A Liberal MP has called on the federal government to immediately examine how laws could be changed to prevent nationalist political organisation White Australia from registering as a political party.
The Member for Berowra in Sydney’s north, Julian Leeser, made the demand after NSW Premier Chris Minns introduced new laws banning “Nazi ideology and conduct” in response to a protest by White Australia’s activist branch, the National Socialist Network, against Jewish lobby influence earlier this month.
Mr Leeser, who is Jewish, told The Australian federal election laws should be urgently reviewed, and accused Labor of failing to act quickly enough on anti-Semitism.
“On every measure relating to anti-Semitism, the Albanese government is always late to the party … How many more anti-Semitic incidents need to occur, how many more members will the NSN recruit, before the government actually acts?” he said.
“These matters should be urgently referred to the joint standing committee on electoral matters to examine whether our laws need tightening around neo-Nazi participation in federal elections.”
But Liberal National Party MP and former Speaker of the House Andrew Wallace said it would not be possible to prevent the party from registering, and trying to do so would only draw more attention to the White Australia movement.
“Experience tells us that the High Court would slap [down] any attempt to ban. Just look at Menzies and what he tried to do with the Communist Party,” he said.
The Australian Electoral Commission said last week it was unable to block a party from registering based on ideology, and that the privacy of party members was protected by law.
A spokesperson said it could only reject names that were “obscene, frivolous or vexatious”, could be mistaken for another party, or were more than six words long, and said the AEC had “no scope under the Commonwealth Electoral Act to consider the following issues: party ideology and related insignia, concerns raised by law enforcement or individuals with criminal convictions”.
White Australia’s NSW leader Jack Eltis, who spoke at the November 8 NSN protest, said in a statement on Telegram on Wednesday that the organisation had almost reached the number of members required to register, and urged supporters to sign up.
“We are extremely close to having the required 1,500 persons, and are very grateful for those that are willing to assist in our party project,” he wrote.
“As a result of discourse online and comments by politicians, media and government over the last week, we wrote formally to the Australian Electoral Commission to seek formal confirmation that the membership lists are in fact confidential.
“The AEC have responded and formally confirmed our understanding that for Federal Political Party registration, the member details are held in confidence and are not publicly accessible.”
Last week the AEC told Noticer News: “Party membership lists provided to the AEC as part of an application to register a federal political party are not made public.
“Information collected by the AEC, including lists of members provided as part of the process of registering a political party, is held in line with the AEC’s Privacy Policy. The AEC may only use and disclose collected information, including personal information, for the purpose for which it was collected.”
Mr Leeser’s comments came after Immigration Minister Tony Burke cancelled the visa of a South African NSN member Matthew Gruter for taking part in the protest, and ordering him to be handcuffed during a 4am raid by armed Border Force officers and taken to Villawood Detention Centre.
Opposition home affairs spokesman Jonno Dunian said the Coalition would support new laws allowing the government to deport right-wing activists who are not Australian citizens.
“If the Home Affairs Minister has laws that will expel these people more effectively, then that is a good thing. Bring them to the parliament, just like the NSW parliament is doing, and we will pass them,” he said.
Header image: Left, Mr Leeser at a synagogue in Melbourne in July (Facebook). Right, the NSN protest (supplied).
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