Holding to account or amplifying extremist hate? A mixed methods analysis of newspaper reporting on far-right crime in Australia

ABSTRACT

This article explores how Australian print media has reported on the legally contentious activities of far-right actors, using evidence from newspaper articles and court documents. It builds on prior criminological research that has examined how media representations contribute to the rise of intersectional prejudice and the normalisation of racist violence. While much existing research on far-right activism in Australia and similar countries with European colonial histories focuses on the victimisation of marginalised and minoritised communities, this article argues that a full understanding of the political normalisation or “mainstreaming” of further right-wing ideals also requires examining broader societal perceptions of far-right actors. This includes both their violent actions and their non-violent actions, and their less overtly political activities. The study employs a critical approach to criminological theory, drawing on Innes’ concept of message crimes, Jewkes’ criteria for crime news values, and Sykes and Matza’s techniques of neutralisation.

KEYWORDS:

• Australia
• far right
• media
• mainstreaming
• crime

Introduction

This article investigates the reporting of legal cases involving far-right activism in Australia in print media, focusing on the process of “newsmaking” - the act of creating news – and the mediatised political treatment of subjects deemed newsworthy (Barak 1988). Specifically, the analysis centres on interactions between individuals and groups associated with far- and extreme right political organising and the Australian legal system. It examines how reporting practices can both challenge and contribute to mainstream political engagement with far-right groups and their ideologies. The term “far right” here refers to individuals and groups opposing social pluralism and espousing supremacist ideas to justify prejudice against minoritised ethnic and cultural communities. This definition aligns with Mondon and Winter’s (2020, 48) description of the far right as “movements and parties that espouse a racist ideology, but [who] do so in an indirect, coded and often covert manner, notably by focusing on culture and/or occupying the space between illiberal and liberal racisms, between the extreme and the mainstream”.

In this study, reflecting common Australian usage, the category of “far right” sits between and overlaps with both the non-violent radical right and the pro-violence extreme right. “Extreme right” is used to describe groups and individuals who either advocate for or engage in explicitly violent, eliminationist, or genocidal politics and actions. Meanwhile, “radical right” refers to groups sharing similar supremacist ideas but not explicitly advocating physical violence. These groups aim to marginalise non-dominant social groups and operate within the frameworks of liberal democracy to achieve their goals (Mudde 2019).

This study specifically concentrates on the institutional and public reception of legally contested activities of far-right and extreme right actors based in Australia, as portrayed in Australian newspaper coverage. The investigation also includes evidence from statements such as sentencing remarks in court documents. The research builds upon existing criminological studies that have aimed to elucidate how patterns of intersectional prejudice evolve through print and social media, contributing to the normalisation of racist violence in particular (see, for example, Hayward 2011; Monaghan and Molnar 2016; Skoczylis and Andrews 2022). This investigation starts with the understanding that much existing research on white supremacist far-right activism, particularly in Australia, but also in other countries with European colonial histories, has focused on its targeting of marginalised communities. This includes Indigenous people, those with Asian and African cultural backgrounds, and others deemed to be people of colour or non-white, and members of Jewish and Muslim communities, as well as other non-dominant religious and cultural groups (Akbarzadeh 2016, Peucker and Smith 2019). However, there has been limited exploration of the far right’s intersecting discrimination and violence against individuals marginalised for reasons beyond religion or “race”, such as women, members of the LGBTQIA+ community, and people with disability (Dunn et al. 2004). While the emphasis on white supremacist elements within far-right groups is understandable, since they tend to dominate, it overlooks the broader social impacts of far-right activism and the ways its cultural expressions resonate with potential recruits. To fully grasp the political normalisation or “mainstreaming” of further right-wing ideals, it is essential to understand how far-right actors are perceived in broader society, not only in terms of their violent actions but also their non-violent and less overtly political activities.

This paper’s analysis draws on key criminological theories to illuminate media representations of crime and far-right activism. It incorporates Jewkes’ (2004) study of crime news values, Innes’ (2012) concept of “message crimes” for understanding propagandising activities, and Sykes and Matza’s (1957) “techniques of neutralisation” to explain the subcultural dynamics of far-right political agitation. Following the introduction, the paper sets out a background summary of news media developments pertinent to this study, before proceeding to a synthesis of key insights from recent research on news media portrayals of hate-motivated behaviour and far-right political violence in Australia. The subsequent discussion outlines our theoretical approach to understanding Australian newspaper reporting on far-right incidents, encompassing actions sometimes described as “hate crimes”, “terrorism”, and other less violent legal offences through a criminological perspective. The methodology employed in this study is then detailed, including the rationale behind the data selection and analytical methods. An extensive analysis section follows, combining expository and discursive elements to showcase the evolving patterns of reportage on Australian far-right activism. The article concludes with recommendations for future research and a summary of the key findings.

Background and literature

This study seeks to understand the implications of significant changes in the news media landscape over the past three decades, especially in relation to the reporting of political and justice issues. It considers Cohen’s (2008) observation that the form and content of reporting have evolved from the traditional “broadcast era”, becoming more widespread, dichotomising, and sensational. The analysis also implicitly reflects on the role of the digital environment in this transformation, where news proliferates through a continuous 24-hour cycle and is often reshaped through social networks (Fuchs 2017). In this environment, the globalisation and digitisation of print news to become online news have pressured the Australian broadcast industry to use clickbait, which are sensational headlines designed to attract viewers or readers, especially important given Australia’s relatively small domestic audience for the media, relative to larger audiences for international news (Meese and Hurcombe 2021, ACCC 2022, ACMA 2022).

The forthcoming study further reflects on the increase in far-right political activism globally, which has been a focus for journalists in Australia and elsewhere (Richards, Wood, and Iliadis 2020, Wood et al. 2022). As Mondon and Winter (2020) and Kemmis (2022) argue, media discourses commonly tend to oversimplify the complex dynamics of far-right activism, resulting in sensationalised, reductive or misleading reports. At the same time, far-right activists and radical right politicians have frequently been given uncritical media platforms to propagate their views, presenting a sanitised image that is favourable for them yet not necessarily accurate (Scott and Poynting 2018, Busbridge, Moffitt, and Thorburn 2020, Sparrow 2021). Cumulatively, this media coverage has the effect of shifting the Overton window further to the right of the political spectrum so that it pushes into the realm of the far right, transforming the range of acceptable public discourse, a phenomenon particularly evident in socially discriminatory political campaigns often referred to as “culture wars” (Davis 2014, Davis 2019).

In countries with European colonial histories like Australia, the rise in mainstream acceptance of radical, far, and extreme right social attitudes has been exacerbated by media practices such as “agenda-setting power and deflection”, “euphemisation”, “trivialisation”, and “amplification” (Brown and Mondon 2021). The concepts of post-truth and “fake news” further contribute to confusion in this media landscape, exacerbated by the contested meanings of these very concepts (Mondon and Winter 2020, Sengul 2021). Pertinent to this study is the normalisation of anti-Muslim prejudice in Australia post-2001, as analysed by Poynting and Briskman (2018). This research demonstrated a symbiotic relationship between political-institutional discourses and the Australian media that perpetuates Islamophobic rhetoric (see also Hutchinson 2021). In another noteworthy case, Busbridge et al. (2020) showed how the far-right conspiracy theory of “Cultural Marxism” infiltrated popular discourse, particularly in the context of the Safe Schools programme, an educational initiative designed to support LGBTQIA+ students, which was targeted by far-right actors as a threat to the values of an implicitly white, “Western civilisation” (see also Maher, Gunaydin, and McSwiney 2021; Barla and Bjork-James 2021; Thorburn 2023).

