Neo-Nazi Thomas Sewell was arrested hours after gatecrashing Victorian State Premier Jacinta Allan's press conference. Screenshot: 10 News YouTube video. Fair use.
A day of protests across Australia on Sunday, August 31, 2025, against immigration caused quite a stir after organizers allowed several well-known Neo-Nazis to speak at some of the events. The March for Australia organisers copped criticism for giving a platform to far-right groups and Neo-Nazis.
Some of the Neo-Nazis did not confine themselves to making speeches. In Melbourne, the Camp Sovereignty Indigenous protest site was attacked, with reports of four injured. Seven men were later charged over the attack, including Neo-Nazi leader Thomas Sewell, who is facing 25 charges and was refused bail. Sewel was one of the speakers at the Melbourne rally. This ABC YouTube video shows his speech (beginning at 3:40):
At Spencer Street End, Daniel James drew a dark comparison with the treatment of Indigenous people during colonisation:
It had all the hallmarks of a massacre apart from the body count. An Aboriginal camp at dusk on the edge of town, most of its custodians elsewhere, only a few left to defend it. Out of the chilled evening gloom, a menace of figures, dressed in black, emerged to commit a planned attack steeped in hate. To claim something that was not theirs by destroying it; an act of terrorism. A scene played out hundreds of times since invasion.
The Victorian State Premier, Jacinta Allen, called Sewell and his followers “goons” after he disrupted her media conference on Tuesday following the rallies.
On Substack, well-known commentator Tim Dunlop expressed a concern shared by many other Australians:
It is hard not to feel heartsick watching a bunch of neo-Nazis marching around our cities and towns, as they did on the weekend. Whether their performance achieved anything positive for their cause is doubtful, but even if all they are doing is preaching to the converted rather than recruiting new supporters, you still hate to see them out there.
Academics at The Conversation website were quick to analyse the implications. Callum Jones, Associate Research Fellow at Deakin University, and Kurt Sengul, Research Fellow, far-right communication at Macquarie University, looked at global trends in far-right individuals being empowered to speak publicly, including the role of social media:
These movements increasingly see themselves as united by shared concerns over the defence of so-called ‘Western Civilisation’, opposition to mass immigration, the preservation of white identity, and beliefs in conspiratorial narratives such as the Great Replacement theory.
And this transnational growth wouldn’t be possible without the proliferation of social media in recent years.
The ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) has been exploring local connections with overseas far-right groups:
A large cache of leaked private messages has revealed how Australian Neo-Nazi groups took inspiration from their counterparts overseas.
Australia's largest Neo-Nazi group — the National Socialist Network — has been following a far-right playbook as it seeks to position itself as a political movement for Australians with fringe views.
Denis Muller, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Advancing Journalism at The University of Melbourne, accepted that the rallies:
…were in part anti-immigration, and it was clear from the coverage that some, perhaps most, people joined in because they were genuinely opposed to immigration for reasons not connected with race, but to do with issues such as housing.
However, he argued that:
…the leadership of the Melbourne rally was provided by the National Socialist Network, a neo-Nazi organisation, and it became clear as events unfolded, especially in Melbourne and Sydney, that the terms ‘anti-immigration’ and ‘March for Australia’ were merely a smokescreen.
Across the Tasman Sea in New Zealand, the Prime Minister Christopher Luxon described Thomas Sewel as “a pretty awful human being” and was not keen to see him deported back to New Zealand, his country of birth. Sewell has dual Aussie and Kiwi citizenship.
The rallies took place just a week after national action against the war in Gaza on August 24. This was the view of Sydney Harbour Bridge from a train, 3 weeks earlier, when approximately 100,000 people marched in support of Palestinians:
Meanwhile, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s attempt to reach out to some of those who attended the marches was criticised by a fellow Labor MP:
Former Labor minister Ed Husic has rebuked Anthony Albanese’s assertion that “good people” attended last weekend’s anti-immigration rallies, saying “I haven’t seen a good fascist yet”. Ed Husic was the first Muslim elected to Federal parliament in 2010.
On Mastodon, Peter agreed strongly with Husic’s view:
Conservative members of the Federal parliament also became caught up in the fallout from the March for Australia, including two who had supported the rallies. Federal member of the House of Representatives Bob Katter was called out for speaking on a Neo-Nazi megaphone at the march in Townsville.
He had earlier faced widespread condemnation for physically threatening a journalist who had raised Katter’s Lebanese heritage at a media conference. The Greek Herald reported that the MP has since repeated his threat.
This BlueSky user made a harsh judgment of Katter’s conduct:
Bob Katter threatened to punch a journo for mentioning his Lebanese heritage, called it racist, then days later speaks at a March for Australia rally in Townsville using a Nazi-rune megaphone. That’s not eccentric, that’s cognitive decline. An MP this senile is unfit to serve #auspol
— Patrick Gilligan (@rainingbear.bsky.social) 2025-09-01T06:32:09.627Z
Meanwhile, opposition Liberal senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price caused uproar when she claimed that the Labor government was bringing in Indian migrants to boost its voter base. She later retracted her comments, calling them a “mistake”. However, Price did not apologise, angering some of her Liberal Party colleagues.
Finally, an explainer in the Guardian sought to present the real immigration figures for Australia, refuting claims made at the rallies. Floofy shared their piece on BlueSky, but Mike Funnell’s response highlighted how pointless this approach might be:
They won’t let your facts get in the way of their feelings 🙄
— Mike Funnell (@mikefunnell.bsky.social) 2025-09-02T01:23:51.873Z
Finally, both legacy and new media need to consider how they cover news about far-right groups such as Neo-Nazis and white supremacists without giving them a platform for spreading their ideology and misinformation and helping their recruitment. A Guardian podcast raised this issue. The discussion starts in earnest at 8:38 minutes into the video version:
