ALICE BRENNAN: In the backlot of a light industrial district in Melbourne... a legend is about to be born.

Cameras are rolling, journalists are huddled together, and Queensland Senator Fraser Anning is about to speak to a group of his loyalists.
ANNING SUPPORTER: You just get what you get with Fraser, so I'd like to introduce to you now, Senator Fraser Anning... [applause]

ALICE BRENNAN: This is the setting for the legend of Egg boy.

Now you might think you know how this story ends already. While Fraser Anning is speaking to a TV camera, a boy raises his hand above the Senator's head, mobile phone in one hand, egg in the other...

He smashes the egg on Anning's head, yolk spills everywhere and a group of burly Anning supporters put the kid in a choke hold, wrestle him to the ground... and one of them starts kicking him.

He instantly becomes an internet meme.

But Alex Mann, you're saying forget all that... and forget about Egg boy.

ALEX MANN: That's exactly right. Because in the attention over the splattered yolk, and the violent reaction from some of Senator Anning's supporters, people have completely missed what the Senator was saying on that day, who he was talking to, and how they've gained national prominence by circumventing the mainstream media.

ALICE BRENNAN: A lot of Australians find his views repulsive. After all, only 19 people directly voted for him. But for a certain clique of young white men, Anning and the platform he has are an opportunity.

For them, he's become something of a hero -- a guy who speaks a truth no one dares say out loud, and in doing so, he's opened the way for others to do the same.

And just a heads up, this story contains strong language and some confronting content.

ALEX MANN: You can't tell by listening to him but Senator Fraser Anning is killing it on social media right now.

FRASER ANNING: This last week, I think Pauline had 117,000 engagements... and we're at 588,000 engagements... she was the next to us.

ALEX MANN: Since a far right rally in St Kilda in January this year, Senator Anning's online presence has grown rapidly.

Along with Pauline Hanson, he now has some of the highest online engagement stats of any Australian politician.

On Facebook there's his personal page and his official party pages.

Then, behind those there's this raft of other hard-core alt-right groups, like the Fraser Anning Supporters Group, that have been using his face as a template for edgy and racist memes ever since he made it to Parliament.

So if you go back to just before that egg struck the back of Senator Anning's head, those were the people he was talking to.

FRASER ANNING: Share as much as you can, because that's where you win. So we can win seats on social media, we can win the thing on social media so long as everyone's sharing as much as you can.

ALEX MANN: So what I want to know is, who is winning it online for Fraser Anning? And what is their agenda?

With the Federal election just weeks away, I'm going to look into the background of the political operatives involved in Senator Anning's campaign and the deep ties between his office and the Australian alt-right.

Using leaked correspondence between nationalists, I uncover the movement's covert strategy for Senator Anning's re-election.

I'm going to track the far right's long-term project of infiltrating organisations and influencing their agendas from the inside. That's from the Queensland Senator's office today right back to a small community group, a decade ago, in Sydney.

ALEX MANN: Hello. Is that Fred?
FRED FLATOW: Yes, that's right.
ALEX MANN: Hey, lovely to meet you.
FRED FLATOW: Come in.
ALEX MANN: Thanks, thank you.

Walking through the door of Humanist House feels like entering a portal to a bygone era.

There are wooden panels on the walls and there's a big yellowing poster of Albert Einstein.

Carefully handwritten notices provide instructions to guests about upcoming events and there's a small, well-worn donation box near the bookshelves.

Light comes from a single globe hanging in the centre of the room.

FRED FLATOW: We can have a talk here.
ALEX MANN: Yeah, that would be perfect.

This is the setting for the NSW Humanist Society's Wednesday night open forums.

81-year-old Fred Flatow is one of the Society's founding members.

FRED FLATOW: Well, it's a philosophy of life. The main two points are that we believe in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the other point is that we have a naturalistic philosophy as against the supernatural. So we don't believe in the supernatural realm, just the one natural realm. That's basically what modern humanism is about.

ALEX MANN: So it's probably fair to say that this quaint community hall in the heart of progressive inner-city Sydney is one of the last places you'd expect to be targeted for a covert white supremacist takeover. I mean, there's even a rainbow painted on the outside wall.

FRED FLATOW: It's our fault to a certain extent, we should have been more careful.

Today I'm going to give an account of the present hostile takeover attempt of the New South Wales Humanist society and how we found out about it.

