Excerpt from our submission to the Senate inquiry Right wing extremist movements in Australia.
On July 24, 2024, at the Senate Committee investigating right wing extremist movements in Australia, practitioners from the Counter Extremism Project presented an embarrassingly incorrect account of the state of the Australian extreme right landscape, particularly concerning Active Clubs.
This highlights a key problem with the Countering Violent Extremism industrial complex—individuals who have spent the past twenty years focusing on the Islamophobic war on terror often lack substantial knowledge about the extreme right. Despite this, they are positioned as experts while chasing grant money into the right-wing space.
The White Rose Society had previously provided a submission to this inquiry, detailing the recent history, organisational strategy, and capacity of the extreme right, including their international connections and the role of the Active Club model in Australian neo-Nazism. We intended our submission to be made available publicly. Our submission was accepted only on a confidential basis due to 'adverse commentary' about the groups MyPlace, Christian Lives Matter and the Australian Natives Association, and it appears that the information provided has not been taken on board by legislators or authorities responsible for addressing the extreme right.
The misinformation presented at the Inquiry, particularly the false claim that the Active Club model is not present in Australia, with the exception of a “recent” South Australian “failed” attempt, has already permeated the broader media landscape. In response, we have decided to publish a small, updated section of our submission on our blog. This excerpt addresses the place of Active Clubs in global neo-Nazi and accelerationist political strategy, emphasising Australia's role and contributions to its success. By sticking to arbitrary strict definitions of “Active Club,” the true adaptability and success of the model are obscured, as our submission demonstrates. We hope this publication will provide clarity to those curious about the actual state of the far-right and Active Clubs in Australia.
Content warning: includes extreme references to racist hatred and sexual violence.
The European Australian Movement/National Socialist Network
The Active Club Model
The Active Club model was founded by Robert Rundo, an American neo-Nazi activist who was the leader of the Rise Above Movement, a violent neo-Nazi street gang. Rundo went on to found Will2Rise, which sells merchandise, publishes propaganda, and has a neo-Nazi record label. Rundo’s concept of the active club model draws inspiration from various sources, including Russian and European fight clubs, football ultras and “hooligans”, and ultranationalist groups.
These clubs can be characterised as small localised cells. They usually integrate mixed martial arts (MMA) training with nationalist political engagement. They focus on fitness, camaraderie, and political activism. This may include activities such as stickering, graffiti, and disrupting perceived adversaries. Some also participate in protests against issues such as immigration and LGBTQIA+ rights.
These clubs explicitly adhere to white supremacist ideologies and envision themselves as preparing for a racial conflict. According to extremism researcher Pavel Klymenko, far-Right fight clubs strategically utilise MMA training to equip themselves for potential political violence. Members of these clubs embrace militant accelerationism, anticipating societal collapse or a race-based conflict, intending to establish a white ethnostate.
Following his departure from the United States to evade federal charges related to riots, Rundo travelled extensively across Europe, particularly in the Balkans. There, he interacted with and gleaned insights from various far-Right groups and individuals. His journeys have been meticulously documented by Bellingcat. Rundo's vision of “White Supremacy 3.0” and the formation of active clubs drew inspiration from his observations in Europe, particularly from neo-Nazi activist gangs and football hooligan firms and Ultras.
These groups emphasise fitness, combat training, style, and counter-cultural endeavours such as graffiti, music, book clubs, and propaganda dissemination. Rundo published a video in April 2021 called Starting Your Own Crew, explaining that the concept of the Rise Above Movement and active clubs was largely influenced by his time living in Eastern Europe and inspired by European MMA-ultranationalist groups, including White Rex, Confident Hooligan, and Generation Identity.
An early embodiment of this model is White Rex, founded by Russian neo-Nazi hooligan Denis Kapustin (also known as Denis Nikitin) as an activewear brand in 2008. White Rex gained prominence through hosting whites-only MMA tournaments across Europe, fostering networks and expanding its influence within the international far-Right community. Kapustin articulated an ideology centred on traditionalism, hypermasculinity, racism, and a “warrior spirit,” which resonated with his followers.
Active clubs rally their members around the motto “Tribe and Train,” portraying themselves as contemporary Aryan warriors preparing for a racial conflict while advocating for “White unity” in support of their perceived communities. There are active clubs throughout the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Europe, Latin America and New Zealand. Currently, all active clubs in Australia fall under the umbrella of the European Australian Movement and the National Socialist Network, though there have been other short-lived independent active clubs in Australia over the last two years.
The structure of the European Australian Movement & National Socialist Network
The European Australian Movement (EAM) is led by neo-Nazi Thomas Sewell, and neo-Nazi Jacob Hersant leads the National Socialist Network (NSN). These groups are part of one organisation and use the active club model. Sewell has stated that the active clubs in each state operate semi-autonomously. There are currently active clubs in every capital city except in the Northern Territory, and a number in regional areas.
Sewell recently discussed their model on a YouTube livestream with far-Right activist and Diagolon member Alex Vriend, who is also a leader of a Canadian active club:
So there's the, you know, in history, when we understand the National Socialists in Germany, there's the SA, and there's the SS, and there's the National Socialist German Workers Party. So it's sort of the same kind of principle. We're one total organisation, we're one movement here in Australia. And we have, there's many different arms or wings of that one singular movement. So it's, I wouldn't consider the SS or the SA, or the NSDAP to be three different movements or three different organisations. They're kind of like, how do you organise men for different objectives? How do you organise the same group of German nationalists that want to take back their country from International Jewry? And so in Australia, we've kind of got the same principle. So there's different missions, different horses for different courses. So there's a lot of cross pollination, unlike in that model. But in our model, it's just we do things objective-based. And we believe quite heavily in, I guess the correct word would be consent, or this idea that, the right, you have the right to associate with what you want to associate with. So what that means is that there are some people that, they might want to be members of the community, like European Australian Movement, they want to train, they want to get together, they want to have family barbecues, they want to network with other white people, they see that there's a lot to gain from that in terms of personally and practically, and for their family's sake, and realising that we have to train and collectivise and that “tribe and train” sort of mantra, but then they might be maybe, maybe they work a government job. Or maybe they not like that they're Feds, but maybe they work for subcontract for the government, for example, like there's a lot of people that might, you know, they might be plumbers, but the plumbing job that they have, is a subcontract to, like the state water service. And so they might be worried, like, you know, they got issues with the wife that, you know, I, if I go march down the street in black bloc and say, destroy paedophiles, and the council that I work for, the local council was waving these paedophile flags, it might cause me to lose my contract. So guys like that might be like, I'll do one half of the movement, but not the other half. And obviously, we encourage, and especially all the young guys, they do both, but a lot of the older guys, a lot of family men, a lot of the people that are maybe burnt out from activism, they're not as interested in the boots on the ground. So the situation, they're more interested in being like a rear detail, they're more interested in being community members, they're more interested in being logistics support, supply, for the effort, whether that be online or in person. And, you know, we need these men, we need everyone to be involved in the capacity they can be. So I'm interested in organising as many white man in this country into mobilising against a system that's trying to destroy them and kill them and pollute their genes and pollute their culture and society and children and everything. So that's what I'm interested in. And obviously, I do a lot of informational work as well, I try to create an online presence, I try to make sure that people know that we exist, but EAM isn't really going out and as an organisation, trying to push the buttons of the system. It's not like trying to go out there. And, you know, its purpose is different. Its purpose is internal, and a sense that let's build our men up, let's build our community up. All these other communities, they're doing their thing. And it's not that we're optics-cucking, it's just that if we focus this community into internal development, that's what I, that's what my mission is. And Jacob is very young, very keen, very energetic, very strong worldview in terms of is just, you know, they say, to understand something, you need to be able to explain it to, you know, a 10-year-old or something, to understand something, you should be able to explain it very simply and shortly and Jacob's, kind of a master of that, we've seen that with him creating an online presence for himself recently. He used to never make any sort of online content as Jacob Hersant, he just made it as part of NSN. But in the last two months, he's been pumping out a video a day, you know, 40 seconds, 50 seconds, just explaining the most core fundamental principles of the worldview. And that is in itself, an expression of who he is politically, in the sense of, let's get the core fundamental message out there as sharply as possible, let's hit home with it, let's slam the message on the table. And the reason why you see me in the front of all those rallies is not just because I'm the leader of the community and the movement as a whole. But also because he was put on a two year non-association. So he couldn't even organise his own organisation. So I was doing it for him. Because I love activism as well. I'm not a big fan of like, putting stickers up and stuff, I'm kind of burnt out from that. I did that a lot in the early days. And I'm keen for the young guys to do it. But I'm what I've seen is that, you know, the big rallies, like marching down the street in formation, putting the banner up putting the flags up and saying Here we are. So that's kind of the discrepancy, National Socialist Network is focused primarily on the anonymous activism, whereas EAM is focused primarily on tribing and training. It's like the community building, the MMA, the physical training, it's got an active club model, it's got a, it's got a really specific structure to it. But the two are just, we're just evolving, it's gonna take a lot of time to bleed the two together and, and have like a formality. And that's all going on behind the scenes. But for the public sake, we're just the Nazis, we're the white guys, whatever you want to call it, and we're just, we're just trying to save White Australia.
On the same livestream, Sewell said his minimum age for recruitment was sixteen. He said ideally, his recruits would be 18, but he would “tolerate” 16 or 17-year-olds if they are “ideologically mature.” We are aware of at least one 16-year-old joining the National Socialist Network. It is also worth noting that some members bring their young children to events and training sessions.
Thomas Sewell's profile among the international far-Right is now on par with Robert Rundo's. Sewell has emerged as a key international active club leader. This is in part due to respect from other neo-Nazis for publicly uploaded footage of attacks like the bashing of a Black security guard working for Channel 9, and activism like the DESTROY PAEDO FREAKS banner on the steps of Melbourne Parliament. Both have been perceived as bold stunts by neo-Nazis worldwide.
Sewell is more accessible and visible across social media than Rundo, whose personal social media presence has been sporadic due to his legal issues in the United States. While Rundo was networking in person with far-Right groups and individuals across Europe, Sewell has made himself available for chats and livestreams with the international far-Right. He is also unapologetically a neo-Nazi and does not shy from the “Jewish Question”, openly praising Adolf Hitler and National Socialism.
This ‘boldness’ is inspiring to neo-Nazis who appreciate his efforts to mainstream Antisemitism and Nazism. When Sewell was remanded in prison, he received support as a ‘political prisoner’ from neo-Nazis around the world. This was equal to the support that Robert Rundo has received since his imprisonment. Sewell’s time on remand has earned him further credibility in the movement and is seen as a testimony to his total commitment to the cause.
On February 15 2024, Sewell started hosting Spaces on Twitter/X, where many of his members and overseas neo-Nazis congregate. On March 10 2024, he hosted a Space with active club leaders from across the United States, Canada and Europe. In this Space, he revealed that he has mentored smaller groups in the United States and Europe over the last three to four years, saying he has helped set up two dozen or so active clubs overseas. He described Adolf Hitler as creating “the world’s biggest active club”.
Sewell explained the vetting process for the EAM and the NSN, saying it is important to have a long vetting process. He said new recruits are not made official members for a “very long time”. The first stage of recruitment is an associate, and the recruit is invited to all events and training for the next six months. After six months of regular attendance, they are made an initiated member and given a white wristband (one way to recognise if someone is a member of the organisation).
The initial membership process takes about 12 to 18 months of regular attendance and the achievement of certain fitness goals. They are then made a full member and swear oaths. He also described “spectators” as valuable – these are men sympathetic to the aims of the neo-Nazi movement but who won't join the organisation but may consume online content and donate.
Sewell also described another “layer” of membership, which he is “trying to work out how to mobilise”. He described them like this:
...that's the people that don't even want to show up once a month. But they are in online spaces. They are family men, they are careerists. And we're working on how to mobilise them. They don't really want the heat as well, they're often very afraid of the police attention, they're very afraid of being doxxed. Because they usually have good, high paying jobs. And they can't, they don't want to change their standard of living. And that's just the position that they're in. And we're looking at mobilising them in what you could call satellite groups. So the idea of setting up groups that aren't even on paper, anything to do with you, you don't really have much cross pollination, but they still have one or two guys from your group helping manage it, because if you left them alone to do their own thing, it would fizzle out and die and it wouldn't have that continuity. So having a cadre member, maintain a satellite group that has not public facing that hasn't got a serious level of commitment needed, but you can at least maintain them in the wider community instead of just maintaining them in an internet relationship. And that way, you know, as things come up, you'll find these people do have their uses – some of them IT guys, they can help you with security, your online security, some guys, you know, work in construction, and they can hire the young guys you have in your clubs, so they'll still network with the community. So I see those as like the four primary layers of an org.
Attitudes towards women
“Women have manipulated me using sex and emotion; demoralization, and I have manipulated them using violence and terror. We use what we have to get what we want.”
– neo-Nazi Blair Cottrell.
“Pedophilia is actually based … if she bleeds she can get the seed.”
– messages in the Discord server of National Socialist Network leader Cameron Brodie-Hall.
“An Eye for an Eye. A Tooth for a Tooth. A Rape for a Rape. When we win the retribution will be biblical.”
– Thomas Sewell (source: Telegram chat of Matthew Roebuck, 15 April 2021)
Over the years, retention has been a key issue for far-Right and extremist groups. Members could burn out, become disillusioned with their lack of success, grow up, move, start studying or working, or have interpersonal conflicts within the group. However, the greatest threat to retention by far is getting a girlfriend. To this end, the EAM/NSN has developed a strategy for involving and controlling partners.
Due to the heavily misogynistic views of neo-Nazis, there is no place for women as political agents in EAM/NSN. Yet Sewell recognises women as crucial to retention. First, he suggests that all neo-Nazis tell their partners directly about their political views so there can be no confusion. Second, he fosters networking and bonding amongst the women through social events and encourages them to form sewing clubs, book clubs and so on. Finally, he encourages neo-Nazis to start families and aims to set up cooperative child-minding and, later, home-schooling. If women are very young, pregnant and networked with similar women, they are less likely to put pressure on their neo-Nazi partner to change.
Prominent members and associates of EAM/NSN have advocated marrying girls as young as 14. One has boasted of refusing to “let” his girlfriend wear trousers. Others have boasted about controlling what their partner wears to the gym or even eats. This is a form of coercive control. We’re aware that multiple members of EAM/NSN have been the subject of Intervention Orders, and ex-partners of EAM/NSN members have also told us that after leaving a relationship with an EAM/NSN member, they were subjected to harassment from other members of the group.
On September 12 2022, the new $90,000 ute of neo-Nazi Geoff Abel was burnt out in his driveway. The perpetrator was a child recruited from prison by neo-Nazi Benjamin Thomas, who has MEIN KAMPF tattooed on his forehead. Thomas arranged the arson attack as revenge against Abel, who was in a relationship at the time with Thomas' former girlfriend. Thomas was in prison on related domestic violence charges and had previously served time for stabbing a former partner in a jealous rage. Abel was jailed in 2023 for domestic violence offences against the same woman who he punched and kicked while she was pregnant. Both men were founding members of Activ88, the Wollongong active club cell of the NSN.
Attitudes towards violence
Sewell often states his group is non-violent and complains that they are depicted otherwise in the press. In the aftermath of the Christchurch massacre, Sewell compared himself favourably to Brenton Tarrant by saying that his group would remain non-violent on the condition that police did not investigate them:
“Mr Sewell said he did not wish harm on any minorities but that he would see violence as an option “if the state continues its persecution of our people for wanting to preserve their culture and heritage” or if his members were arrested.
“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.”
This conditional commitment to peaceful co-existence with mainstream society is not evident in practice.
On 17 August 2019, members of the Victorian branch of the Antipodean Resistance group were involved in a road rage incident in Colac in which they threw a bottle at an Asian couple and assaulted a female KFC manager. When police investigated, they found knives, firearms and ammunition in the car belonging to the AR members.
On March 1 2021, Sewell and Hersant attended the Melbourne offices of Channel 9 to complain that their group would be depicted unfairly in an upcoming broadcast of A Current Affair. While being escorted from the premises by a Black security guard, Sewell unleashed an assault on the guard, which Magistrate Stephen Ballek described as “brutal in its force, speed and repetition.” Onlookers may have found the attack terrifying, but for Sewell and his cadre, it was something to be celebrated. Racist memes and animated GIFs celebrating the assault were widely shared in international neo-Nazi spaces on Telegram, and Sewell was invited to appear on the livestream of Canadian neo-Nazi Brandon Martinez – a personal hero of Sewell's – introducing him to a far wider audience than he had previously enjoyed.
While the potential disruption that Sewell's jailing might have on his employer was raised as a sentencing consideration, conspicuously absent from the prosecution's evidence was that far from expressing remorse for the racially-motivated attack, Sewell had benefited greatly from it and had never at any point castigated his followers when they abused and mocked his victim at length. Sewell was sentenced to serve a Community Corrections Order and perform community service.
On 8 May 2021, Sewell, Hersant and other members of the EAM/NSN were taking part in a hiking trip in Victoria's Cathedral Ranges. At one point, they were recognised as potentially being neo-Nazis by some passing hikers (the EAM/NSN group were hiking in matching outfits featuring the EAM's modified swastika logo). When the hikers attempted to take a video of the group, paranoid NSN members thought they must have been anti-fascist spies and commenced to attack the smaller group, smashing the windows of their car and causing it to crash. Again, far from expressing remorse, NSN members responded to this incident by mocking the victims and posting bizarre conspiracy theories about them.