A related political circumstance of significant import to this study was a rise since 2001 of the indiscriminate labelling so-called “Islam-associated” violence as “terrorism” in international media, contrasting with enduring portrayals of right-wing violence as being generally less serious in nature and lacking clear political motivation (Crenshaw 2014, Chapekis and Moore 2019). It should also be noted, however, that this began to change in the wake of the shocking white supremacist attack by Australian Brenton Tarrant at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2019, in which 51 people were killed. This has resulted in an increased recognition of the correlation between various forms of hateful and politically violent rhetoric in media and political arenas, and illicit, politically violent actions (Richards et al. 2021, Sengul 2022). The way far-right actors are represented in the news media has gained more significance, as these representations are increasingly seen as having the potential to cyclically and performatively shape the cultural environment in which they are disseminated and discussed (Richards, Brinn, and Jones 2023).

This article aims to explore the mainstream impacts of news media portrayals of far and extreme right behaviour in Australia through a systematic analysis of newspaper reportage. It will address reporting on events involving far-right activism and political violence, as well as other behaviours such as hate speech, and less overtly political acts, that might not meet the criminal threshold but receive public attention nevertheless. Through its holistic approach, the analysis highlights the influence of media representations on public discourse and attitudes towards the far right.

Theoretical approach

The investigation in this article critically reflects on the subtle distinctions often between “hate crimes” and “terrorism” in the context of far- and extreme right activities. As LaFree and Dugan (2004) highlight, hate crimes, typically driven by prejudice, often occur covertly and anonymously, with perpetrators aiming to avoid public attention. Despite their prejudiced motives, these crimes are often depicted in the media as lacking clear political motivations, and the perpetrators are not seen as having distinct political or ideological affiliations (Norris 2020). Conversely, acts of political violence, sometimes categorised as “terrorist” acts, are generally recognised as outcomes of deliberate planning. As Zdjelar and Davies (2021) and da Silva et al (2022) highlight, these acts are often connected to organised extreme right groups seeking media attention and support from radical right audiences for specific political or social causes. In the United States, for instance, “terrorist” acts are legally defined through association with international “terrorist organisations”, leading domestic attacks to be typically labelled as “hate crimes” simply due to the existing American legal framework.

The following research challenges the clear distinctions between “hate crimes” and “terrorism”, positioning these events within a spectrum of legally contentious violent and non-violent behaviours. The structural drivers of such behaviours are given careful consideration, reflecting on the theoretical contributions from Deloughery, King, and Asal (2012), and Romarri (2020), who discuss the belief that political institutions can foster and reinforce hate crimes, categorising them as “downward” crimes, while terrorism is typically viewed as an “upward” crime. We also consider that historically, hate crimes were generally perceived as targeting individuals based on group affiliation, sending a broader message to that group, whereas terrorism has been understood as being concerned with provocatively targeting a larger civilian population (Taylor 2019). These and more definitional inconsistencies often distort the media portrayal of far-right hate, especially in relation to other forms of political violence. This study correspondingly considers the ways in which trends in reporting contribute to patterns of prejudice in sensationalist media, exacerbating the marginalisation of non-dominant social groups (Majavu 2020).

Both hate crimes and terrorism can be understood to function as “message crimes” intended to instil fear and influence target audiences (Iganski 2001, Innes 2012). In accordance with this understanding, the discussion below also explores how far-right organisations use various news media to amplify the impact of their message crimes, leveraging widespread communication to disseminate political ideologies and maximise the psychological impact of their actions. Applying Yvonne Jewkes’ media theory, initially developed to identify patterns in “penal populist” crime depictions in 20th-century UK newspapers, the investigation considers, for example, the gradual intensification of message crimes related to neo-Nazism as portrayed in Australian news media. The analysis also holistically applies a critical lens of Jewkes’ (2004) theory to investigate the “newsworthy” attributes of reports across the dataset, which also contribute to far-right normalisation, including those identified as featuring “risk”, “violence”, and crimes reinforcing “conservative ideology”.

