The contextualisation of Far Right extremism in Australia
Pro-Hezbollah/Hamas rally, Sydney, 2024. / Facebook.
Extremism in Australia is not just a growing problem; it’s a phenomenon shaped and distorted by the prism of mainstream media narratives. Explosive incidents of ideological conflict are tearing through the nation, yet the public’s understanding of who qualifies as a ‘far right’ extremist hinges on the context the media chooses to amplify—or suppress.
Consider the Australian media’s selective labelling. A women’s rights campaigner can find themselves tarred as a "far-right agitator" or even a "neo-Nazi" if their stance disrupts the dominant narrative. Meanwhile, a historical figure with genuine ties to fascist regimes may escape scrutiny altogether if their story fails to fit neatly into the public discourse.
National Socialist Action has emerged in recent years as a bona fide far right group. Image: X
The media’s gatekeeping doesn’t merely distort public perception—it reshapes it, defining who is worthy of outrage and who gets a pass.
Nowhere is this dichotomy more visible than in Australia’s vast and varied migrant communities. These groups often become battlegrounds for ideological clashes, their complexity reduced to caricatures. Some factions are painted as defenders of democracy and multiculturalism, while others are vilified, regardless of the nuance behind their positions.
The result is a fragmented understanding of extremism, leaving communities caught in a web of misrepresentation.
Even those with seemingly mental health issues can get labelled as being ‘far Right’. Image: Sydney Morning Herald.
This double standard doesn’t just obscure the truth; it erodes public trust in journalism itself. By selectively framing extremism to fit predetermined narratives, the media risks deepening societal divides and alienating those they mischaracterise. In a country as diverse and dynamic as Australia, such oversimplifications are not just lazy—they’re dangerous. To move forward, Australia’s media must confront its role in shaping these narratives and recommit to reporting that seeks to illuminate rather than polarise. Only then can we hope to understand extremism in all its uncomfortable, unvarnished complexity.
In 2014, Hezbollah and their so-called supporters made their presence public in Australia under the glaring global spotlight of the G20 Leaders' Summit in Brisbane. The city swelled with anticipation as 22 world leaders, over 4,000 summit delegates, and a swarm of 3,000 international media descended upon its streets. Naturally, it was an irresistible moment for these and many other activists from every corner of the protest spectrum.
Australia has an Islamic terrorist problem. Source: Zionist Federation of Australia.
Among the usual suspects—the anti-capitalist rabble, environmental warriors, and anti-American stalwarts—stood a curious coalition of Slavic far-right and Russophilic paramilitaries. Russian Cossacks, Serbian Chetniks, and even Syrian Assadists were there, brazenly flying Hezbollah flags for the cameras. The grand circus of global victimhood was in full swing in the city colloquially once known as ‘Brisvegas’.
Simeon Boikov-on the right - holding Hezbollah flag. / Facebook
At the heart of this maelstrom was, a man who had, by then, already built a somewhat colourful reputation. Leader of the Russian Cossacks in Australia and no stranger to media infamy, Simeon Boikov paraded through the streets, stoking controversy as he had done so for the past 10 years.
Like a well-rehearsed performer, he knew how to capture the gaze of the camera—and the headlines that followed.
Source: Facebook
The presence of Hezbollah supporters was no anomaly. It was, perhaps, a harbinger of the global entanglements that would continue to unfold, echoes of distant conflicts, that only today, in 2025, loudly reverberate in the public’s ears.
Hezbollah supporters in Sydney, August 2024, march openly with a terrorist flag. Source: Zionist Federation of Australia.
According to Kylie Wilson writing in 2020 in Inside Story: “To sum up, then, we have a group of Australians of Russian heritage, the Australian Cossack Garrisons, who are funded by a “Russian Orthodox oligarch” (or perhaps by anonymous state functionaries who channel money to him). They have a patron who was complicit in the destruction of MH17, who claims that Bill Gates and “Western intelligence services” created Covid-19, and who is supervised by a former senior officer of the SVR and therefore effectively incorporated into Russia’s security and military structures.
They are dedicated to policing devotion to the Fatherland among Russians in the “hostile country” in which they apparently prefer to ‘live’.
Simeon Boikov, once a familiar figure in Sydney’s far-Right protest circuit, has found refuge in Sydney’s Russian consulate, hiding from authorities after allegedly assaulting a Ukrainian pensioner in 2022. / Facebook.
These days, Simeon Boikov, once a familiar figure in Sydney’s far-Right protest circuit, has found refuge in Sydney’s Russian consulate, hiding from authorities after assaulting a Ukrainian pensioner in 2022. His days of parading around with Hezbollah flags are a distant memory, though his Putinist ideological leanings remain just as obvious.
In February 2023, Boikov was convicted of the assault in absentia and a second arrest warrant was issued for him. Boikov’s ambitions have evolved beyond just waving flags—he's been busy fostering alliances, weaving together a patchwork of far-right groups under the banner of extreme Russian nationalism.
Boikov’s ambitions have evolved beyond just waving flags—connecting with Serbian nationalists is another of his talents, / Facebook.
Source: X
In fact, much of this wasn’t even reported by the mainstream media, eager not to tarnish Australia’s first hosting of this iconic event. However, looking at the optics in October 2024 and the plethora of Hamas, Hezbollah, Hizb ut-Tahrir and other extremist and jihadist flags at the many demonstrations across the continent, it’s obvious the neo-fascist Islamist chickens truly have come home Down Under to roost.
In 2003, Australia had only designated Hezbollah’s External Security Organisation (ESO)—its military wing—as a terrorist entity under Division 102 of the Criminal Code. Yet, despite the flag-waving spectacle during the G20, there wasn’t a peep from local, state, or federal authorities. The media, in their self-appointed role as society’s watchful eye, seemed to have entirely missed it as well.
Source: Facebook
Now in the aftermath of the October 7 attacks in Israel has left political and media elites grappling with how to respond. Once again, Hezbollah’s flag—along with images of its slain leader, Sheikh Nasrallah—are fluttering in public demonstrations. And once again, parts of the political class, particularly the Greens and Labor’s left faction, seem paralyzed, unsure whether such displays are legally or morally permissible.
This ambiguity isn’t new. The left-leaning media and political elites have long struggled with how to respond to certain forms of extremism, especially when those forms align with causes they may tacitly sympathize with, whether they acknowledge it or not.
For example, as late as December 29, 2023, the Sydney Morning Herald thought it prudent to publish ‘What is Hezbollah’, calling it a “The radical group, which constitutes a political party and a military arm, receives hundreds of millions of dollars, as well as substantial training and weapons from Iran.”
Australia has become a safe haven for many of the world’s most vile extremists. Source: X
Nowhere did the article state how it was involved in the killing of thousands of Syrian civilians, something that even the uber-progressive The Atlantic refuses to shy away from.
But this isn’t the only extremist group that gets coddled in Australia – it just depends on the overarching narrative.
Context, it seems, is everything when it comes to the media’s reporting of extremism Down Under.
Source: Zionist Federation of Australia.
Nazism is a matter of couture for Australia’s press
Perhaps you had the temerity 20 years earlier go to the wrong party, or more to the point, go to the wrong fancy dress party with a dodgy costume, then of course, you are easy game for Australia’s self-styled ‘Nazi hunters’ (read: unemployed arts students from Sydney’s affluent lower north shore or Melbourne’s eastern suburbs).
Dominic Perrottet with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. Source: Facebook.
Former Premier of the state of NSW Dominic Perrottet found that out the hard way when in early 2023, when he became the center of a political Blitzkrieg after admitting to a ‘grave lapse in judgment’ when he was accused of wearing a ‘Nazi-like uniform’ to his 21st birthday party, in 2003, some 20 years earlier.
"When I was 21, at my 21st fancy dress party, I wore a Nazi uniform," he said.
"I'm deeply ashamed of what I did. And I'm truly sorry for the hurt and the pain that it will cause people right across our state.
The ties between certian ethnic communities are deep and go back many years. Source: Facebook
"Particularly members of the Jewish community, Holocaust survivors, veterans and their families. I'm truly sorry for that terrible mistake,” he told the ABC.
The odd thing about all this was that there was no real evidence – no pictures, no corroborating witnesses and all the information came from so-called ‘unnamed sources’, regardless, the mainstream media ran the story with the crusading vigour of the Watergate investigation, when in fact, it was little more than scurrilous gossip.
Perrottet, a devout Catholic and conservative, eventually lost the March 2023 election, stepping down as leader of the NSW Liberal party.
In a dignified and gracious concession speech, Perrottet said his party needed a "fresh start".
This however was never reported by the mainstream media, showing far Right campaigner Kim Vuga, former National Front head Jim Saleam standing together with suspected FSB asset, Simeon Boikov.
This wasn’t just an appalling example of bad journalism mimicking bad intentions; it was also an insight as to the facile behaviour by some of our senior journalists when dealing with what was obviously a political hit job.
