harass charges, which the police prosecution said they would be happy to provide.

Mr Yemini was bailed to his Berwick home on the condition he did not contact any witnesses.

He will appear in court again on June 13.

Balwyn Calling!

The Christchurch massacre continues to have some minor repercussions in the land of the alleged killer’s birth. Thus Tom Sewell, the fuehrer of neo-Nazi groupsucule The Lads Society, featured in ‘Threats from white extremist group that ‘tried to recruit Tarrant” (Patrick Begley, The Sydney Morning Herald, May 2, 2019), which details a sooky Sewell’s response to inquiries regarding the relationship between the Society and Brenton Tarrant.

“The difference between my organisation, myself and him [Tarrant], is simply that we believe, certainly at this stage, that there is a peaceful solution for us to create the society we want to live in,” Mr Sewell said.

“We want a peaceful alternative, we want to be treated with respect, we want to be left alone. If we are not given that opportunity, well, time will tell. I’m not going to give you any explicit threat but it’s pretty f–king obvious what’s going to happen.”

Mr Sewell said “we’re all gravy at the moment” because police were leaving his group alone but that people were “making the world burn, and they have names and addresses.”

At least The Lads don’t have access to firearms eh?

Bookface!

Facebook gonna Facebook, amirite? See : ‘Good PR but ultimately useless’: Facebook slammed over election ad transparency, Jennifer Duke, The Sydney Morning Herald, May 27, 2019 | Alt-right Facebook memes pushed anti-Labor message, Nigel Gladstone and Max Koslowski, The Sydney Morning Herald, May 26, 2019. See also : Minds, the ‘Anti-Facebook,’ Has No Idea What to Do About All the Neo-Nazis, Ben Makuch and Jordan Pearson, Vice, May 29, 2019 | Live Coverage Of A Disinformation Operation Against The 2019 EU Parliamentary Elections, Andy Patel, F-Secure, May 24, 2019.

Fraser Anning’s Conservative National Party, Andrew Wilson, neo-Nazis, & the 2019 Australian federal election

Above (L to R) : Radomir Kobryn-Coletti, Morgan Munro, Andrew Wilson.

On Thursday, ABC’s ‘Background Briefing’ published several articles documenting the involvement of various far-right personalities in Senator Fraser Anning’s party and office, among them Andrew Wilson and Radomir Kobryn-Colleti.

    tl;dr : A number of key figures from a radical right-wing political and social network — previously implicated in the infiltration of the Young Nationals last year and the (ultimately-unsuccessful) attempt to seize control of the Humanist Society in NSW ten years ago — have been recruited into Fraser Anning’s Conservative National Party (CNP), where they play a key role in the CNP’s 2019 Australian federal election campaign.

Of the young men involved in the CNP, as well as the networks which facilitated their passage, some further details may be found by way of thewhiterosesociety, but in the meantime:

• Radomir Kobryn-Coletti is ‘a conscientious and highly talented individual who’s personal skills and diverse network make him stand out as one of Perth’s most attractive young entrepreneurs’. Or at least, that’s how he describes himself on his LinkedIn profile; others may beg to differ.
• Morgan Munro is another ‘attractive young entrepreneur’ from Perth, who made his debut on AltRight website ‘The Unhinged’ on Hitler’s birthday in 2018, and has since become a regular contributor, with most of his content revolving around events in his new home of Melbourne.
• Zack Newton has closed his Facebook account but remains open for fashy business.
• Boston White is innocent.
• Andrew Wilson is ‘a toxic leach on the face of Australian nationalism … who lives off character assassination’. Well, according to one critic, anyway (see below). According to neo-Nazi troll Nathan Sykes and the Australia First Party, Wilson is A Very Bad Egg who’s implicated in a range of dirty tricks against them, performed for the benefit of the Liberal Party in Sydney. He’s also a veteran agitator and was once, in the early 2000s, the lvl boss of the ‘Patriotic Youth League’, a failed attempt by AFP to establish a yoof wing. At this time, Wilson was also a member of the Australian franchise of now-defunct neo-Nazi grouplet Volksfront (VF dissolved in 2012/3 after one of its associates, Wade Michael Page, shot to death six people at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin, USA).

