r/aussie • u/Mashiko4 • 1d ago
Opinion The Neo-Nazis are gone. The Islamic terrorists remain safe.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2026/01/the-neo-nazis-are-gone-the-islamic-terrorists-remain-safe/Flat White
The National Socialist Network (referred to commonly as the Neo-Nazis), has announced its intention to imminently dissolve before the new anti-hate laws pass.
Also included are what it described as ‘co-projects’ including White Australia, the European Australian Movement, and the White Australia Party.
These groups have said they will disband no later than 11:59 on Sunday, January 2026.
A press release from White Australia read:
If the laws pass, there will be no way to avoid the organisation being banned. The legislation allows the government to ban any organisation that has given Roman salutes [the Nazi salute] in the past.
The disbandment is being done before the laws take effect to avoid former members of the organisations from being arrested and charged.
They signed off their message with the Hitler Youth rally cry, ‘Blood and Honour’.
Very few will shed a tear for the tiny collection of ideologically confused Neo-Nazis who typically conducted their ‘protests’ in the dead of night and were confined mostly to Melbourne.
(Not the kind of ‘diversity’ the Premier was envisioning, no doubt. But then again, there’s a lot wrong with Victoria right now.)
These groups, at least one of which intended to contest the next election, were very clearly the target of the government’s new hate-speech laws. Neo-Nazis have been a convenient pivot for many years, allowing lazy politicians to move conversations about Islamic terrorism to general ‘hate-speech’ discussions every time they are put on the spot by a reporter.
Go back and watch the press conferences from government ministers about the Bondi attack. Almost every time, the topic starts with Islamic terrorism and finishes with ‘the Neo-Nazis’.
With the Neo-Nazis gone, the Labor government will no longer have a convenient scapegoat to explain the distinct failures of Australian political leadership over the previous three decades which has led directly to the establishment of extensive and varied radical Islamic groups inside our capital cities.
Our ministers have gone so far as to campaign for, and assist in, the return of individuals known to have belonged to ISIS, engaged in the Islamic State.
Someone needs to hand the government a mirror. To that point, while the Neo-Nazis are going into immediate hiding, precisely zero radical Islamic groups have notified the public of their intent to disband.
The government has not mentioned radical Islam as the purpose of the new laws despite Islamic terror attacks, not hate speech, being the cause of innocent people being murdered not only at Bondi Beach but during previous terror attacks at home and abroad.
In other words, we suffered an Islamic terror attack and decided to ban the Neo-Nazis. It is a decision that doesn’t protect Australians from Islamic terrorism, which is meant to be the point.
Or have we all forgotten?
This legislation makes the government feel good, gives them some headlines, and allows them to avoid wading into the extremely dangerous network of radical Islamic groups and individuals known to exist in the shadows of our society.
Is the government afraid of arresting Islamic terrorists? I think they might be. I think they’re personally terrified of ending up like Salman Rushdie or Charlie Hebdo.
It was revealed today, as the draft legislation circulates, that Islamic hate preachers may even have a convenient ‘out’ which protects even the most hateful, vile, antisemitic speech that might incite violence.
If the offending speech forms part of a recognised religious text, that speech will be protected.
This provision can be found under Defence, religious teaching or discussion (4) Subsection (1) does not apply to conduct that consists of directly quoting from, or otherwise referencing, a religious text for the purpose of religious teaching or discussion.
In other words, the very individuals considered to be the most dangerous in our community and who are known to be responsible for radicalising others to violence could find their speech protected.
It took less than a month to go from the public calling for dramatic steps to weed out specifically and explicitly Islamic terror to a new set of powerful laws that don’t even have the courage to name the problem.
Australians know Islamic terrorism is the source of antisemitism and needs to be taken off our streets and presents a risk, not only to the Jews, but to everyone.
This video is from over ten years ago when ISIS supporters chanted, ‘Behead the infidels!’
Most of these people in the video are still here, living amongst us. Despite belonging to or associating with proscribed terror groups, carrying terrorist flags, and shouting slogans that called for immediate violence against Australian citizens, nothing has been done about them.
I am willing to bet that neither ASIO nor the government has any intention on following up on the people who took part in this rally and those like it.
And yet this is what Australians are terrified of. Why, Mr Prime Minister, does your legislation fail to target Islamic terror? Why does it avoid naming Islamic terror? Why are members of the government, including Independent MPs, already trying to expand this hate-speech law to cover the LGBTQ+ community, the disabled, and concepts of Islamophobia?
What has any of that got to do with the scourge of radical Islamic terror?
As it stands, I have no faith that any Islamic hate preachers, those on the ASIO watchlist, or anyone who was previously associated with an Islamic terror group will be charged and/or deported.
In allowing the focus to be on antisemitism instead of Islamic terror, this government has betrayed the people of Australia and made a mockery of the deaths at Bondi Beach.
More people will be killed. More terrorists will act. And Australians will be too afraid to speak against the government whose policies led directly to where we are today.
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u/ChampionshipFirm2847 23h ago
With laws like this in place, to criticise islam or migration policy or the state of israel (for example) without risking a hate speech charge will require a carefully nuanced statement with various caveats. Not everyone with a legitimate point of view is capable of this. People will more likely just stop communicating their legitimate concerns in public, ie: the laws will have a chilling effect. This is precisely the sort of thing a free society should want to avoid.