00:00 Well, the far right is not particularly popular, especially if you're a neo-Nazi branded with
00:06 the SWAT sticker.
00:07 So, over the past couple of years, they've had a bit of a rebranding, or at least they're
00:12 trying to find a broader appeal, firstly for radicalization and secondly for recruitment.
00:18 So to them, the voice of parliament is an issue they could very much be very interested
00:23 in because one, to them, in their words, the conversation is racialized.
00:29 Two, because there seems to be some support for a vote no, and all indications that it's
00:35 very, very close, and the neo-Nazis and white supremacists see it as an opportunity to get
00:41 into the conversation and to effectively normalize their beliefs.
00:45 So not necessarily them being pro a no campaign.
00:50 Oh, they're definitely pro no.
00:52 Okay, but not wanting to hijack it and use it to recruit people, or it's a bit of both
00:55 going on?
00:56 It's a bit of both.
00:57 Yeah.
00:58 So, they're trying to play boogeyman of some sort.
01:01 So, you know, in the 90s, it was multiculturalism.
01:03 When that became not palatable, it turned into immigration, then crime.
01:08 Recently we saw lockdowns, and then they also were involved in the drag queen storytime
01:14 events as well.
01:15 And this is just the latest bandwagon that they're kind of going on to.
01:18 Okay, anti-vax groups maybe as well.
01:20 Why do they choose freedom movement groups in particular?
01:24 So freedom movement groups are particularly interesting.
01:28 They've somewhat evolved over the past few years.
01:30 So you know, we used to think of them as sovereign citizens, people who were very much anti-government,
01:36 had very, how to say, very specific readings of constitutional law, so to speak.
01:42 But after the pandemic, we saw a kind of amalgamation between them, lockdown groups, you know, and
01:49 they attract all sorts of ties, people who might be affected by vaccine mandates, to
01:53 people who have, you know, believe in very baseless conspiracies like chemtrails, or
01:59 that you're being tracked for a microchip in 5G, you know, through 5G networks, etc.
02:04 And you know, the far right see them as quite a fertile recruiting ground, because one,
02:09 they're naturally anti-government, which a lot of these far right supremacists are, white
02:13 supremacists are, because they do believe in their kind of terms and manifestos, you
02:19 know, radical violence against the government.
02:22 That's the only way they can succeed.
02:24 So there's a kind of natural fit for them there.
02:26 We know that white supremacists and far right supporters produce a lot of material and information
02:31 to get their word out, to recruit.
02:33 What is the impact of the materials that they've produced been?
02:36 Yeah, so ABC investigations, we have revealed today that these far right groups have infiltrated
02:44 these kind of freedom, anti-lockdown, anti-vaccine groups, promoting today's unofficial anti-voice
02:51 rallies.
02:52 And the way they did that was they took this old documentary from 1980, even for its time
02:58 was rubbish claims, it was incredibly racist, it was created by a former Australian Communist
03:04 Party member named Jeff McDonald, who was against Asian immigration as well.
03:11 But he created a documentary which was at ABC reported at the time in 1983, that it
03:16 was extremely controversial, that it was the public face at the time of this indigenous
03:20 lands rights debate.
03:22 And what has effectively happened from there was they took that old documentary, re-appropriated
03:27 it and then injected it, modernised it, and they injected it specifically with very anti-Semitic
03:33 undertones as well.
03:35 That video has actually been widely successful.
03:38 On Facebook alone, it has outperformed anything put out by the Yes23 campaign.
03:43 And even today, in terms of shares on Facebook, it has outranked almost every official vote
03:48 no video as well.
03:51 That includes from Jacinta Price, from Warren Mundine, and most appalling, Hanson's post
03:54 as well.
03:55 So it has been hugely effective.
03:57 [BLANK_AUDIO]
Comments