The fallout from the ABC’s reportage has to date been minimal, with the usual denials being issued and some minor online recomposition taking place. Thus when asked for commentary on the matter the Prime Minister Scott Morrison dismissed it as some kind of ‘conspiracy theory’, while Anning himself has declared that he knows nothing and besides, what his employees do in their leisure time is none of his concern. One minor casualty of the affair has been the boys’ Facebook page ‘Abhorrent Australian Memes Did Nothing Wrong’ (itself an alternate for an earlier page titled ‘Abhorrent Australian Memes’) which has now been unpublished. The reasons for this are unclear, though it may have something to do with the page publishing a photo taken in federal parliament of Greens MP Larissa Waters — an action which is apparently contrary to parliamentary regulations.

There are, of course, dozens of such pages, which routinely share the same or similar material, often in a coordinated fashion. One example from last week revolves around the false attribution of a quote about immigration to cricketer Shane Warne, which was posted to the Spiller brothers’ page ‘Future Now News’ (since deleted) and twice on conspiracist page ‘Agenda 21 Australia/COP 2030/Politics’ (where it remains). Note that ahead of the Australian federal election Facebook has declared that it’ll do nothing to stop the flood of lies and propaganda, which fact may play some marginal role in determining the outcome. See : A Completely Made Up Racist Shane Warne Quote Went Viral On Facebook, Brad Esposito, Pedestrian, April 16, 2019 | Shane Warne Denies Anti-Immigration Comments In Viral Far-Right Meme, Josh Butler, 10 daily, April 16, 2019 | Social media platforms slammed for lax approach to policing fake news, Claire Bickers, Jennifer Dudley-Nicholson, News Corp Australia Network, April 17, 2019.

See / hear : Alt-right to release ‘avalanche’ of election campaign propaganda to help Fraser Anning, Alex Mann and Benjamin Sveen, April 19, 2019 | Australia’s alt-right is fighting a cultural battle to ‘radicalise’ the political narrative, expert says, Lisa Millar, The World Today, April 19, 2019 | Shitposting to the Senate: How the alt-right infiltrated Parliament, April 21, 2019 | Alt-Right Memes and Clive Palmer’s Return to Politics, Jordan McSwiney, Pop Politics Aus, September 27, 2018 | A Former Australian Politician’s Facebook Page Shared An Anti-Semitic Meme, Brad Esposito, Buzzfeed Australia, May 10, 2018.

*More generally, see also : Counter-terrorism police warn far-right figures about ‘negative’ behaviour, Max Kozlowsi, The Sydney Morning Herald, April 18, 2019.

Conservative Nationals Go To The Polls

On the same day as the Background Briefing report was published, in Townsville Senator Anning announced his Senatorial team in Queensland: Paul Taylor, Mark Absolon, Nancy Sandford and Brad Cameron. Previously, he’d introduced Perry Adrelius as the party’s candidate for Groom, Rod Smith for Wright, and Tim Dwyer and Peter Manuel for the Senate in South Australia.

Anning extended an invitation to the public to nominate themselves as candidates for his party by way of an email sent earlier in the month:

Hi all,

You are receiving this email because you have expressed an interest in standing for election as a candidate for Fraser Anning’s Conservative National Party.

Our initial intention was to make first contact with each of you by phone within a few days (and members of our team have already spoken to a significant number of you), but the sheer volume of nominations has overwhelmed any possibility of that. At the moment we are a small team trying to coordinate a movement that has exploded into something much, much bigger than ourselves. And with the Federal Election having just been called there is not a lot of time to do it.

The close of nominations is midday on the 23rd of April, and we want to have nominations finalised a couple of days before then. This means we need to substantially accelerate the nomination process.

This email is therefore going to serve as what would ordinarily be the first step of our interview and vetting process. It will lay out bluntly and frankly what the expectations of our candidates are and allow you to decide if you want to continue in this process. The goal is to quickly weed out as many of the uncommitted, unprepared, and unsuitable as possible.

The first thing I want to do with this email is to make clear exactly what the commitments of being a candidate are. If you have not previously had any experience in politics, this might be intimidating.

FINANCIAL COMMITMENT

Firstly, you will need to pay a nomination deposit of $2000 to get on the ballot paper … Then on top of that are the costs of the campaign. Campaign costs are variable depending on what you choose to invest in and how much you decide to spend, but don’t expect to be able to run a credible campaign with less than $5000.

You will be refunded your $2000 nomination deposit and campaign spending (up to $2.73 per vote won – approximately $2500-$3000 per percentage point in a lower house electorate) if you secure 4% or more of the vote at the election. However, you need to be able to put this money up out of pocket and potentially lose it all if things don’t go right for you. Even if you are successful enough to reclaim your expenses, you may need to wait for a significant period for your claim to be processed. If you don’t have the liquidity to dedicate these sorts of resources towards a campaign, it would be wise to take a step back.

ELIGIBILITY

When nominating you will need to complete this form [snip]. There are various reasons why you may not be constitutionally eligible for nomination. Dual citizenship is the obvious one, and if you have parents or grandparents from another country, you should provide evidence of why that does not make you a dual citizen.

Additionally working in a government job or having some sort of contract with the government may also disqualify you. So does being an undischarged bankrupt or insolvent or being under sentence for a crime punishable by 12 months imprisonment or more.

Go through the form linked above, and if you have any difficulties completing it in a way that confirms your constitutional eligibility to be elected, you should strongly consider withdrawing from the process.

POLICY

The objects of Fraser Anning’s Conservative National Party are as follows:

i) the vision of Sir Henry Parkes of Australia as an English speaking, predominantly European Christian Commonwealth, as originally described in 1901 when Australia as a nation was founded;

ii) social cohesion by an immigration program that gives preference to those best able to integrate and assimilate;

iii) traditional family values, including recognising marriage as only the union of a man and a woman and the sanctity of human life at all ages, including both the unborn and the elderly;

iv) government through the democratic consent of the governed;

v) individual freedom, including unrestricted freedom of speech, association and belief;

vi) private enterprise;

vii) private property as an inviolable natural right;

viii) universal home-ownership as a national objective;

ix) Australian ownership of our infrastructure, manufacturing and agriculture;

x) widely distributed ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange through owner operated farms, small business and co-operatives;

xi) collective bargaining in agriculture and industry;

xii) orderly marketing of agricultural products;

xiii) the development of rural and regional infrastructure and the re-industrialisation of Australia;

xiv) an end to usury through the establishment of a not-for-profit government bank;

xv) the right to own firearms and use them in self-defence;

xvi) welfare as a safety net but restricted to citizens;

xvii) citizens initiated referenda and voluntary voting;

xviii) decentralisation of power and competitive federalism;

xix) a fair taxation system that encourages productivity and savings and rewards hard work;

xx) the restoration of Australia’s national sovereignty through repudiation of coercive international treaties and a foreign policy that puts Australia first;

xxi) a capable and well-resourced military and strong support for our veterans.

Please read all of the above points carefully. If you are not able to whole heartedly support each and every point in this platform, please withdraw yourself from this process. Contradicting the party platform in any way will be grounds for immediate disendorsement. The reason is we expect the media will exploit any difference of view between Fraser and a candidate – even a small difference. While we respect people having different views, Party candidates have to be solid.

VOLUNTEERS

Ideally you will have a strong network of friends and supporters you can rely on to help you in your campaign. We will help our network of supporters to make contact with the endorsed candidate in each electorate, but it will be incumbent on each candidate to run their own campaign, including coordinating volunteers.

The most labour-intensive job will be handing out how-to-vote cards. Follow this link and choose your electorate, then select “polling places” to see all the locations you will need volunteers to man on election day. It’s not uncommon for a single electorate to have around 50 polling places, and usually its better to have two supporters at each location.

It’s common for many parties to be unable to have volunteers at all polling locations. However, the more people you have doing it, the higher your vote will be.

We are hopeful that strong public support for Senator Anning will translate into an unusually strong “ground game”.

POTENTIAL CONTROVERSY

If you have issues in your life that may attract attention and criticism of Senator Anning and the party, you must proactively disclose them to us before being nominated. We are not afraid of criticism, but we need to know ahead of time what issues may arise. These issues may include:

– Past criminal or legal issues

– Controversial career paths

– Previous political associations

– Publicly expressed positions or actions that may conflict with the objects of Fraser Anning’s Conservative National Party

– Inflammatory social media comments

– Anything else that could become an issue

It will be grounds for immediate disendorsement if an issue emerges during the campaign that you have not revealed to us ahead of time. If you are in any doubt, disclose it.