In its approach, this study extends upon previous research, where Jewkes’ theory has been used to explain a wide range of criminalised and deviant activities, including the production of narratives about a “dangerous Other” in reporting on methamphetamine use (Ayres and Jewkes 2012), and various additional “media images of social exclusion” (Greer and Jewkes 2005). Jewkes’ theory has also notably been applied to address how the construction of crime news is often predicated on a “generalised climate of hostility to marginal groups and ‘unconventional’ (to the dominant culture of journalists, at least) norms [which] spills over into racism and xenophobia” (Jewkes 2004, 69). Indeed, as Greer plainly acknowledged in applying Jewkes’ theory to the British context: “the British news media are institutionally racist in how they report murder” (2007, 24).

In a complementary way, this article also applies relevant principals of Sykes and Matza’s (1957) “techniques of neutralisation” theory. This theory is employed not only to better understand the rationales of far-right activists but furthermore to analyse certain rationalisation processes within Australian newspaper reporting on socially discriminatory political activities. Our analysis again examines how these processes may contribute to the normalisation or tolerance of racism and genocidal hate in Australian society. The investigation in this dimension builds, for instance, on Alvarez’s (1997) previous research on how Sykes and Matza’s neutralisation theory elucidates the cognitive processes involved in “adjusting to genocide”, which helped normalise and rationalise the complicity in the genocidal war crimes committed by Nazi officials during World War II. Alvarez highlights the utility of this theory in explaining the rationalisation of genocidal intent and actions, particularly its ability to reveal connections to systemic aggression and domination, which are prevalent in mainstream political cultures characterised by racism, violence, and the vilification of marginalised outgroups. We also reflect on Kelman and Hamilton’s (1989) assertion that, for perpetrators, this type of cultural context justifies “crimes of obedience”, which override their inherent normative standards that would typically prevent actions like killing and genocide (see Alvarez 1997, p. 144). Our extension of these interpretations of Sykes and Matza’s theory does not imply that the Australian media’s varied responses to far-right activism indicate a genocidal intent. Rather, we propose that neutralisation theory can explain how a society may come to tolerate, and thus further entrench, extreme violence, including genocidal tendencies.

Sykes and Matza’s (1957) theoretical framework is understood, then, to outline cognitive strategies or techniques that perpetrators of deviant or criminal acts use to rationalise and morally justify their actions, both internally and to a critical audience. This process, termed “neutralisation”, helps to overcome potential practical impediments and psychological inhibitions that might otherwise prevent individuals engaging in specific actions. Initially developed within a differential association framework to explain juvenile delinquency, the theory has been critiqued for its lack of a structural class analysis. It has nevertheless also been critically applied in studies similar to this one, such as Colvin and Pisoiu’s (2018) investigation into the “alternative moral systems” of neo-Nazi subcultures and Wahlström, Törnberg, and Ekbrand’s (2021) research on the dehumanisation and infrahumanisation of social targets within far-right social media. These studies highlight how the theory can shed light on factors contributing to the attractiveness of violence among far-right groups.

Differing somewhat from previous approaches, in this study, we adopt a critical perspective on Sykes and Matza’s theory, recognising that we are going beyond the original intentions of Sykes and Matza. Our objective is not merely to label criminalised acts of white supremacism as “deviant”, but also to examine their broader societal impact, as revealed through the external cognitive processes evident in the media coverage of far-right activism in Australian newspapers. While aligning with the essence of Sykes and Matza’s approach, we also emphasise that the social values prevalent in mainstream societies are still influential within subcultures, including those outside the mainstream. However, these values manifest differently among political-ideological actors compared to criminal offenders driven by financial motives.