However, the message was clear – if you identify with the ‘wrong’ narrative, you’re a Nazi, regardless of that being true or not.
Then the logical question that follows is: who isn’t a Nazi in Australia? – well for starters, actual Nazis themselves it seems.
Being a Nazi in Australia can be rewarding
For nearly two decades now, progressive and other publications across North America—including The Constantine Report, The Goldman Report, and The Forward, the world's oldest Jewish newspaper, and even the mainstream Miami Herald—have been painting a disquieting picture of bona fide Nazis being venerated in Australia.
UN wanted notice for Nazi collaborator and war criminal, Momcilo Djujic. Source: Wikipedia.
And yet, the outcry has largely gone unnoticed by most of the local media.
While publications such as The Australian have cast a spotlight on far-right groups like the Serbian Chetniks and Greece’s now largely defunct Golden Dawn—whose members found common cause in 2018 with Russian Cossack leader Simeon Boikov, Australia’s legions of self-styled “Nazi hunters” seem to have been literally Missing in Action.
Momcilo Djujic, Nazi collaborator, SS Auxiliary unit commander, looter, murderer and wanted terrorist given front page hero-like adulation in Australia, January 4, 1966.
Instead, they’ve ‘punched down’ on easier targets: women’s rights activists, New South Wales conservative premiers, and boisterous soccer fans from Sydney’s west—each, apparently, fertile ground for neo-fascist sentiment, according to the media’s fetishist imagination.
While the Golden Dawn has faded into the shadows, the Chetniks are a more complicated bunch. Officially recognized as ‘Serbian Chetniks Australia’ - and are the re-badged collaborationist Dinara Division from World War Two, they now carry the unlikely distinction of holding Australian charity status.
Chetnik flags dispayed openly at the Australian Open Tennis Final 2023. Source: X
More than that, they’ve marched in the nation’s solemn Anzac Day parade for the past four decades, this despite being set up by Momcilo Djujic, former commander of the World War Two Dinara Division—a collaborationist militia that first worked for Mussolini’s fascists, before coming under direct SS control after Italy’s 1943 capitulation.
Djujic’s overall commanding officer was a war criminal direct out of central casting by the name of Odilo Globocnik, a senior SS commander whose notoriety, earned for his orchestration of the Holocaust in Poland, would earn him the moniker "The Beast" from both friends and foes alike.
What should give us pause, however, is not just the Chetniks' dark historical ties—documented by nearly every nation and listed by Israel’s Yad Vashem as Nazi collaborators—but the fact that Djujic himself, who was wanted for his wartime crimes, was granted entry into Australia no fewer than nine times between 1960 and 1988.
Serbian Chetniks Australia (the rebranded Dinara Division) made alliances with Russian Cossacks as well as the fascist Greek Golden Dawn. Source: Facebook
On at least one occasion, according to his 237-page file in the Australian National Archives, immigration officials were accused of altering the spelling of his name to ensure British intelligence remained unaware of his presence here.
One of his achievements while in Australia - along with 3 local men, 2 of whom were convicted murderers while another was labelled by ASIO as a spy for communist Yugoslavia – was legally rebranding his Nazi Collaborationist ‘Dinara Division’ as the ‘Serbian Chetniks Australia’ organisation, which marches as an allied force in the Anzac (veterans) parade.
Some of its members have also been allegedly connected to all sorts of nefarious activity in Australia, including the drive-by killing of a teenager in Cabramatta in 1989 and the 1985 murder of a political rival that is now part of a NSW Police cold case investigation that is also offering a $500,000 reward for information to help solve this murder.
Did the mainstream English-speaking media know any of this? By their own scant and at times, cryptic reporting, the answer is a resounding yes, but chose to keep mostly quiet about the juicier details, despite these revelations being widely reported in a slew of publications internationally.
More troubling was the apparent indifference of successive Australian governments and NGO institutions.
The Returned and Services League (RSL) had been warned for years by some of its own members about the Chetniks' Nazi past. Even the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) weighed in and cautioned the RSL in a 1993 letter, clarifying that the Chetniks where officially considered as ‘Nazi collaborators’ and therefore should not be honoured as “Allies” by any Australian entity, governmental or otherwise.
Momcilo Djujic meeting with RSL head Bruce Ruxton in Melbourne 1988 - Translation below.
And despite these Chetniks being briefly expelled from the RSL in April 2019, as of 2021, all has been forgiven and they have been invited back into the march, alongside Australian Diggers and other ‘allies’.