MEDIA

All media requests will need to be passed on to and approved by Senator Anning’s media advisor. We want you to get publicity, but we are also mindful of avoiding media traps.

If you are being interviewed and are asked a loaded question designed to have no good answer (as a classic example, “Have you stopped beating your wife?”), remember that the best way to respond is usually by challenging the premise of the question (e.g. “I never beat my wife in the first place”).

If you get truly flustered, simply state the party’s position and say it is up to the public to decide if that is what they want.

And most importantly, you must never qualify or retreat from the policy platform of Fraser Anning’s Conservative National Party. The number one way for our enemies to undermine the credibility of the party is to get candidates to contradict Senator Anning in some way. It is essential that voters can trust that if they vote for the party they will get exactly what they are being promised. No matter how much pressure is put on you, you must never concede any point. Failure to adhere to the objects of the party will be grounds for immediate disendorsement.

Our intent is to give each candidate a mock interview where we pose the type of questions they may be asked by the media during the campaign to test their readiness to represent the party.

SENATE CANDIDATES

Currently, we have a great many candidates who have indicated interest in Senate positions. That is of course to be expected as Senate candidates are the ones most likely to be successful, but it is inevitable that a very large number of candidates will be rejected. On the other hand it’s a good problem to have as it means that we can afford to be very selective about who we choose for our Senate team.

If you are someone who has indicated interest in standing for the Senate, we would love it if you would consider standing in your local electorate instead. While we already have more than enough potential candidates to stand in every lower house seat, they are not evenly distributed and there are still some electorates which no candidate has nominated for.

On the other hand if you believe you are an unusually strong candidate, you may still wish to be considered for a lead Senate nomination.

THE NEXT STEPS

If after reading everything above you still want to represent Fraser Anning’s Conservative National Party at the election, great! We really value your passion, your support, and your dedication.

Please respond to this email by completing the attached declaration form to indicate your continued interest.

Following that, expect to be contacted by phone for an interview …

Scores have applied to become candidates for the election, though only a handful have been officially confirmed as yet, and nominations will not officially close until April 23. Still, the Very Normal folks who’ve applied to or indicated an interest in contributing to Anning’s Final Solution range from ammosexuals to budding C&W stars, bureaucrats to lawyers, neo-Nazi thugs to racist tradies and Xtian fun-da-mentalist preachers. Most, in other words, are Ordinary Mums & Dads™, though a few are more familiar figures, drawn from the One Nation, Palmer United and Rise Up Australia parties, and some will be famous soon enough I expect.

See also : A Brief Guide To The Australian Far Right (April 2019 Edition) (April 9, 2019).

Neo-Nazi group ‘The Lads Society’ @ 34 Thomas Street, Ashfield, Sydney : Help shut it down!

Neo-Nazi grouplet ‘The Lads Society’ — which arose from the ashes of the ‘United Patriots Front’ (UPF) and its stillborn political party ‘Fortitude’ (2015–2017) — currently operate two social centres, one in the south-east suburb of Cheltenham in Melbourne and the other in Ashfield in inner-west Sydney.

The centre in Cheltenham (Unit 9/158 Chesterville Road), which opened in October 2017, is scheduled to close in January 2019.

No reason has been given for the closure of the bunker in Cheltenham, but it’s worth noting that the estate agents listed the property as being available on November 7, just a few short weeks after an ABC exposé (in which Lads members starred) on neo-Nazi infiltration into the NSW branch of the Young Nationals.

The centre in Ashfield also featured in the exposé.

Spearheaded by the former fuehrer of short-lived neo-Nazi grouplet ‘Squadron 88’, Mark McDonald, The Lads Society centre in Ashfield is located at No.34 Thomas Street, and leased by way of the Colemon Property Group.

You may remember Squadron 88 from such exciting escapades as when they stuffed letterboxes in Bondi with anti-Semitic tracts in August 2014. And again in September 2014. Or, when they briefly adopted geriatric neo-Nazi Ross ‘The Skull’ May as the group’s mascot.