In sentencing remarks after Sewell and Hersant's trial, it was mentioned that the sight of an NSN member brandishing a knife in a 'ready position' had caused so much fear in one of their victims that they had urinated. This point was the subject of particular mirth for Sewell's followers. After being given remarkably light sentences because this assault was declared not related to political belief and then being congratulated by the judge on their excellent prospects for rehabilitation, Hersant allegedly committed further offences within seconds of emerging from court when he allegedly performed a now-illegal Sieg Heil salute while saying “Heil Hitler’ for media cameras.
In May 2023, two members of NSN were approached by a member of the public as they posted neo-Nazi stickers in the Adelaide CBD. The NSN members, Kane Brennand-Reynolds and Martin Quinn, pushed the man over and kicked him in the head. Despite this, the man could get up and chase his attackers away. NSN members have subsequently celebrated this assault online, repeatedly posting photos of the injury inflicted on the victim and CCTV of the attack. Kane Brennand-Reynolds received a suspended 2 month and 24 day sentence, and Martin Quinn received a $1000 fine.
On September 15, 2023, members of the NSN arrived at Cafe Gummo, a venue in Melbourne holding an anti-fascist fundraiser gig. A number of the NSN members had GoPros strapped to their chests and carried a banner featuring a Sonnenrad (Black Sun). Bystanders reported that several carried knives. Quick-thinking bar patrons averted a potential catastrophe by chasing the NSN away from the venue. No neo-Nazis have been charged over this incident.
Attacks and responses
How neo-Nazis respond to mass casualty events can be instructive as it relates to their conception of violence. Many such events are celebrated, and the perpetrators are sanctified by neo-Nazis. However, for the purposes of this submission, there are two events that we wish to highlight specifically.
Christchurch massacres, March 15 2019
The massacres perpetrated by Brenton Tarrant in Christchurch in March 2019 were not quite the same as other atrocities that Australian neo-Nazis had cheered on, such as the October 2018 Tree of Life Synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh. For one thing, many Australian neo-Nazis knew Tarrant.
Although the New Zealand Royal Commission found no evidence that Tarrant had been given assistance in committing the attack, they also found that he had been an active participant in secret Facebook groups for supporters of the Lads Society and that he was especially known to the leadership of the Lads Society after having made a sizeable donation.
In the immediate aftermath of the attack, some members of the Lads Society bemoaned the idea that the killer might have acquired the firearms used legally, which would put pressure on governments to tighten gun control measures. And at a Fraser Anning supporters’ meeting in Sydney, attended by Lads Society members shortly after the attack, we observed members of the far-Right raising a toast to Tarrant.
For some Australian neo-Nazis, the desire to celebrate was dampened by a series of arrests nationwide of people sharing the killer's live-streamed video. Some adopted the mantra '51' as a way to signal support in a subtler way. As neo-Nazi Stefan Eracleous explained in a Telegram post, “This is why I made 51 a trend. It's coded language so you can still get a high from the NZ thing but staying below the radar”. Often this mantra would be posted as text, but occasionally in other ways. Neo-Nazis have graffitied messages of praise for Tarrant near Table 51 in pubs. In one disturbing video posted by Eracleous, a man surreptitiously films Muslim men outside a mosque. He whistles the British Grenadier marching song played by Tarrant prior to commencing his attack, then mutters 51 over and over, before concluding with the words “headshot.”
Wieambilla shootings, December 12 2022
The neo-Nazi leadership in Australia is obsessed with the potential for violence to be used against them by law enforcement. In this context, the deaths of three Christian fundamentalists at Wieambilla did not represent a lesson about the dangers of Christian fundamentalist conspiracism or gaps in the national firearms intelligence schema, but rather a propaganda opportunity to push the idea that the State might kill them without justification at any moment. In his Twitter/X Space on March 10 2024, Sewell spoke of the attack in very sympathetic terms:
and the government can do what they did to that family in, there was a there was a shooting recently with a cops killed a man, a wife and his brother on a farm in in Queensland, and the media ran cover for the cops saying that the cops just you know went there to just check in and they just got shot at for no reason and that's why they had to murder this family. And these three are dead and and then the media ran cover and said, they were in an “incestuous relationship” and the brother was having sex with, and they just smeared these people that were just good, honest, Australians that were part of the Freedom Movement, which is like our anti-COVID-tyranny movement. And they just got fucking executed on their farm by these scumbags in the tyranny and nothing is being done about it like no one is mobilising against that because they were alienated, isolated, atomised Freedom Rally people instead of being like strongly connected to an online, international and, and obviously local community.
This framing of conflict with authorities as a battle for freedom leading to justifiable violence has been a concern of ours for many years, especially given that Sewell and the NSN also hold to a conspiracy theory that anyone who opposes his group – be they investigative journalists, anti-racist counter-protesters or just someone telling them off in the street – is doing so at the behest of a State which possesses murderous intent. In this logic, any form of opposition is fair game for a pre-emptive reprisal.
Other associates of the NSN have also commented on the Wieambilla massacre. We would like to note that in their commentary on the massacre, the murder of neighbour Alan Dare by the Trains is never mentioned, as he does not fit into their conspiracy. On the XYZ blog, run by NSN member David Hiscox, failed West Australian political candidate Stephen Wells wrote of the victims:
So I don’t care that two police were murdered. Don’t become a police officer if you don’t want to be murdered. As long as the Australian Government is using police to do fuck all other than collect speeding fines, persecute people with opinions they don’t like and beat and shoot non sanctioned protestors, why should anyone care about your lives? If your job involves leaving your conscience at home and “just following orders”, don’t be surprised if people forsake their consciences when disobeying your orders. You get what you give in life and police in Australia have been giving the public nothing but shit for decades. No respect deserved from the public and no mercy shown by the criminals.
A day later, Wells expanded on his thinking:
Every action has an equal and opposite reaction and the Globalist leaders are intent on acting out their totalitarian wet dreams. For those that have turned to God you know that the Bible shows how God puts what Issac Newton articulated into practice.
Everyone who has been red pilled to even a basic level will have thought about how they will respond if the police one day comes for them.
I would suggest that if it’s a knock on the door, you don’t need to pull out weapons. If they come in force to bust down your door…. that’s a scenario where no one can advise you on. Other than trust in God and before that day comes, try not to get too paranoid. It may never happen.
For anyone in the Police Force or thinking about joining the Police Force, get out and don’t join. You take your orders from psychopaths and the more they push their insanity, the more you will be required to enforce it, the more likely it will be that you will receive the reaction. Don’t blame me. I’m just the one pointing out science and Biblical principles.
This second Stephen Wells article was approvingly shared across NSN channels on Telegram.
Rhetoric and abuse
Casual and repeated use of violent imagery and language is one way that members and potential recruits are desensitised and radicalised and come to adopt the us (good Nazis) vs them (Jews and their ‘system pets’) framework underlying the EAM/NSN group.
Thomas Sewell and other EAM and NSN members have repeatedly threatened violence against their political enemies, including academics, activists, healthcare workers, journalists, LGBTIQA+ people, librarians, politicians, police and state security. NSN members have gleefully and wilfully targeted supposed adversaries (usually random people who have committed the “crime” of being fat, non-white or queer in public) in the city of Melbourne over the last two years, including harassing them and filming them in their workplaces, disrupting businesses, following and yelling at people of minority backgrounds and assaulting soup kitchen volunteers. Due to this behaviour, at least one business has permanently trespassed two NSN members from all stores. They especially target women and transgender people.
In early February 2024, National Socialist Network leader Jimeone Roberts uploaded a nearly eight-minute-long video to his Telegram channel of him violently abusing and threatening a small group of elderly women from the group Grandmothers For Refugees while they peacefully protested. He said he hoped that the women would be stabbed next. We believe his rage was precipitated by the stabbing murder of Vyleen White in Ipswich, blaming refugee activists for importing “rapists and murderers.” Roberts' abuse included anti-Black and Antisemitic slurs and violent misogyny. At one point, he spat towards the group of women. The police were called.
Thomas Sewell later claimed on Telegram that Roberts had been arrested by counter-terrorism and had five charges pending, including racial vilification and using a carrier service to harass. We are yet to see confirmation of the charges. The video was shared widely across Telegram and Twitter/X including internationally. Neo-Nazi leader of the Goyim Defense League and troll Jon Minadeo II (aka 'Handsome Truth') shared the video on Telegram and requested to be put in touch with Roberts, bolstering his international profile with this act of abuse and intimidation.
Now excommunicated NSN member Stefan Eracleous is fixated on Senator Lidia Thorpe and has made thousands of violently misogynistic and racist posts about her in private chats and public Telegram channels. He has also plastered misogynistic and racist graffiti and stickers about her and other Indigenous MPs all over Melbourne. With fellow member Jimeone Roberts, Eracleous produced and published two menacing and racist videos threatening Senator Thorpe, one in January 2022 and the other in October 2023. Eracleous was charged and recently convicted over the first video. Roberts has not been charged over either video, despite the first video being geolocated to the backyard of a family property he lived in at the time and his masked appearance in the second video, reading out the script. Senator Thorpe’s concerns for her safety were minimised by the Australian Federal Police, who she described as slow and ineffective, leaving her no choice but to hire her own private security.
We are extremely concerned about the potential for an attack on an Australian politician. We consider female politicians who are Indigenous and Muslim particularly at risk. This risk has only accelerated since the failed Voice referendum and the Labor Party's attack on Senator Fatima Payman. Australian agencies do not appear to have learned any lessons from the murder of British Labour MP Jo Cox in 2016. Cox was shot and stabbed by Thomas Mair, who shouted “Put Britain First”. Mair was a fascist who collected Nazi propaganda and was obsessed with the Great Replacement conspiracy theory. The now-proscribed British neo-Nazi group National Action celebrated the murder of Jo Cox and, according to Hope Not Hate, adopted Mair as a martyr, encouraging others to do the same. Inspired by the murder of Jo Cox, another National Action member, Jack Renshaw, was sentenced in 2019 over a plot to murder Labour MP Rosie Cooper. As we outline below, there are deep and ongoing links between the Australian neo-Nazi members and British fascists, including ex-members of National Action.
Since our submission, a right-wing teenager inspired by Brenton Tarrant and obsessed with gore planned to behead a Labor Party MP in Newcastle. He fortunately chickened out at the last minute.
We would note that when a sitting Senator appeared at an anti-racist public event in Melbourne last year, it was not the AFP officers tasked with protecting them who noticed a young man nervously pacing back and forth in front of the venue but private security. When police were eventually cajoled into investigating, it was discovered that the young man was a known neo-Nazi, and he was armed with a concealed machete.
International connections
Australia’s neo-Nazi movement is very well connected internationally and held in high regard. As we have outlined, Sewell boasts of mentoring many overseas fascists, nationalists and neo-Nazis and helping to start over two dozen active clubs. A small number of overseas neo-Nazis have visited Australia, including a member of Patriot Front who was hosted by Lads Society members in Queensland and Victoria. We also know of visits by Australian neo-Nazis to America and Europe.
In 2012, the leader of Nationalist Alternative travelled to the United States for a political training conference run by Stormfront founder Don Black.
Like Jacob Hersant’s previous group, Antipodean Resistance, the UK group National Action formed on Iron March. Members of the Antipodean Resistance travelled to the United Kingdom to meet with members of National Action, and they networked online.
Members of the European Australia Movement and the National Socialist Network have travelled at different times to Aotearoa New Zealand, where they’ve met with old school ‘boneheads’ and Action Zealandia. Visits to the United States include meeting with Harold Covington, a former member of the American Nazi Party and influential founder of Northwest Front who was an inspiration to mass murderer Dylann Roof.
In August 2023, a member of the European Australian Movement posted on Telegram about touring Greece and networking and forming bonds with “with some brothers” from the Greek nationalist group ProPatria Hellas. ProPatria are the youth front of the Greek neo-Nazi organisation the Golden Dawn. The leaders of Golden Dawn were sentenced to 13 years in prison in 2020, convicted of operating a criminal organisation under the guise of being a democratically elected party. Described as a fanatical neo-Nazi organisation and formerly a martial arts club, ProPatria is known for violent attacks against students and antifascist protestors and football hooliganism. ProPatria are networked with the far-Right across Europe and White Rex in Russia.
One online supporter of the EAM and NSN, neo-Nazi Tylere Baker-Pearce, made a pilgrimage to Al Noor Mosque in Ōtautahi Christchurch, Aotearoa New Zealand in June 2023, to retrace the steps of Brenton Tarrant. Baker-Pearce unsuccessfully ran as an independent candidate in the Victorian state election in 2022 and was preferenced by the Victorian Liberal Party above Labor. Action Zealandia member Max Newsome once invited Nordic Resistance Movement members to visit Aotearoa New Zealand, promising to “take you on a pilgrimage route a saint did last year”, referencing mass murderer Brenton Tarrant as a “saint”. An Action Zealandia member made a violent threat to Al Noor mosque in 2020 and was never charged. Posts on 4Chan and Twitter/X from New Zealand neo-Nazis have also invited overseas “lads” to do this pilgrimage. A founding member of Action Zealandia and a serving member of the New Zealand Defence Force is currently awaiting trial on charges including espionage, being a member of a white supremacist group, and possessing a recording of the Christchurch mosque attack livestream. Members of the National Socialist Network and Action Zealandia met up in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland in January 2023.
Concerningly, a relatively new member of the neo-Nazi scene and member of the EAM and the NSN, Joel Davis, has made two known trips to network with overseas white nationalists.
Due to the lack of moderation on Twitter/X under Elon Musk, extremist and neo-Nazi material has circulated freely. The new stalwart of the neo-Nazi Australian scene Joel Davis, a ‘philosophy bro’ type who recently moved to Melbourne from Sydney, is specialising in influencing followers on X and boasts of ‘ratioing’ political figures such as the Prime Minister (to 'ratio' is to gain more engagement on a reply than the original post). His follower base skews heavily American, and he has become a contact point for fascists and neo-Nazis from across the Anglosphere due to his consistently high engagement on X and his voluminous live-streaming. His weekly show with neo-Nazi Blair Cottrell often includes Thomas Sewell and was only recently banned from Youtube. He gave a speech on effective propaganda at the 2023 EAM/NSN national annual meetup and attended training events and the 2024 Australia Day neo-Nazi meetup in Sydney.
Due to his prominence within the movement, Davis was invited to speak in England by British neo-Nazi leader Mark Collett at the annual Patriotic Alternative conference in October 2023. Davis and Sewell have both defended Sam Melia, a Patriotic Alternative member and former member of the proscribed group National Action, who has recently been jailed for stirring up racial hatred. Other invited speakers were Americans Tony Hovater and Warren Balogh, who are both members of the National Justice Party (NJP), a virulently Antisemitic white supremacist group formed by attendees of the Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville in 2017. Balogh is the party secretary. Hovater was a founding member of the neo-Nazi group Traditionalist Workers Party and is now chief of staff in the NJP.
In November 2023, Joel Davis travelled to Poland to attend Poland’s nationalist “independence march”. Approximately 40,000 people attended the march in 2023, including members of Patriot Front, members of active clubs from Denmark, Estonia, France and Netherlands, and Greek and Serbian neo-Nazis. The neo-Nazi bloc in the march carried flags with the Celtic Cross, a symbol often used in Europe in place of the Hakenkreuz swastika. The march in 2022 featured a banner with the Sonnenrad or Black Sun, a symbol used by Germany's Schutzstaffel (SS) and Antisemitic chants.
While in Poland, Davis met with Keith Woods, a prominent Irish Antisemitic white nationalist. Davis’ international travel is significant and helps build his profile as an international far-right figure. Jacob Hersant and Thomas Sewell’s legal issues have prevented them from travelling overseas. Davis’ travels allow them to build deeper transnational far-right networks through his in-person meetings.
Before Joel Davis met with Patriotic Alternative in the UK, both Davis and Sewell had live-streamed with Mark Collett, the leader. Indeed, in 2022, Sewell caused a potential problem for PA by announcing that he “believed in the retributive rape of every social worker, police, and judge that had inadequately protected the victims of trafficking and rape gangs” PA was concerned this extreme statement would cause their group to be proscribed in the UK(when they are seeking legitimisation as a registered political party).
The rift was mended, and the offending section of the livestream was edited. As Sewell said, “Everyone knows what I'm about. There's no confusion as to what my views are and what I think about life. And if you're going to do a podcast with me, I'll probably say something controversial.” In June 2019, two teenage members of British neo-Nazi group Sonnenkrieg Division were jailed for terrorism offences. Influenced by Atomwaffen Division and the Order of Nine Angles, their propaganda included the same sentiment: an image of a masked neo-Nazi wearing a Sonnenrad patch, attacking a female police officer, alongside a direction to “rape the cops”.
Joel Davis had been coy about revealing support for Sewell’s overt neo-Nazi agenda, only recently donning EAM clothing and performing Hitler salutes. His role in the EAM/NSN ecosystem is as a communications strategist and philosopher and acting as a link between “normie racists” and EAM/NSN. Indeed, he appears to have three aims: push anti-immigration with a strong focus on Indians, mobilise followers on Twitter/X to push the Overton window, and legitimising overt racism. He has frequently said it's important to be racist as it is not only fun but necessary. Following the path set by Jack Van Tongeren, Davis wants immigrants, specifically Indians, to feel so unwelcome and unwanted in Australia as to leave.
Australia’s neo-Nazis and Terrorgram
Australia's neo-Nazis are well connected to the transnational Terrorgram Collective, which operates within a network of loosely connected Telegram channels. Collectively known as “Terrorgram,” these channels espouse an ideology of militant accelerationism. This community has ties to various extremist groups such as the Atomwaffen Division, National Socialist Order, The Base, and Order of Nine Angles. Atomwaffen Division, National Socialist Order, and The Base are proscribed terrorist groups in Australia. Graham Macklin characterises Terrorgram and its online milieu as part of a “dark fandom” that glorifies extreme-Right terrorists akin to how school shooters and serial killers are idolised.
