How Serious Are Australia's Neo-Nazis?

**Meshel Laurie** (0:03)
This is Australian True Crime with Meshel Laurie. What does it mean to be a Nazi in 2026? As extremist groups adapt to the digital age, crime reporter at The Age, Sherryn Groch, examines how they attract followers online, who they're targeting and the symbols, language and online communities that help these movements grow.
This is Australian True Crime. We acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which this podcast is created, the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation. And a warning, this episode of the podcast contains graphic descriptions of violence.
All right. So we need you to tell us, please, where are we in 2026? What does it mean to be a Nazi in Australia?

**Sherryn Groch** (0:53)
I guess it means exactly how it sounds. These are Hitlisher worshiping, Swastika waving, out and proud Nazis. They hate Jews, they want to deport people of color and build their own white only societies, you know, run by men, of course.
But I guess at the moment, Nazis in Australia, they're in a bit of a strange moment in their evolution where because the government has cracked down on them again, they've sort of scuttled back into trying to appear like everyday Aussies just concerned about immigration numbers, you know, fed up with all the woke, lefty politics, let's go boo the welcome to country, nothing to see here, lads. And look, they've pulled this tactic a few times. I mean, in the 80s, you had guys out there in their black combat boots saying we're technically not Nazis, we're white fascists.
I think it was during the, about a decade ago, during the sort of second coming of Pauline Hanson. We had Nazis out there targeting mosques with really nasty stunts, like fake beheadings, but still saying very firmly we're not Nazis. And now they're more organized than ever, they're growing here in Australia. And they've sort of ramped up to the point where they've gone from their little stunts in their black bucket hats to proper stunts that are getting serious media attention. So, you know, obviously like, you know, a few hundred diehard Nazis is not enough to enact their coup that they are planning.

**Meshel Laurie** (2:27)
I'm sort of shocked, to be honest. And I think I'm pretty engaged with the news and with what's going on around the place. But I think people of my generation, I'm in my early 50s, and I, it feels like most of my life the term Nazi has been almost a joke because it's so ridiculous that anyone would actually be a Nazi.
We used to fling it around about John Howard. People used to say Margaret Thatcher was a Nazi. It was like a way of saying ultra conservative and a way of saying we didn't like someone. But it never occurred to me that anyone ever again would actually think of themselves as Nazis. I think because the Third Reich ended in such humiliation for everybody who followed Nazism. I mean, it was an absolute debacle, I think as an understatement.

**Sherryn Groch** (3:17)
It was a wipeout.

**Meshel Laurie** (3:18)
Right? In every way, on every level, they came out looking like fools, racist fools who just followed a lunatic. And so-

**Sherryn Groch** (3:28)
It was win or die.

**Meshel Laurie** (3:29)
Right.

**Sherryn Groch** (3:30)
And that's not a great philosophy, is it?

**Meshel Laurie** (3:32)
And the anti-Semitism of it all was ridiculous. When we really looked into the pseudoscience they were using to justify it all, it was stupid. And so for me, I always think of calling someone as a Nazi is a bit of a almost a cop-out. Like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. You can call anyone a Nazi. Oh yeah, he's a Nazi, she's a Nazi, whatever.
But you're actually seriously saying these people aren't Nazis in the traditional sense, in the historical sense. Yes.

**Sherryn Groch** (4:04)
Like, you know, they've got a Hitler book club, you know? They've got the flags. They're doing the hails, throwing Roman salutes. And people say this to me a lot, like, oh, come on. Yeah. They're not actually Nazis. And it is tempting when you see these guys laughing around, it is tempting to sort of laugh at them, like aren't they ridiculous? But the reason I got interested is because these guys are, you know, they're serious, dangerous people. A lot of them have got really serious criminal convictions, or they've got serious ties to terrorists overseas. I mean, I discovered they're linked to about 30 extremist groups overseas. Like, you know, they had dealings with the Christchurch shooter before he went off and did his massacre in New Zealand. So, it's sort of, we've reached the point where we can't laugh at them anymore.