Above (L to R) : John Bolton (Cottrell’s lawyer/ex-Australian Liberty Alliance), Blair Cottrell (UPF/Lads), Mark McDonald (Squadron 88/Lads), Oscar Tuckfield (Young Nationals/Lads).

In response to the establishment of The Lads in Cheltenham, a local group formed, ‘South East Community Action’, to campaign to close the neo-Nazi organising space.

Now, in response to the establishment of The Lads Society in Ashfield, another campaigning group has formed: ‘Ashfield Community Action’ (Facebook /// Twitter). To keep abreast of its progress, please like/share/follow their social media.

Finally:

• Ashfield was the site of a previous neo-Nazi infestation in the 1960s.

• The Lads have been making noises about setting up shop in both Adelaide and Brisbane. Something of the flavour of the group’s membership was given when two were chucked out of a bar in Brisbane for throwing up Nazi salutes.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

antifa notes (november 2, 2018) : milo & mcinnes; lads, proud boys & natzis

Update (November 3, 2018) : Nationals ban 22 members for life after investigation into neo-Nazi links, Michael Koziol, The Sydney Morning Herald, November 3, 2018.


Above : On L, alleged killer Robert Bowers announcing his intention to GTKRWN; on R, Brisbane-based neo-Nazi and member of The Lads Society Beau Maverick. Neither man cares greatly for ‘optics’.

* The massacre at the synagogue in Pittsburgh on October 27 was reportedly the worst such event in US history. Unfortunately, given current political trends, that record may not last very long. In any case, Julie Nathan of the ECAJ has written ‘As the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre shows, fears of “White Genocide” are incitement to murder’ (ABC Religion & Ethics, October 29/31, 2018), while CEO Alex Ryvchin reckons ‘Synagogue slayings not a shot in the culture wars’ (October 31, 2018 — for a contrary view, see : Jews Against Fascism).

I may add some more thoughts at a later date, but in the meantime I think it worthwhile highlighting the fact that the rehabilitation of anti-Semitism and its increasing centrality to extreme-right perspectives in the United States is echoed Down Under as an increasingly larger segment of younger right-wing activists not only adopt a fascist outlook but place anti-Semitic conspiracy theories at the heart of their worldview. By way of example, the AltRight media platforms ‘XYZ’ and ‘The Unshackled’ (AKA ‘The Unhinged’ — which, to its credit, has been authorised by Google as a trusted media source) have drifted over the course of the last year or two from fairly conventional arch-Toryism to an open embrace of white nationalism. Leaving aside David Hilton (‘Moses Apostaticus’), fellow XYZ contributor Ryan Fletcher has accounted for this shift in an essay titled ‘Trading HEMP for Hitler’ (a text which comes highly recommended by editor David Hiscox). Fletcher is also a YUGE fan of James Mason’s Siege — required reading for members of local neo-Nazi grouplet Antipodean Resistance.


Above : Tim Wilms of The Unhinged wearing his Proud Boys ‘Pinochet Did Nothing Wrong’ shirt. Note that the arm reads RWDS (‘Right Wing Death Squad’). Under the Pinochet dictatorship (1973–1990), tens of thousands of Chileans were raped, tortured, murdered and forced into exile by his death squads. (Coincidentally, this weekend, LASNET has organised a gathering on Autonomy & Resistance at Trades Hall in Melbourne.)

See also : Pittsburgh shooting extends wave of conspiracy-minded rightwing violence, Jason Wilson, The Guardian, October 27, 2018 | George Soros: Why Are Australians Flirting With This American Conspiracy Theory?, Alex Bruce-Smith, 10 Daily, October 31, 2018 | Dialectic of Counter-Enlightenment: The Frankfurt School as Scapegoat of the Lunatic Fringe (March 9, 2012).

1) Dan Spiller/Future Now Australia Presents: Milo Yiannopoulos & Ann Coulter

Queensland businessman Dan Spiller (AKA ‘Future Now Australia’ AKA ‘AE Events’) has recently announced the cancellation of the upcoming tour by Infowars-supplements salesman and paedophile apologist Milo Yiannopoulos (accompanied by fellow wealthy blabbermouth Ann Coulter). This is the second time Spiller has tried and failed to organise a tour by ‘foreign radicals’: back in April, Spiller announced that he’d be bringing both Yiannopoulos and ‘Proud Boys’ founder Gavin McInnes to Australia. That effort collapsed in a heap within a few days, but Spiller’s latest production took several months to fall apart … which I suppose could be considered either an improvement or a degeneration (depending on your perspective). In any (non-)event, the decision to cancel the tour has been compounded by Spiller’s decision not to refund buyers but instead offer them tickets to go and see two other ‘foreign radicals’ — Gavin McInnes and Stephen Yaxley-Lennon — when they tour in December.