In December 2024, Fairfield City Council in Sydney’s west voted to pay for a book commemorating the Chetniks presence in that local area, with funds that would come from local ratepayers.
Excerpt from the Fairfield City Council in western Sydney Annual Report noting a $1000 donation from local ratepayers for a Nazi collaborationist unit’s book commemorating their history in the area. Source: Fairfield City Council.
Will the real Nazis please raise their right hand
In Australia, the definition of "extremism" depends less on one's actions and more on the context, as provided by the media gatekeepers.
Women’s rights campaigner Moira Deeming, the victim of a Nazi-smear campaign by the media. / Source: X.
Consider this: women's rights advocates who dare to assert that biological reality matters—i.e. that men can’t simply declare themselves women, or that children shouldn’t be fast-tracked into irreversible puberty blockers—are swiftly labelled as ‘extremists’ or ‘Nazis’ as women’s rights campaigner Moira Deeming have painfully found out.
Then, there are the naive souls who misstep in the public eye: a soccer fan who, under the influence of too much lager, engages in a bit of young male stupidity; a premier who dresses in something regrettable; a TV executive who parodies an ex-Socceroo or a comedian that tells a bad joke.
An example of fake news peddled by the mainstream media claiming Moira Deeming’s women’s rights really was organised by a neo-Nazis who in reality, hijacked the women’s event where Deeming was only an invited speaker. Source: X
All are swiftly rebranded by the increasingly duplicitous media class as being modern-day inheritors of a certain Austrian corporal.
However, in a curious twist, some sections of the media and the Australian Senate, paint groups like Hezbollah not as violent extremists, but as ‘freedom fighters’ locked in a geopolitical struggle with Israel.
Neo-Nazis on the march in Melbourne, July 2024. Source: Facebook
When it comes to Hamas, hardly any local media outlets have exposed its Charter or its Doctrine, documents that underline the group’s total rejection of any Jewish presence from ‘the River to the Sea’ as their slogan goes.
Others that would normally be marked as "Nazis" or "far-right extremists" disappear into the fog of contextual interpretation. Like alleged members of Russia’s FSB, or their local far-right acolytes—they're extremists, sure, but Nazis? Perhaps not in the strictest sense, we're told.
Australia’s police forces seemingly have a hard time finding neo-Nazi and far Right terrorists, despite most of them being in the open for decades. Source: X
Which brings us to modern-day SS sympathizers, who, as if by magic, slip through the cracks.
What about Extremists? Actual, albeit former Nazis? Far-right provocateurs?
Somehow, they too escape the media’s usual eagle-eyed scrutiny and can go about their daily business unmolested.
‘Nazis’ at the beach - this is what most Australian media thinks Nazis are like, despite the reality being wildly different. Source: X.
But God help you if you’re a feminist who believes in biology, or some potty-mouthed comedian, for you, our blue-haired and amply inked journalist-activist class has a special Hell set up for your ‘sins’ that even a decades’ worth of Maoist struggle sessions or Catholic penance cannot and will not dissolve.
The only ‘neo-Nazis’ ever arrested in Australia are those too slow or too dumb to outrun the police as in the above case in Melbourne, 2024. Source: X
If you were a conspiracy theorist, you’d swear on a stack of tin foil hats that this was all done on purpose.
It really is a perplexing mess—unless, of course, you are part of the Anglosphere’s media class, where (their own, often juvenile) nuance reigns supreme, and it ALWAYS depends on (their) deliberately ill-defined, ‘context’.
Claudine Gay, former president of Harvard. Source: Wikipedia.
As Dr. Claudine Gay, the disgraced former president of Harvard said, even using the term genocide depends on its ‘context’.
For those holding the reins of power, it seems the truth is always about context – their context, that is.
In other words, in the convoluted theatre of our modern media, where narratives are sculpted more by expedience than accuracy, actual Nazis—the historical and ideological kind—are often contextualised into obscurity. Their legacies, affiliations, and even contemporary sympathisers are downplayed, lost in a haze of euphemisms or ignored altogether, because in reality, their existence doesn’t serve the prevailing storyline.
Source: The Daily Telegraph / X.
Meanwhile, the spotlight shines elsewhere, casting shadows over dissenters with no fascist ties but inconvenient politics.
This selective focus doesn’t just blur the lines of extremism; it erases them, leaving the public grappling with a reality where the truly dangerous are hidden in plain sight, shielded by silence and the system.
By Australian and Canadian contributors and D. Goldman.