ALEX MANN: Fred Flatow is reading excerpts of a speech he gave to the Society's members back in 2009.

FRED FLATOW: It has the character of a real detective story.

ALEX MANN: In the speech, Fred tells the members how the Humanist Society's troubles all began.

When during the early 2000s, they decided to rent out this hall to a group of young men calling themselves the Public Information Forum.

FRED FLATOW: Another name for it they call themselves Klub Nation, spelt with a K, like in German, klub. One of the conditions of attending is that you must be of European antecedence.

ALEX MANN: Dozens of Klub Nation members signed up as members of the Humanist Society.

But what Fred and the Humanists didn't know was that they'd unwittingly let a group of neo-Nazis into the club.

And as members the Klub Nation crew had full voting rights.

FRED FLATOW: They were members but you know they had never been active before.

We suddenly found that a lot of new people got voted onto the committee at an AGM who nobody knew.

ALEX MANN: These new members were a motley crew.

One of the men had been in prison for killing his mother and throwing her body into Canberra's Lake Burley Griffin weighted down with concrete blocks.

Another was a white supremacist who dreamt of bombing a shopping centre, and who years later was found guilty of weapons and child sex offences. He's in jail now.

And another who would eventually find himself campaigning for Fraser Anning's re-election.

ALEX MANN: Do you remember a guy called Andrew Wilson? What do you know about Andrew Wilson?
FRED FLATOW: Andrew Wilson?
ALEX MANN: He's one of the ones who got onto the committee and he was involved in some previous racist organisations.

But back when they all joined the Humanist society, Fred was completely oblivious to any of this.

His first clue to the new members' ulterior motives was a tip-off from the public.

So he fired up the computer, and started searching for their names online.

He found them on the Nazi forum, Stormfront -- talking about the Klub Nation events.

While other Australian members discussed infiltration strategies in plain sight.

FRED FLATOW: He says, no we don't wear any kind of uniforms when we infiltrate the traditional political parties and institutions. So they've had that idea a long time to infiltrate other organisations and try and bring them down.

ALEX MANN: Fred became convinced they were after the organisation's assets.

ALEX MANN: What do you think they wanted?
FRED FLATOW: Well, the building.

ALEX MANN: This would've given the new members control over assets worth more than half a million dollars -- enough to sustain a burgeoning neo-Nazi movement.

FRED FLATOW: That's what they wanted, they were happy here. They were renting at one stage and they wanted to make it their permanent home I think, yeah.

ALEX MANN: What was it like for you in that moment? It's an organisation that you helped create and all of a sudden there's a suggestion that there might be Nazis in a takeover bid.
FRED FLATOW: It's a very stressful time, especially when when they got a majority on the committee.
ALEX MANN: They got a majority on the committee?
FRED FLATOW: They had a majority on the committee and we managed to call a new AGM which is pretty difficult to do.

And after that we started to turn things around but it was still a very harrowing experience. Yeah.
ALEX MANN: The group was eventually expelled from the Humanist Society. Even so, it marked Andrew Wilson's first big attempt at using covert infiltration as a political strategy.

And for him it was just the beginning.

NEWS READER: A Mosman Park man running for a seat on his local council is promising to shut down public housing and shift the tenants to Fremantle. Andrew Wilson blames the tenants for home break-ins and anti-social behaviour. And says where they live is a dump that doesn't fit in in the affluent western suburb.

ALEX MANN: Nearly 10 years after Klub Nation's failed takeover of the Humanist Society, Andrew Wilson was back.

This time, as a candidate in the 2017 council elections for the southern suburb of Perth, called Mosman Park.

ANDREW WILSON: This is what I'm concerned about, we have the housing commission here in Wellington street, and as you can see it's an absolute dump, it needs to go, and it needs to go right away.

GEORGIE CAREY: He probably liked the controversy that surrounded it all. It certainly gave him more attention to his campaign. And I think that he really saw that as a positive.
ALEX MANN: Georgie Carey was one of his political opponents.

She was 21 at the time and had decided to run in what was her first council election.

The majority of councillors were white men and middle aged, and Georgie was hoping to shake things up.

GEORGIE CAREY: I kind of just wanted to bring my own experiences with me that are vastly different to those that were currently on council.

ALEX MANN: While Georgie campaigned for more vibrancy and diversity in the community, there was scepticism about Andrew Wilson's motives.

OLIVER PETERSON: A big afternoon heading your way, and as always you can join in the conversation.

All right Andrew Wilson wants to join the Mosman Park Council. G'day Andrew.
ANDREW WILSON: I'm good Ollie, how are you?
OLIVER PETERSON: I'm good Andrew.

OLIVER PETERSON: So, why should Mosman Park be immune from public housing tenants?
ANDREW WILSON: Well, look Ollie, I have a big heart, if you met me you would say, wow that guy has a big heart.
OLIVER PETERSON: I have met you Andrew.
ANDREW WILSON: Well, there you go.
OLIVER PETERSON: I have met you, I don't know you that well, I have met you before and I know that you have a Memes for the Urban Gentleman Facebook account which is a satirical Facebook account, so I'm wondering if this video and your election here, or your proposed election here for the town of Mosman Park is actually just a pisstake.
ANDREW WILSON: No, I'm not sure what you're talking about there Ollie.

ALEX MANN: As election night approached, the campaign intensified, and Georgie suddenly found herself in the middle of controversy.

GEORGIE CAREY: So it was a Saturday evening and I posted on my campaign page this quote from the local government minister that said local government was predominantly male, pale and stale.

ALEX MANN: Georgie posted the article to Facebook and went to bed.

But while she slept, her Facebook post was shared to an alt-right meme page called "Abhorrent Australian Memes".

A mob of abusers began targeting her for being anti-white and discriminating against men.

GEORGIE CAREY: And then I woke up in the morning to literally hundreds of messages.

ACTOR: What a racist sexist cunt of a thing you are, you should have been swallowed.
ACTOR: When people say "diversity is code for white genocide" they aren't expecting you to prove them right.
ACTOR: Don't vote for this anti-white racist scum.
ACTOR: Fuck you, you fucking racist cunt.

GEORGIE CAREY: It was just really frightening and something I hadn't experienced before. I just felt very vulnerable.

ALEX MANN: And as she scrolled through the comments, two posts made her stomach drop.

ACTOR: She left her mobile number on there, holy shit.
ACTOR: She's also got her address listed publicly.

ALEX MANN: The members of the Facebook page, had shared her contact details to the anonymous message board 4Chan.

Then the phone calls started.

GEORGIE CAREY: I felt like there was nothing that I could really do to protect myself. I could block the numbers when they came up but most people would call on private numbers so obviously I can't trace them.

And I just felt like I was copping all this hate and attacks but I was sort of just left kind of standing there.

ALEX MANN: Georgie removed her contact details from the internet and tried to concentrate on the campaign.

Soon, the election night was upon them.

Georgie looked across the room to where Andrew Wilson stood and noticed someone scrutineering Wilson's vote count.

She recognised him instantly. His name was Radomir Kobryn-Coletti.

GEORGIE CAREY: When I was in high school we were both in the same year but at different schools and he used to run parties for high school kids.

ALEX MANN: Not political parties, but events for things like school formal after parties or birthdays.

GEORGIE CAREY: that was sort of his business I guess, he charged for them and made money but the parties often got cancelled.

ALEX MANN: Radomir's business partner was eventually fined thousands of dollars to compensate clients, after they failed to turn up to multiple weddings and engagement parties.

Radomir himself was never charged or fined.

As I scour back through the online abuse directed at Georgie, I find something she missed at the time.

It's a Reddit post by a user called Rasterius -- that's a name that Radomir has used elsewhere online. Asterius is also his middle name.

The post reads:

ACTOR: Sad to see such a sexist and racist like Georgie Carey exists in Mosman Park and Perth. Should be ashamed of her anti-male anti-white comments.

ALEX MANN: Did you know that he and Andrew were working together?
GEORGIE CAREY: No I didn't know until the election night and it was a bit of a surprise to me because I'd always sort of always been amicable I suppose with Radomir, but then to sort of I guess see him with Andrew it was sort of like, oh okay, I see.

ALEX MANN: In the end, Georgie was elected to council and Andrew Wilson wasn't.

GEORGIE CAREY: After the election night, it was radio silence. So I heard nothing from him no one had sort of I suppose seen him around the community. You know he wasn't campaigning for the next election. Nothing, nothing since.