The Terrorgram Collective produces and shares guides promoting racially motivated violence and anti-government terrorism. Notable publications from the group include titles like Militant Accelerationism, Do it For the 'Gram, The Hard Reset, and Make It Count. These publications are seen as emblematic of a post-Siege era, wherein accelerationists seek to establish a new legacy beyond groups like the Atomwaffen Division and Siege Culture, as articulated on the American Futurist website (the publishing arm of the National Socialist Order). The Collective also produces propaganda, such as the pseudo-documentary White Terror, which commemorates “the Saints,” a roster of white individuals responsible for racially motivated killings and terrorist acts.
Militant accelerationism, according to Matthew Kriner, involves tactics aimed at intensifying societal divisions through violence to expedite societal collapse. The predominant ideological strain within militant accelerationism is neofascism, with the ultimate aim of establishing a white ethnostate post-collapse. A key belief of militant accelerationists is “There Is No Political Solution”.
White Terror originated from the “Saint Calendar” published by the Terrorgram Collective starting in 2021. This calendar glorifies acts of historical terrorism and violence, with the intent of inspiring further such acts by venerating mass murderers as “Saints” and extolling their body counts. To achieve Saint status, one must have committed at least one murder. Those whose attacks only achieve injuries are given “honorary” status. By August 2023, the Collective had added over 157 “Saints” to their “Pantheon”, lauding the killing of 722 people, with new saints and murders added in late 2023.
On October 12, 2022, the Terrorgram Collective ‘canonised’ its first Saint, 19-year-old shooter Juraj Krajčík, who killed two men and injured another outside a gay bar in Bratislava, Slovakia. They hailed Krajčík as “Tarrant’s sixth disciple and Terrorgram’s first saint.” In his manifesto, A Call To Arms, Krajčík explicitly acknowledged the Terrorgram Collective's influence and referenced their publications, including Militant Accelerationism and The Hard Reset, along with an indirect mention of Make it Count, which had a more limited circulation. We suspect there may have been some degree of coordination between Krajčík and the Terrorgram Collective before his attack.
Make it Count is a small booklet described by the Southern Poverty Law Centre as a “blueprint for terror” that advocated for assaults on critical infrastructure such as the power grid, as well as endorsing violence and terror acts targeting various groups, including Jewish communities. Additionally, it promoted urban sniping as an accelerationist strategy aimed at political adversaries such as judges, law enforcement officials, and politicians. The booklet also glorified the Manson Family's murder of Sharon Tate.
We first saw Make It Count shared on 2 June 2022 in a chat called 'Caucasian Coaching', run by NSN leader Jimeone Roberts. The user who shared the PDF of the publication was later identified through court records as Brandon Russell, the founder of the American neo-Nazi terrorist group Atomwaffen Division. Russell was active in other Telegram chats including 'Australian Meditations Nationalist Yarn', run by member of the NSN Stefan Eracleous. Russell also regularly shared neo-Nazi propaganda by the proscribed terrorist group the National Socialist Order in these chats, as well as an urban sniping manual.
Russell was sentenced to five years in federal prison in 2018 for possessing an unregistered destructive device and unlawfully possessing and storing explosive material. He was also found with radioactive materials at the time of his arrest. After his release from prison in 2021, he was again active with the National Socialist Order and The American Futurist, using pseudonyms on Telegram. He was re-arrested in February 2023 alongside Sarah Beth Clendaniel. Both were charged with conspiracy to destroy an energy facility in a plot to attack local power grid facilities, driven by racially motivated hatred. Court documents alleged that the couple wanted to conduct sniper attacks on five electricity substations to “completely destroy this whole city”.
National Socialist Network leader Jimeone Roberts was already in contact with the National Socialist Order, publishing an article about physical discipline on their website, The American Futurist, on 27 January 2022. On an encrypted chat platform, he revealed that the NSO asked him to write an article for them.
Another direct Australian involvement in the Terrogram Collective was recently revealed by a neo-Nazi leaker who turned against the National Socialist Order. The leaker claimed that a veteran Australian neo-Nazi who is a member of the European Australian Movement (known to us) was an affiliate or on the “staff” of The American Futurist. This neo-Nazi is active in many Terrorgram communities, including in spaces associated with the neo-Nazi Satanic cult Order of Nine Angles.
On 8 December 2023, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) Integrated National Security Enforcement Team (INSET) for the Greater Toronto Area/Southwest arrested two Ontario men, Kristoffer Nippak and Matthew Althorpe, following an 18-month investigation. The men are accused of involvement in creating manifestos for the Terrorgram Collective and producing recruitment videos for the Atomwaffen Division (AWD). Althorpe faces multiple charges, including the commission of hate crimes offences, participation in the activities of a terrorist group (AWD), facilitating terrorist activity, instructing a person to carry out terrorist activity, and counselling the commission of a terrorism offence. Nippak is charged with participation in the activities of a terrorist group (AWD). Nippak and Althorpe were also both members of Active Club Canada.
An investigation by Mack Lamoureux revealed in early December that Kristoffer Nippak, a founding member of the Canadian offshoot of Atomwaffen Division, was a key player in building the active club network, both in Canada and Europe, where he travelled and networked extensively, especially in Scandinavia. Anti-Hate Canada revealed that Nippak was also a member of Crew 38, a feeder group for the Vinland Hammerskins. Some Crew 38 and Hammerskins members act as recruiters for Active Club Canada. This is an example of how memberships of far-right groups are fluid and transnational, with far-right leaders increasingly networking in person across borders.
The Base
“I got more enjoyment watching Saint Tarrant do his thing. I've eaten several meals watching that ... it's where I was born, so I have a very sentimental connection to Christchurch.” – an Australian applicant to The Base.
The Base is an international neo-Nazi terror network, primarily based in the United States, but run from St Petersburg, Russia, by its leader Rinaldo Nazzaro (using the nom de plumes Norman Spear and Roman Wolf), a former US military contractor.
