“The intolerant cancer of the far right in our community”
The deputy chair of the NSW Parliamentary Friends of Israel, Walt Secord has urged the NSW Perrottet Government to increase monitoring and investigation of extreme far-right groups.
Walt Secord
In parliament, Secord commented on a total of 137 people were employed in the Department of Communities and Justice in the area of counterterrorism a slight increase from 125 people in 2020.
He said: “In light of the recent increase in far-right-wing activity in the past three years, I urge the Perrottet Government to step up its response to the intolerant cancer of the far right in our community. I urge the Perrottet Government to also increase monitoring and investigation of these groups.
Members would know that, when I was shadow Minister for Police and Counter Terrorism, I asked many questions about far-right activity in New South Wales and started the debate that has led earlier this year to the banning of Nazi symbols in New South Wales. In response to my inquiries in September 2021, the then police commissioner, Mick Fuller, reported that 20 per cent of NSW Police Force’s counterterrorism activity was on monitoring and policing far-right-wing groups. In 2020 NSW Police Force reported that 31 incidents of displays of Nazi flags were reported to it, including outside a Newtown synagogue and at a Wagga Wagga water tower. In April 2022, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, which documents antisemitism, reported through its research director, Julie Nathan, that in the 12 months to 30 September 2021, there were 447 incidents of antisemitism nationally. This was an increase of 35 per cent.
Unfortunately, we hear reports of extremist activity on a regular basis. This week it was reported that a group has been putting flyers for white extremists in Bondi mailboxes. I have seen the flyers, which are clearly produced by far-right-wing extremists. The language and symbols are classic white extremist. Unfortunately, over the past 34 years, in various capacities, I have become all too familiar with the material produced by these disgusting groups. The flyers say “blood and honour” and that prospective followers should “be prepared to train, to get outdoors and sacrifice some of your personal time for a higher purpose.”
The flyers are strangely primitive and sophisticated at the same time—sophisticated in that they are accompanied by a QR code, which readers are urged to scan if they are white. The code leads one to the website of the National Socialist Network, which is Australia’s largest white supremacist group.”
He concluded by saying: ‘I hope that the Government takes this matter seriously.”