ALEX MANN: But Andrew Wilson and Radomir Kobryn-Coletti were only just launching their political careers.

CLIVE PALMER: Australia needs a revolution on how we think...

ALEX MANN: In early 2017, some weird Clive Palmer-related content started appearing online.

This funky clip is called Clive Wave -- it has retro graphics, Australian nostalgia references, and choice Palmer soundbites.

CLIVE PALMER: We all know those papers are controlled by Rupert Murdoch.

ALEX MANN: It was posted to Clive Palmer's own Facebook page, just as he was preparing a return to federal politics.

CLIVE PALMER: Right across this nation, the people of this nation are rising up, they're sick of being ignored, they're sick of seeing boring politicians on TV, and they're going to make a change.

ALEX MANN: The production company behind this video is called "R and Co".

It's owned by Radomir Kobryn-Coletti, and for three weeks in 2017, Radomir worked in Clive Palmer's office producing online content.

Another Palmer-related clip, "You Can't Disarm the Palm" was uploaded by Andrew Wilson's meme page, "Memes for the Urban Gentleman" and later shared by Clive Palmer's official page.

It shows that at around the same time as Andrew Wilson was running for council, he and Radomir were producing content for Clive and honing their skills in political memes.

But then in late 2017 something strange happens to the content being posted to Clive Palmer's pages.

Posts appear depicting Palmer in a Nazi uniform gassing a room full of Greens politicians his political opponents, while other users compete to post the most offensive Hitler-related memes.

Within a few months, both pages descend into full blown alt-right shitposting.

I've seen some chats between nationalists where Andrew Wilson boasts that he worked for Clive Palmer during this time and that he was behind the anti-Semitic memes.

A spokesman for Clive Palmer's United Australia Party told me that they don't have any record of anyone called Andrew Wilson who worked for Mr Palmer. They also said that Mr Palmer does not endorse the anti-Semitic memes on his pages.

The spokesman told me that Radomir Kobryn-Coletti left the team because -- quote -- "His views were extreme so his contract wasn't extended."

I approached Radomir for an interview, but he declined.

2017 was shaping up as a big year for the alt-right in Australia.

And in June, this telling manifesto appeared in a closed Australian fascist Facebook group called "The New Guard".

ACTOR: Hey guys, I'll be making a video later today detailing some of the plans we have for this movement... ideas so far:
Short term: University Clubs, meet ups and creating visual propaganda.
Medium term: Setting up a headquarters, doing charity work, doing more political work.
Long term: Setting up businesses and employing our own guys, buying houses and creating our own communities, and electing people in local state and federal parliament.
ALEX MANN: The group's members alternated between sharing white supremacist memes and grand plans of political infiltration.

I got access to the group, and last year exposed an attempt by some of its members to join the NSW Young Nationals and change their policy agenda from within.

In eerily similar circumstances to the failed Klub Nation takeover, the group even managed to get two of their own elected to the NSW Young Nationals executive before being uncovered.

As a result of that story, 22 members of the NSW Young Nationals were kicked out, and banned from the party for life.

ACTOR: These people have a simple choice. If they want to project the politics of racism and hate, they need to leave the party.

ALEX MANN: Now with the benefit of hindsight, we can see those members of The New Guard were riding a wave of momentum that in 2017 was growing all over the world.

In August that year, alt-right demonstrators rallied on the streets of Charlottesville Virginia for what was dubbed 'Unite the Right'.

The rally turned deadly when a Neo-Nazi drove his car into a crowd of counter demonstrators, killing a 32-year-old woman and injuring others.

At the same time, in Europe, white-nationalists were gaining mainstream support.
A Bloomberg analysis of election results across 22 European countries that year showed populist radical right parties had their best results in 30 years.
In the middle of that year's northern summer, that support turned into real-world action when a pan-European white nationalist group called Generation Identity launched an anti-refugee mission in the Mediterranean.

They called it Defend Europe and they found support from Canadian alt-right vlogger Lauren Southern.

LAUREN SOUTHERN: Okay, can you hear me everyone? Gotta wait for a few people to show up. Nervous, ha ha.

ALEX MANN: This is Lauren Southern speaking on a livestream video from a boat somewhere on the Mediterranean Sea.