Much of what we know about the internal workings of The Base is thanks to the efforts of an anti-fascist infiltrator who we worked closely with and who managed to gain the trust of Nazzaro to the extent that they were intimately involved in most of the vetting interviews that potential recruits to the group would undergo.
The Base is an explicitly accelerationist project that rejects the premise of political solutions and advocates for action over words. They eschew a strict hierarchy; instead, Nazzaro would act as the face of the organisation, and members would form small two- or three-man cells (called Trouble Trios) that could take independent action. Federal authorities moved on one cell in the United States after they planned to undertake a mass shooting at a gun rights rally (a target chosen not because of opposition to gun rights but because of the potential for maximum chaos if rally-goers returned fire at each other).
Another such trio was formed in Australia in 2018 by members of Antipodean Resistance who were closely networked online with members of Atomwaffen Division and the leadership of Tempel ov Blood, a ‘nexion’ or cell of the neo-Nazi Satanic cult Order of Nine Angles (O9A). These teenage neo-Nazis admired the edginess of the neo-Nazi Satanists, reading literature published through the occult publishing house Martinet Press. Martinet Press was partly bankrolled by the FBI, who paid Atomwaffen Division and Tempel ov Blood member Joshua Caleb Sutter nearly USD$100,000 for his work as an informant since 2003. Books published by Martinet Press, such as Iron Gates, include graphic descriptions of cannibalism, infanticide, necrophilia, paedophilia, rape and torture.
The three Australians were known within The Base for their tendency to push the envelope—no small achievement in these spaces. In late 2018, one of them abruptly disconnected from the encrypted chats without notice. Another member of the trio explained to a concerned Nazzaro that they had decided to engage in a digital detox and concentrate on offline activity.
The other two members would also begin abrupt digital detoxes on March 15, 2019, perhaps concerned that law enforcement would soon come knocking in the wake of the massacre in Christchurch. This concern that they might be linked somehow to the attack was not unwarranted – the Steam account of one of the members was erroneously identified as belonging to Tarrant by a commenter on a 4chan thread on the day of the shooting.
In January 2020, family members of one of the cell posted on Facebook that he had completed suicide after police raided his home. The raid was reportedly related to social media posts he had made, including a photo he posted of himself dressed all in black, wearing a hoodie, a skull mask, a utility belt with a hunting knife and an Airsoft gun. Some of his online contacts that he played Minecraft and Snapchatted with alleged that – inspired by O9A – he had initiated discussions about his fantasies of cannibalism, paedophilia and rape.
The other member would eventually re-emerge as a leader of the National Socialist Network.
In October 2019, Nazzaro began a new effort to recruit Australians to his cause. Working with a member of a West Australian neo-Nazi group called SWAN (the Society of West Australian Nationalists), Nazzaro interviewed several potential candidates who had expressed an interest in joining the group. This pool included a former One Nation candidate and members (and leaders) of groups such as Lads Society, Order 15, Operation Werewolf, Identity Australia, Australian Natives Association and others. Applicants ranged in age from their teens to their 40s.
Ultimately, this attempt at establishing Australian cells would also come to naught, as the organisation soon descended into chaos following journalist Jason Wilson's doxxing of Nazzaro. Most applicants, however, continue to participate in other far-right organisations and projects. We’re aware that one has since renounced their far-right beliefs.
On 10 December 2021, The Base was officially proscribed in Australia as a terrorist organisation.
Almost one year later, on 8 December 2022, Thomas Sewell uploaded a selfie to his Telegram channel wearing a jacket with a patch featuring the logo of The Base.
The Base's Telegram channel reposted this selfie on 9 December 2022 with the caption, “Thomas Sewell is in The Base. Are you?” There is no evidence that there is still a cell of The Base within Australia.
Three American members of The Base are currently imprisoned for a plot to assassinate an antifascist activist and his wife. The neo-Nazis planned to ambush the antifascist activist inside his rural home, execute him and his wife with guns, and then burn the house down. Three other American members of The Base are imprisoned on federal charges relating to firearms and alien-related charges.
Access to firearms
We are concerned about the ability of members of the Australian far-Right to acquire firearms and firearms training. In early 2023, we conducted extensive research into this area.
In March 2023, our research with Nine journalist Nick McKenzie revealed that Australian Defence Force vetting processes had failed to detect several members of neo-Nazi groups who were currently serving in the Army. Some of them had previously been publicly named as neo-Nazis or posted neo-Nazi propaganda quite openly on their social media profiles.
Our research also revealed that Australian neo-Nazis were related to or in relationships with serving police officers, giving them potential access to firearms.
Further, we found that the Australian far-Right organisation, the Australian Natives Association, was listed as an Approved Hunting Organisation (AHO) by the NSW Department of Primary Industries. Membership of an AHO can be a stepping stone to acquiring a full firearms licence, and we observed members of this group spruiking this feature to accelerationist neo-Nazis on Telegram. In November 2019, when a Canberran teenager attempted to join The Base, he revealed in his vetting interview that he was a member of this group and that its leadership had indicated to him that they were racists and in favour of a white ethnostate. This situation should be treated seriously and reviewed.
Our investigations also revealed that in encrypted chats, neo-Nazis from the NSN and other groups were exchanging schematics for 3D-printed guns.
Finally, our research also found that a member of the NSN had attended a Sporting Shooters Association gun range while wearing a Sonnenrad symbol. This is the same symbol that Brenton Tarrant wore on his vest as he committed his atrocities. Given questions raised in the New Zealand Royal Commission about whether the Bruce Gun Club attended by Tarrant had a problematic culture, we feel that current levels of training to recognise signs of extremism may be lacking in Australian gun ranges.
We recommend that membership of any organisation with a whites-only membership policy should be automatic grounds for application of a Firearms Protection Order.
Gabe Seymour has pinned his target practices up from Rothwell Professional Indoor Industry Pistol Club in Rothwell on his bedroom wall along with his Nazi flags and propaganda.