The five main strategies or “types” of neutralisation techniques outlined by Sykes and Matza (1957) include “denial of responsibility”, where the perpetrator perceives themselves as being acted upon by external societal forces rather than as a free and independent agent. “Denial of injury” involves rejecting the severity of the harm inflicted upon a victim or group of victims. “Denial of the victim” constitutes portraying the act as “rightful retaliation” or “punishment”, or where the lack or abstract nature of an immediate victim is seen to diminish the perpetrator’s guilt or awareness of harm linked to their actions. The technique of “condemning the condemners” allows the perpetrator to discredit those criticising their actions by highlighting their spiteful intent or citing their alleged hypocrisy or personal “deviance”. Finally, the “appeal to higher loyalties” involves subordinating the expectations of the broader society to those of the smaller group to which the perpetrator belongs.

Methods

Data collection

Our goal was to understand the patterns of reporting on the legally contested behaviours of far- and extreme right actors by examining recent Australian newspaper coverage of events involving criminal or civil legal proceedings. To identify these cases, we first listed Australian “far-right” organisations. Our sources included media archives, legal databases, domestic anti-fascist research projects like Slackbastard, the White Rose Society, and Fight Dem Back, as well as alt-right media outlets such as XYZ and The Unshackled, and communications on Twitter, Facebook, Gab, and Telegram. This process yielded a list of 111 organisations categorised as radical right (n = 22), far-right (n = 36), or extreme right (n = 53), either based in Australia or actively recruiting Australians. Appendix 1 displays a graph of these organisations’ shared memberships. An organisation was considered operational in Australia if it had a local leadership structure or was recognised in news media, court documents, or investigative media as actively recruiting within Australia. Links in the graph indicate shared membership, either concurrent or consecutive (e.g. one group evolving into another), identified through the same sources as the organisation list. Radical right groups are green nodes, far-right groups are purple, and extreme right groups are red.

With this list established, we searched Australian print media archives for local, state and national print media, excluding online only media, using Newsbank and Factiva, as well as the AustLII legal database for mentions of far- and extreme right organisations in relation to legal proceedings. This encompassed everything from unresolved police investigations to complete criminal or civil court proceedings. The time frame was post-1 January 2010, with the search conducted on 1 May 2022. This period covers high-profile events including the rise of the nativist collective Reclaim Australia (2015–2017), its descendant neo-fascist United Patriots Front, the March 2019 Christchurch massacre by an Australian actor, and the 2020 emergence of the National Social Network. All mentions of the far-right organisations were searched within the media and legal databases. Search terms (and minor tense variations of them) related to various stages of legal proceedings and were derived from an examination of general police and court newspaper reporting: police OR arrest OR detective OR constable OR sergeant OR prosecution OR charge OR assault OR affray OR murder OR theft OR lawyer OR barrister OR solicitor OR defence OR magistrate OR judge OR court OR sentence OR guilty OR jailed.

Through this process, we identified several instances where members of known far-right organisations were investigated, prosecuted for criminal activity, or faced civil lawsuits related to far-right activities. We then conducted additional searches in the Newsbank media archive focused on these cases. The first aim was to uncover other instances where the same individuals had other legal system interactions, and the second was to find reports on relevant cases that did not mention the members by name. For the latter, we searched using keywords related to the cases with information derived from the initial reporting, such as specific charges, locations of offences, residential areas of offenders, and victim names and characteristics.

The Newsbank search yielded 683 distinct articles that met our criteria, after removing duplicates and syndicated articles appearing in multiple publications from the final dataset. Articles were considered syndicated reproductions if the word count was identical or differed by only a few words, and both the title and body text were the same. Due to syndicated articles appearing in national, state, and local press, conducting a quantitative analysis of the percentage representation of news media coverage of specific issues across these different presses was impractical. The news media dataset featured 225 unique individual authors, with a larger number in cases of co-authorship or institutional attribution of authorship. Additionally, a search through AustLII yielded 35 court documents pertaining to 23 incidents.

Data analysis

In the first phase of the analysis, metadata from the news articles were uploaded as PDFs and Excel spreadsheets into Jupyter notebooks running iPython 3 software. This data underwent a range of quantitative and qualitative analyses to reveal statistical and semantic aspects of reporting trends. The analysis involved executing Python scripts designed to provide statistical insights, guiding further in-depth qualitative inquiry into news media reportage features. These features included the number of words per article author, the use of terms like “neo-Nazi” and variations of “terror*” in article titles (and how this usage evolved over time), and the overall volume of words and articles published during the study period, as detailed in the following analysis sections. This statistical analysis was inductive and exploratory, aiming to uncover characteristics of news media reportage during the period under study that corresponded with significant developments in media reportage and far-right activism internationally. Theoretical framework considerations and insights from existing research, as outlined in the previous background and review section, informed these decisions.

The second stage of analysis was conducted in parallel, being neither constrained nor guided by the statistical findings from the Python investigation. It entailed thoroughly reading and then coding the entire dataset of news and legal documents using Excel spreadsheets to document their metadata and content. In this coding process, researchers were attentive to comprehensive exploration of reporting trends. A preliminary phase involved three researchers coding a sample of fifteen articles to ensure intercoder reliability (see, for example, Wood, Richards, and Iliadis 2022), before the entire dataset was coded by two researchers.

Our coding decisions were guided by a broad, inductive research question aimed at illuminating aspects of newspaper reporting. Our analytical categories drew inspiration from recent criminological research underscoring the significance of identity-based theories and an understanding of dynamic social movements as currently relevant to criminological scholarship on the far right (Perry and Scrivens 2020). We opted to examine the discursive representations of perpetrators in article titles, as this approach promised insights into how Jewkes’ crime news values might explain media sensationalism. It also offered a way to track shifting perceptions and portrayals of far-right activism, interpreted through Mudde’s 2019 typology, by journalists over time. Titles, as one of the more immediate and impactful elements of news media, often draw audiences to read articles (Greer and Jewkes 2005).

The volume of words and the number of articles published over different periods were analysed to explore the degree of discursive engagement with far-right political themes and the relative brevity or depth of articles throughout the study period (see Greer 2007). These analyses also took into account how Sykes and Matza’s (1957) theory might (or might not) elucidate the political approach of editors and journalists in reporting on far-right political activities.

In preparation for the analysis, all 683 news articles were also read over manually and coded for the themes of: Date of event; Date of publication; Publisher; Author; Publisher Location; Number of words; Article title; Article summary; Description of subject or offender/s; Legal system/police/intelligence service; Background information on subject or group; Style/language; Description of target/s; Social response and impact; Propaganda effect and messaging. The legal documents were coded for: Time/date; Location; Summary incident; Sentence/outcome; Legal history; Appeal status; Motive; Descriptors for far-right element; History of case; Impact on victim; Reference to community impact; Sentencing remarks; Mitigating factors/history; Cases cited; Legislation cited.

This study explores how engagements with the Australian legal system by far-right actors are perceived in society, as reflected in news media reportage, sentencing judgements, and other legal processes. The primary analysis employed critical discourse and documentary methods to scrutinise the characteristics of newspaper articles. The reportage was analysed using critical discourse methods focused on uncovering “opaque as well as transparent relationships of dominance, discrimination, power, and control as manifested in language” (Wodak and Meyer 2009, 10). This involved examining the textual, contextual, and interpretive levels of discourse in the speeches, media, and texts under study (Ruiz 2009, 10). The analysis also considered political events preceding the publication of these documents to interpret how discourses between far-right actors, organisations, and news media entities interact as mechanisms of political persuasion. The documentary methods emphasised the content or findings of the materials and the “frame of orientation” in which news media is received, comprising an audience’s experiences, politics, and practices (Bohnsack 2010). Such an approach helps to understand the impact of media portrayals on public perception and the broader societal implications of far-right activities.