LAUREN SOUTHERN: Quick, get in front, get in front! Raise the flag, raise the flag! (horn blasts)

ALEX MANN: She and three members of Generation Identity light flares and move their boat directly into the path of another boat carrying asylum seekers.

LAUREN SOUTHERN: No more, no more, illegal immigration! No more, no more, illegal immigration! No more, no more, illegal immigration! Get in front, get in front!

PETER SIMI: We are seeing these events that are kind of coalescing and helping a movement gain strength.

ALEX MANN: Peter Simi is an associate professor at Chapman University in California, and he's studied far right extremism for more than 20 years.

He says 2017 was a tipping point for the alt-right in connecting groups across the world.

PETER SIMI: Because these individuals are tied together not only within particular countries but also across boundaries, across national boundaries.
Now they're actually gaining strength, they're gaining a foothold.

ALEX MANN: And today, those ideas have entered the mainstream.

PETER SIMI: At least a segment of the mainstream is radicalising and people who don't consider themselves to be white supremacist, far right extremist, they would never use those terms to describe themselves, they're not interested in getting involved in these kind of groups, but they are very much supportive of the idea that immigration is an invasion, that immigrants are an infestation. So they're supporting dehumanising ideas, they're supporting language and rhetoric that's very much in the direction of this movement.

ALEX MANN: White supremacists have tried for years to infiltrate institutions, and influence them from within.

In the US, the FBI has repeatedly raised concerns about white extremists having a "historical" interest in "infiltrating law enforcement communities or recruiting law enforcement personnel."

Leaked chat logs have also revealed the plans of a US white nationalist group called Identity Evropa to infiltrate the Republican Party.

PETER SIMI: The goal for now at least politically is to get Identitarians into positions of power in the GOP covertly...

ALEX MANN: Here in Australia we've had the failed Klub Nation takeover, and the New Guard's push into the NSW Young Nationals.

And with an Australian federal election just around the corner, Peter Simi warns we're more vulnerable now than ever.

PETER SIMI: This is also a moment now where electoral politics seem more ripe for the picking than I think you know certainly in any time in recent decades, where this is a moment, the conditions are such that far right extremists really feel like institutional politics provides them an avenue, and in a way that it probably didn't quite in years past.
ALEX MANN: Fraser Anning made it to Parliament at the end of that pivotal year, in November 2017.

But it was chance that got him there, not popularity.

And by the time he gave his maiden speech, he'd already quit One Nation, declared himself an independent senator, and then joined Katter's Australia Party.

FRASER ANNING: Thank you, Mr President. I am pleased to advise that this is my first speech.

ALEX MANN: His speech praised the days of a whites only immigration policy, and pushed ethno-nationalism and fears of white replacement.

FRASER ANNING: Ethnocultural diversity, which is known to undermine social cohesion, has been allowed to rise to dangerous levels in many suburbs.

It has allowed the cultural conquest of our nation.

ALEX MANN: The Senator's speech crashed through acceptable discourse.

At one stage, he even used a Nazi euphemism for genocide.

FRASER ANNING: The final solution to the immigration problem of course is a popular vote.

ALEX MANN: He's since said that was a coincidence.

But the man who reportedly wrote the speech is accused of being fascinated with Nazi Germany" and is right now on leave from the Federal Department of Home Affairs.

His name is Richard Howard and he's denied writing the speech or holding extremist views.

But whoever wrote it, the Australian alt-right was listening.

A burgeoning Australian alt-right media scene began spruiking Senator Anning online, and an unofficial Fraser Anning Supporters Group soon formed on Facebook.

Its membership list was a who's who of the Australian scene including members of The New Guard, Abhorrent Australian Memes, former NSW Young Nationals, and members of the far right men's group, the Lads Society.

One of the page's administrators is the same person who set up The New Guard.

Soon after Senator Anning's maiden speech, the Melbourne leader of the Lads Society posted this to Facebook:

ACTOR: "We must shill as hard as possible for this guy and show our support, it encourages more people to support... Never underestimate the power of confidence. Lemmings pick the winning side. It's an Anglo-European Australia, you're just living in it."

ALEX MANN: And with that, a baby boomer hotel owner from rural Queensland was transformed into an alt-right meme template, made for the youth of the internet age.

Anti-Semitic and anti-Islamic memes using Anning's face started appearing on the Fraser Anning Supporters Group Facebook page.

One of the first to be posted is the iconic photograph of a dead three-year-old refugee boy lying face down on a beach in the Mediterranean.

In the foreground is a doctored image of Fraser Anning's face with glowing red eyes and the words 'FINAL SOLUTION' writ large.

Elsewhere, his supporters rail against a global Jewish conspiracy, and so-called African gangs.

In January, three months after it was created, Fraser Anning himself posted a message to the page.

It said -- quote -- "I'd like to personally thank all my supporters on this page, Australia needs Australians like you to make this country the great country it once was. Thank you, Fraser Anning."

More recently, a bunch of Egg boy and Christchurch-related memes and posts have appeared on the Anning Supporters Group.

One depicts the Christchurch shooter as a kind of religious figure, while another alleges the whole massacre was a hoax.

Another meme depicts Fraser Anning as a Nazi soldier about to pull the switch on Egg boy in a gas-chamber.

ANDY FLEMING: I think Fraser Anning is considered a comrade.

ALEX MANN: Andy Fleming is a keen watcher of the Australian far right.

ANDY FLEMING: And so for those who are members of this movement, they look to Anning and they know that 'he's our guy'.

ALEX MANN: He's been cataloguing their movements for 15 years via his blog, Slackbastard.

And some people don't like that, do they?

ANDY FLEMING: No (laughs). In fact they hate it and they wish that I was dead.

ALEX MANN: As a result, he's had to take steps to conceal his identity.

Maybe I'll send him a text, just let him know we're here.
Okay, no news yet, but he should be here soon.

ALEX MANN: Last time we met, it was coordinated on an encrypted messaging app, and we met in a public park, shifting locations when passers by got too close.

ANDY FLEMING: Yeah, I have to be extremely careful.

ALEX MANN: Andy Fleming says Andrew Wilson and his associates have been looking for a political home for years.

Their support for Fraser Anning is a way of accessing power.

ANDY FLEMING: So I think it's a mutually beneficial arrangement. The so-called alt-right activists look to Anning for inspiration and for resources. Anning is seeking to establish a political base not only in Queensland but across the country. And that's one of the things that explains why a few months ago he was in St Kilda in Melbourne.

ALEX MANN: Fraser Anning appeared at this far right rally in St Kilda in January.

By this stage, he'd been expelled from Katter's Australia Party and was making plans for his own re-election.

FRASER ANNING: Australia's had enough. This will be the start of something bigger and I think people have had enough. The revolution will eventually start... people will be sent back where they came from...

ALEX MANN: Now, as Senator Anning hurtles towards his first election campaign as the leader of the Fraser Anning Conservative National Party, I can show you the ties between his staff and the Australian alt-right are deeper than ever before.

And when they converged on Canberra for the last sitting week of this parliament, one of them blew their cover.

Fraser Anning's electorate officer Zack Newton is a prolific shitposter -- which basically means he regularly posts extremely offensive material online that's designed to trigger a reaction.

He posted a photo of some fascist books he'd ordered in February, including one called "Notes On The Third Reich" and another called "A Handbook For Right Wing Youth".

Zack Newton commented on his own Facebook post:

ACTOR: "Basically straight up signalling at this point, but I'm a happy lad".

ALEX MANN: When I asked him about his political beliefs, he told me he's just a "traditional conservative". He said:

ACTOR: "I have read a wide range of texts including Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto, however that doesn't make me a card-carrying communist any more than reading the Little Engine That Could would make me a train."

ALEX MANN: Late last year, on the same day a far right terrorist stormed into a Pittsburgh synagogue and killed 11 people, Zack Newton made a meme using the last words the shooter posted online: "screw your optics, I'm going in."

Another user posts underneath:

ACTOR: "can't you fucking let us mourn our dead for like, at least a day before you start making memes about it?"

ALEX MANN: To which Zack Newton replies:

ACTOR: "waiting a day and lose all edge factor? Not a chance."

ALEX MANN: I asked him about the post, and he said it was obviously a reference to a video game and that:

ACTOR: "to imply anything else is manifestly false."

ALEX MANN: So when he landed in Canberra for the last sitting week before the election, naturally, he started posting to Facebook.

ACTOR: "Amusing to think I went from shitposting at home, but now I'm shitposting in parliament, but here I am lmao"

ALEX MANN: One of the last items of business for this Senate, was censuring Fraser Anning for his comments linking the Christchurch massacre to Muslim migration.

MATHIAS CORMANN - Today, the government and government senators join with the Opposition and members of other parties to condemn in the strongest possible terms the comments made by Senator Anning in relation to last month's terrorist attack...

ALEX MANN: MPs collectively condemned him.

PAT DODSON: Through his words, his actions he has aligned himself with the most vicious form of ethnic and racial hatred. He is exonerating the murderous action of a deranged and hate-filled killer...

ALEX MANN: So when Senator Anning stood up to respond, I was watching his speech on screen.

FRASER ANNING: This censure motion against me is a blatant attack on free speech. It is also an exercise in left wing virtue signalling of the worst kind.

ALEX MANN: In the wide angle shots of the Senate, Fraser Anning's staff can be seen sitting at the back of the room in the advisers' chairs.

There are four of them, including Zack Newton -- two young men and two women -- and they're sitting just back and to the right of Greens Senators Larissa Waters and Mehreen Faruqi.

After nearly ten minutes Senator Anning finishes his speech...

... and he and his staff leave the chamber.

Now this whole time I've also been half-scanning through reams of alt-right content on a Facebook page called, Abhorrent Australian Memes Did Nothing Wrong -- just in case something relevant is posted.

Within an hour, a photo of the two Greens Senators appears on the Abhorrent Memes page.

One of them looks like she's sticking her middle finger up and the caption is "SO BRAVE! Larissa Waters puts up a finger whilst Fraser Anning is speaking !"

I study the angle the photo must have been taken from, and it seems to be almost exactly the same place on the floor of the chamber where Zack Newton and the rest of Fraser Anning's staff were sitting.

Zack Newton and a spokesman for Fraser Anning both told me in a statement that they have no knowledge of the photo.

The office that enforces the rules of the Senate told me that any photo taken on the floor of the Senate would be in breach of the rules, and that they're investigating the matter now.

Radomir Kobryn-Coletti is one of Fraser Anning's media assistants.

Andrew Wilson is listed as one of the founding members of the NSW Fraser Anning Conservative National Party's Facebook page and appears in photos that the group posts online, but he's not officially on the Senator's staff.

Looking back through an archived list I kept of the New Guard's members, I can see now that Zack Newton, Andrew Wilson and Radomir Kobryn-Coletti were all members of The New Guard, at the same time that members of the group plotted to infiltrate mainstream political parties and change their policy agendas from within.

Zack Newton told Background Briefing:

ACTOR: "If in fact my name appears in such a Facebook group, I can only assume it was added by someone else without my knowledge or permission, as I have never sought to join or work with any groups bearing that name or holding those views."

ALEX MANN: He deleted his Facebook account shortly after I contacted him.

ANDY FLEMING: I think it demonstrates that those connections are direct and concrete.

ALEX MANN: That's Andy Fleming again, researcher of the Australian far right.

ANDY FLEMING: I think it also says that over time, if you're persistent, these kinds of opportunities become available to you. So if I were Andrew Wilson or one of his comrades I'd be delighted (laughs).

ALEX MANN: Andy Fleming says that Senator Anning's ascendency to Parliament has provided the internet savvy, meme-posting members of the Australian alt-right with an incredible opportunity.

ANDY FLEMING: These are young men generally who have been engaged in various forms of what might be termed mimetic warfare for some time and they've found an opportunity to gain you know paid employment undertaking the same or very similar kinds of work.

ALEX MANN: I've seen leaked chats between nationalists that show Wilson's covert strategy for Senator Anning's re-election campaign.

On Facebook, Andrew Wilson goes by a number of pseudonyms.

In one message, he boasts he does media for Senator Anning, and says he's working with Radomir Kobryn-Coletti on the campaign.

In another, he says the party has raised $40,000 in the past week.

Then, he lays out the party's entire campaign plan.

ACTOR: Obtaining and accessing giant email and SMS database like Clive did but sending messages that are extremely right wing

Call for donations: I believe our supporters will answer and start donating immediately. We need the website going NOW and payments flowing in.

ALEX MANN: Wilson also talks about conducting what he calls "highly provocative letterboxing campaigns" and unleashing a "Daily avalanche of posts on social media", as well as:

ACTOR: Stunts involving blackface and other taboos. Doing videos that cause controversy. Burning of U.N., ANTIFA and ISIS Flags. Possibly the Quran as well, would make global news.