Fingers crossed, Mr Spiller’s seemingly chronic inability to successfully profit from foreign hate-merchants will not deter him from attempting to do so and being similarly adept in future. The silver lining on this grey cloud of failure, however, is perhaps the new book by Milo, which is apparently All About Australia:


Above : An extract from Yiannopoulos’s upcoming book on Australia. It’s unclear at this stage if Janet Albrechtsen has accepted an invitation to write the foreword.

See also : Milo Yiannopoulos Fans Are Pissed His Aussie Tour Got Cancelled, And It’s Extremely Funny, Tom Clift, Junkee, November 1, 2018 | Milo Yiannopoulos’ Australian Tour Has Been Cancelled And Fans Want Refunds, Josh Butler, 10 Daily, October 31, 2018 | Milo Yiannopoulos’ Australian tour cancelled with no refunds, SBS, October 31, 2018 | Milo Yiannopoulos’ Aussie Tour Has Been Cancelled, Disappointing Dozens, Ben McLeay, pedestriantv, October 31, 2018 | Milo Yiannopoulos tour cancelled; Gavin McInnes visa debate continues, Kieran’s Review, October 30, 2018.

2) Gavin McInnes & Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (‘Tommy Robinson’)

Damien Costas, publisher of Penthouse Australia, is planning on bringing Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes and ex-BNP member and founder of the English Defence League Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (AKA ‘Andrew McMaster’/’Paul Harris’/’Tommy Robinson’) to Australia in December. As usual, venues will be made public 24 hours prior to the event, but it’s not unreasonable to expect previous venues, including Festival Functions in Findon (Adelaide), Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre, Melbourne Pavilion in Flemington/La Mirage in Somerton, Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre and Le Montage/International Convention Centre Sydney (ICC Sydney) to again provide a platform for race-hate. The dates for the tour are as follows:

• ADELAIDE : WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 5
• PERTH : FRIDAY, DECEMBER 7
• MELBOURNE : TUESDAY, DECEMBER 11
• GOLD COAST : THURSDAY, DECEMBER 13
• SYDNEY : SUNDAY, DECEMBER 16

Of course, the possibility of either McInnes or Yaxley-Lennon being able to enter the country is entirely dependent upon Mr Potato Head’s feels on the subject. On Robinson, and in particular his current legal troubles (which may also see him prevented from coming), see : David Renton and Barrister Blogger.

With regards McInnes, he and his ‘Boys’ have been getting into some bother of late. Just a few weeks ago (Friday, October 12) in New York, McInnes was invited by the Metropolitan Republican Club to celebrate the anniversary of the assassination of Japanese socialist Inejiro Asanuma on this date in 1960. Following the event, some of McInnes’s fanboys went on a bit of a rampage, and some got arrest. An awful lot of ink has been spilled on the subject of the event and its aftermath, but as ever New York City Antifa (Twitter) is an xclnt resource. See also : The Proud Boys, The GOP And ‘The Fascist Creep’, Christopher Mathias, Huffington Post, October 18, 2018 (‘Gavin McInnes spoke at a GOP club, then his followers violently attacked leftist protesters. Modern American fascism finds its foot soldiers’) | NYPD arrests 14 Jewish protesters outside Republican club where Proud Boys brawled, Rex Santus, Vice, October 31, 2018 (‘The protesters outside the Club on Tuesday were there to call on the Republican Party to denounce white nationalism after the Saturday shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue where 11 worshippers were murdered by a man who’d shared anti-Semitic and white supremacist comments online.’).

