In June, Eltis said he went to Germany on a “combined business and personal” trip. He met with another nationalist organisation, JN, or Jung Nationalist. In a social media post sighted by this masthead and headed “shoutout to the motherland”, he said he was planning to return to Europe, “our ancestral lands”, to meet with other far-right organisations.
Minns on Saturday said he had struggled with giving the NSN the attention its members craved but said it was important to condemn the ugly scenes. ASIO director-general Mike Burgess has also warned that the NSN celebrates even the most critical coverage because it leads to a surge in membership applications.
The Herald and The Age have chosen not to repeat several of Eltis’ claims, but have published some information about his activities that are relevant to the political debate over Saturday’s protests and the ambitions of the NSN.
Eltis confirmed the network’s goal was to be represented in federal and state parliaments. “We’re closest with the federal party; we’re about 90 per cent of the way there,” he said.
In NSW, a political party needs at least 750 members to register, and 1500 federally.
Eltis said the party’s constitution was fully drafted and one plank of its policy platform was the mass deportation of people of Jewish faith.
On June 22, Eltis gathered with more than 30 other NSN members outside NSW parliament in a demonstration similar to Saturday’s rally. The group, standing alongside a banner that read “end immigration”, gathered to protest against mass immigration and the rising cost of living, according to a Form 1 notice lodged with NSW Police before the gathering.
The National Socialist Network rally outside Parliament House on Saturday.Credit: Flavio Brancaleone/The Sydney Morning Herald
Eltis claimed the NSW branch had almost 100 members. Most were recruited online and were directed to a regional representative who told the recruit more about the organisation as part of an “onboarding” process. He claimed members were a mix of white and blue-collar backgrounds and included a dentist.
In a speech to the Lowy Institute last week, Burgess said ASIO was paying close attention to the NSN. He warned that a key part of the group’s expansion strategy was to focus on issues with broad appeal.
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“At its core, the National Socialist Network is anti-immigrant, anti-Indigenous, anti-gay, anti-Jew, anti-Islam and anti-anything that does not fit its white Anglo-centric world view,” Burgess said.
“Its version of social cohesion is monochrome and monocultural.
“Even if the organisation does not engage in terrorism, I remain deeply concerned by its hateful, divisive rhetoric and increasingly violent propaganda, and the growing likelihood these things will prompt spontaneous violence, particularly in response to perceived provocation.”
Amid the fallout from Saturday’s rally, the Minns government has flagged an urgent expansion of hate speech laws – including the banning of slogans – similar to laws in operation in Germany. That would be likely to include the phrase “blood and honour”, a slogan associated with the Hitler Youth and which the neo-Nazis chanted on the steps of NSW Parliament on Saturday.
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On Tuesday, the NSW government said it would try to reintroduce separate laws allowing police to disperse protesters outside places of worship.
NSW Attorney-General Michael Daley will attempt to legislate police powers to move on protesters who harass or intimidate those trying to access churches, synagogues and mosques.
Similar laws to those being reintroduced were struck down in the Supreme Court last month. Justice Anna Mitchelmore found the law “impermissibly burdens” the implied freedom of political expression. Daley will attempt to “balance community protections with the freedom of political expression” with the second attempt at the law.
In question time on Tuesday, dominated by Saturday’s rally, Daley condemned the “ugly and unacceptable display of hatred” outside NSW Parliament.
“I just want to be clear – this is open antisemitism,” he said. “Despite what these characters say, antisemitism is a particularly vile category of racism and, in my view, given what we have witnessed in history, sits in its own category of racial behaviour.”
Police Minister Yasmin Catley acknowledged there were communication failures that meant she was not informed about the rally.
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