Setting up an anti white hate reporting website where people can file complaints against ethnic crime (such as African gangs) or any anti white discrimination suffered in the workplace.

ALEX MANN: After watching Andrew Wilson's online activity for so long, and seeing the way he trolls through his meme pages, I have many questions.

But when I get him on the phone, and ask him to introduce himself for the record, I am not prepared for this.

ANDREW WILSON: Okay, um, my name is Andrew Stevens. And I'm speaking to Alex Mann, who's identified himself as a ABC reporter, and I'm not really sure why he's calling me.
ALEX MANN: Are you saying your name is Andrew Stevens, not Andrew Wilson?
ANDREW WILSON: That's correct.

ALEX MANN: If you missed that, the Andrew I'm speaking to insists his last name is Stevens, not Wilson.
ALEX MANN: This phone number that I've called you on is the phone number that is attributed to Andrew Wilson...
ANDREW WILSON: By who?
ALEX MANN: ...in court documents that we've consulted in WA. So this is the number attached to your name in court documents.
ANDREW WILSON: Okay.
ALEX MANN: So, so you're saying that your name is not Andrew Wilson?
ANDREW WILSON: Correct.

ALEX MANN: Throughout the call, this Andrew continues to deny his last name is Wilson -- and at one point, even says he doesn't know who Fraser Anning is, referring to him as 'Robert Fraser'.

The conversation continues in this vein for about 15 minutes.

ALEX MANN: You're in a business relationship with Radomir Kobryn-Coletti who's a current staff member of Fraser Anning's. What's the nature of the work that the two of you do together?
ANDREW WILSON: I haven't heard that name before, I don't know who you're talking about.

ALEX MANN: And when I ask him about the leaked messages that detail his plans for Senator Fraser Anning's re-election, I get more of the same.

ALEX MANN: You are a founding member of the NSW Fraser Anning Conservative National Party Facebook group. I've seen your profile on there, an earlier version of that profile carries your name Andrew John Wilson. I've seen comments of yours online where you say that you are working for Fraser Anning, in it you say you are doing his memes. What is your relationship to Fraser Anning?
ANDREW WILSON: I think those sort of comments have obviously been photoshopped to try and misidentify that those those people with with other people. It's all so confusing the social media stuff.

ALEX MANN: I've asked you a number of different questions throughout and I don't think you've been honest in answering them so I don't really see the point of continuing the interview if that's going to be the way that it goes.
ANDREW WILSON: Well, well, okay.

ALEX MANN: Andrew Wilson has since sent the ABC a letter, confirming he did receive this phone call.

A spokesman for Senator Fraser Anning told me:

ACTOR: "The individual you are referring to has no involvement in Senator Anning's office, nor will they at any time in the future. Any statement that they have, will or otherwise have involvement in Senator Anning's office is false."

ALEX MANN: For what it's worth, the pundits aren't giving Senator Anning a great chance of re-election.

But whether the campaign strategy we've seen is successful in getting him elected or not doesn't really matter.

Because this was never really about Senator Fraser Anning, just as it was never really about Egg boy.

This is about a movement that has a long history of co-opting and infiltrating politics and institutions, and you can trace it back from Senator Anning and his staff, to Clive Palmer, to the NSW Young Nationals, to Klub Nation and the Humanist Society, and they're just the ones we know about.

At a time when electoral politics is more vulnerable than ever to manipulation, Andy Fleming says it's worth watching what these guys do next.

Cause if they've tried before, then they'll probably try again.
ANDY FLEMING: It's often the case that these individuals if to the extent that they're committed to their politics they don't disappear they just carry on and reappear somewhere else.

And they look for moments and opportunities across the board and will utilise them in a collective fashion whenever they think it's appropriate and whenever they think that they can essentially get away with it.

CREDITS

Background Briefing's Sound Producers are Leila Shunnar and Ingrid Wagner.
Our digital producer is David Lewis.
Fact checking and additional reporting by Benjamin Sveen.
Supervising Producer is Ali Russell.
Our Executive Producer is Alice Brennan.
I'm Alex Mann.
You can subscribe to Background Briefing wherever you get your podcasts, and on the ABC Listen app.
Thanks for listening.