Closer to home, Melbourne lawyer Nyadol Nyuon has launched an online petition, calling on the Minister to deny McInnes a visa. For their part, both Facebook and Instagram appear to have removed a large number of (official and unofficial) Proud Boy accounts from their sites. ‘The crackdown came slightly more than two weeks after members of the group reportedly attacked and beat activists protesting at an event in Manhattan. It also follows the massacre of 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue — the worst anti-Semitic attack in recent US history.’ The gab.ai webshite (AKA ‘Twitter for nazis’) is also experiencing technical difficulties at the moment …


Above : Melbourne-based neo-Nazi Blair Cottrell tweets a dank meme about killing socialists. Note that Asanuma’s teenybopper assassin, Otoya Yamaguchi, killed himself a few weeks later.

See also : Australia should be wary of the Proud Boys and their violent, alt-right views, Kaz Ross, The Conversation (ABC), October 30, 2018 | Proud Boys Founder Gavin McInnes: ‘We Need More Violence from the Trump People’, gritpost, October 18, 2018 | The New Nazis: How the meme-rich world of the internet is a threat in Australia, Kaz Ross, ABC, October 14, 2018.

3) Young Natzionals

The recent revelation that the Young Nationals in NSW have been targeted for infiltration by neo-Nazis and White supremacists created some mild embarrassment for the party over the course of the last few weeks. On Wednesday, it was announced that 15 members of the party — including Thomas Brasher, Michael Heaney, Clifford Jennings and Oscar Tuckfield — had resigned, while something like another 20 have had their membership status questioned, and may yet leave or be forced out of the party. See : Nationals members resign en masse amid investigation into neo-Nazi ties, Michael Koziol, The Age, October 31, 2018 | Young Nationals resign after after ABC investigation reveals alt-right push, Alex Mann, ABC, October 31, 2018.

On Monday the story — the origins of which may be traced back to some reportage in The Australian back in May, but which was given flesh by Alex Mann for the ABC — provoked the following front-page treatment in The Daily Telegraph:

Oddly enough Sharri’s father, Max Markson, has been doing his bit to promote racism and fascism in Australia by way of Penthouse and in his capacity as Milo’s Australian publicist. Sadly, the relationship between Costas and Markson has broken down in the wake of the paedophile apologist’s December 2017 tour: ‘ … Mr Markson called Mr Costas a “lying conman”. Mr Costas, the publisher of Penthouse Australia and owning a company alongside one of Australia’s biggest drug dealers, convicted ice importer Sean Dolman, retaliated by calling Mr Markson “a very naughty boy” who “had his finger in the till”‘ (Private Sydney: Markson sparks up in court in dispute with Penthouse publisher, Andrew Hornery, The Sydney Morning Herald, September 6, 2018).

See also : “I’ve had pictures of the Florida school shooter posted on my door”. UTAS’s Dr Kaz Ross says she has had death threats since exposing young Nationals alt-right supporters, On Mornings with Sarah Gillman, ABC, November 1, 2018 | NSW Nats clear key player in Nazi scandal, SBS (AAP), October 31, 2018 | White Nationalists Plan to Infiltrate Mainstream Australian Politics, Paul Gregoire, Sydney Criminal Lawyers, October 22, 2018.

4) The Lads Society

As noted a year ago, the neo-Nazi grouplet ‘The Lads Society’ has a clubhouse in the Melbourne suburb of Cheltenham. The nazis also have a training facility in Sydney, which is located at 34 Thomas Street, Ashfield. The Lads certainly have a sense of humour, with the lease on the property being signed with Colemon Property Group on Hitler’s birthday (April 20).

The chief organiser of ‘The Lads’ in Sydney is a Kiwi called ‘Mark McDonald’. Previously, Mark was the lvl boss of another short-lived neo-Nazi grouplet called ‘Squadron 88’. It attracted some media attention by way of stuffing letterboxes in Jewish areas of Sydney with anti-Semitic tracts. McDonald is also widely-believed to be responsible for the distribution of some racist posters in Sydney in mid-2017. Most recently, McDonald and several other Lads attended Adelaide barrister John Bolton’s batshit rally in Wiley Park:


Above : Partially-obscured, joining Cottrell on the right is Adelaide barrister John Bolton; standing between Cottrell and Tuckfield is Mark McDonald, founder of defunct neo-Nazi grouplet Squadron 88 and current lvl boss of The Lads Society in Sydney.

Finally, ladsleaks has published an interesting discussion drawn from The Lads’ private Facebook page. The list of participants in the discussion reads like a Who’s Who of neo-Nazism Down Under, including both founders Blair Cottrell and Tom Sewell, Mark McDonald (‘Tyler Winchester’) and Stuart Von Moger, David Hilton (‘Moses Apostaticus’), Jim Perren (Australia First Party/’Whitelaw Towers’/United Patriots Front), Welf Herfurth and more. Much of the discussion revolves around The Lads’ shared hatred for Jewish neo-Nazi Nathaniel Jacob Sassoon Sykes. Based in Sydney, Sykes was until a few years ago a prolific contributor to the world’s leading neo-Nazi webshite ‘The Daily Stormer’. A member of the Australia First Party, Sykes uses his blog ‘United Nationalists of Australia’ to take aim at the party’s rivals on the right — including, of course, The Lads.

The post which triggered Tom can be read here — I’ll post other commentary from ladsleaks here laters.

5) … of note

• Guns, fascism, infighting and couch-surfing: Researcher Serena Tarr recounts a year studying the alt-right, Emma McClatchey, Little Village, October 8, 2018;
• Here Is a List of Far-Right Attackers Trump Inspired. Cesar Sayoc Wasn’t the First — and Won’t Be the Last., Mehdi Hasan, The Intercept, October 28, 2018;
• We Must Pressure Mainstream Forces to Stop Downplaying the Far Right, Spencer Sunshine, truthout, October 29, 2018;
• Three Months Inside Alt-Right New York, Jay Firestone, Commune, Fall 2018 (‘An undercover antifascist descends through all nine circles of the alt-right inferno.’);
• Twilight of the Racist Uncles: How Facebook is melting the minds of our elders, Ed Burmila, The Baffler, October 30, 2018;
• After Last Week, There’s No Hope That the Media Will Ever Abandon False Equivalencies With the Far Right, Natasha Lennard, The Intercept, October 31, 2018;
• Engedaw Berhanu Remembers His Nephew—Brought to Portland, Then Forever Lost, Jason Wilson, Willamette Week, October 31, 2018;
• Punching On With Patriots: How To Tackle Gavin McInnes And His Proud Boys’ Promise of Violence In Australia, Tom Tanuki, New Matilda, October 31, 2018.

Neo-Nazi infiltration of the Young Nationals in NSW

Update (October 13, 2018) : The NSW Nationals have issued a ‘Statement Regarding ‘Alt-Right’ Allegations’ | See also : NSW Young Nationals investigate alt-right ‘infiltration’, suspend new memberships, Jennine Khalik, ABC, October 14, 2018 | NSW Young Nationals expel and suspend members over far-right links, Michael McGowan, The Guardian, October 14, 2018 (‘NSW Nationals leader John Barilaro says party may have been ‘easy target’ for far-right figures’).

Briefly:

1) For ABC Radio National’s ‘Background Briefing’, Alex Mann has investigated ‘how Australia’s alt-right movement is covertly influencing mainstream politics’. See : Haircuts and hate: Inside the rise of Australia’s alt-right (October 14, 2018).

2) ‘The White Rose Society’ has d0xxed a number of the neo-Nazis responsible for infiltrating the Young Nationals in NSW. Future publications will provide further details of those involved, as well as their connections to other neo-Nazi associations, such as Antipodean Resistance and The Lads Society. See : NSW Young Nationals stacked by Clifford Jennings and Neo-Nazis (October 11, 2018).

3) Those neo-Nazis so far named as being responsible for the infiltration of the Young Nationals in NSW are:


Top (L to R) : Clifford Jennings; Nicholas Walker (AKA ‘Niklaus Velker’); Oscar Tuckfield (AKA ‘Oscar Tuckers’ & ‘Oscar Tucker’); Stuart Churchill (AKA ‘Stuart Durand’); Thomas Brasher (AKA ‘Thomas Hopper’).
Bottom : Justin Beulah; Lisa Sandford.

4) Kieren Bennett provides some further context in Radio National investigation reveals neo-Nazi infiltration of the Young Nationals (October 11, 2018).

5) The Australian Jewish Democratic Society has published a statement demanding ‘No more Nazis in the Young Nationals’ (October 11, 2018).