Results

The 683 articles studied pertain to 72 incidents involving far-right aligned actors that resulted in engagement with the Australian legal system. The nature of the incidents can be broadly characterised as: Anti-Asian − 1, Anti-Black − 1, Anti-Christian − 1, Anti-Migrant − 1, Anti-Government − 1, Anti-Government and Terrorist Act − 1, Anti-Leftist − 9, Anti-Leftist and Anti-Muslim − 1, Anti-LGBTQIA+ − 2, Anti-Media − 2, Anti-Muslim − 11, Anti-Police − 3, Antisemitic − 2, Civil action − 7, Election-related − 2, Foreign fighting − 1, General crime − 15, Misogynist − 1, Pro-Nazi − 1, Terrorist act − 9. A table summarising the incidents is displayed in Appendix 2. The 35 legal documents available related to 23 legal cases that can also be identified through this table.

Trends in reporting on far-right activism

The graph below displays the volume of articles published over time:

The surge in article publications in 2019 was triggered by a single, devastating act of extreme violence on 15 March 2019. This was the mass shooting in Christchurch carried out by self-proclaimed Australian fascist, Brenton Tarrant, which resulted in 51 deaths and 49 injuries. Tarrant made explicit reference to Blair Cottrell, the founder of the once-popular Australian far-right group, the United Patriots Front (UPF), and a former organiser of Reclaim Australia (Reclaim), as his “Emperor” (Macklin 2019).

Between 2010 and 2022, the Australian far-right has been linked to numerous incidents, such as the brutal attack on Minh Duong, a Vietnamese student in Australia, on 27 June 2012, by three members of the Crazy White Boys, a violent white supremacist group founded in Melbourne. The attack left Duong with life-threatening injuries, leading a presiding judge to comment that he was “almost unrecognisable as a human being” (R v O’Brien and Hudson 2012). However, the peak in reportage in 2015 predominantly focused not on such violent acts but on far-right activism associated with Reclaim, a loose network of protesters who advocated for a radically nativist and anti-Islam agenda.

Applying Sykes and Matza’s theory, we suggest that some reporting on Reclaim could be characterised by a “denial of the victim” and “denial of injury”, which involves rejecting the severity of the harm inflicted upon a victim or group of victims. In this context, the Muslim community, targeted in Reclaim-associated public displays, was often understated in importance and status in reports. These reports implied that “the injury, it may be claimed, is not really an injury; rather, it is a form of rightful retaliation or punishment” (Sykes and Matza 1957, 668). This downplaying of the human rights of Muslim people also reflected a political trend of escalating Islamophobia both in Australia and globally. Contributing factors included heightened bias following the establishment of the Islamic State (IS) caliphate in June 2014 and its attacks targeting civilians internationally. IS political violence was frequently and inaccurately associated with the broader religion of Islam in right-wing political rhetoric. Additionally, the mass displacement from the Iraq and Syrian civil wars from 2015, leading several million people towards Europe, was portrayed as a “migrant crisis” by right-wing political actors, potentially exacerbating these prejudiced perceptions (Gilks 2020).

While not all reporters may have been aware at the time, a small, devoted group espousing neo-Nazism, or “national socialism”, was leading Reclaim since its inception. This network also laid the groundwork for neo-Nazi and neo-fascist organisations emergent from Reclaim, such as the UPF, the Lads Society, and the National Socialist Network (NSN). By the time of its suspension in 2017, the UPF Facebook page had amassed approximately 120,000 followers. Despite the ambiguous and somewhat inconsistent journalistic engagement with Reclaim, guest speakers at its rallies included well-known far-right politician Pauline Hanson, an independent senator from Australia’s One Nation Party, and George Christensen, formerly a member of parliament representing the conservative Liberal National Party of Queensland, who was a member of the right-of-centre National Party in Federal Parliament until 2022.

Our dataset revealed several incidents related to Reclaim, including an investigation into the affiliated anti-Islam group, the Patriots Defence League, for falsely claiming to be a charity advocating for domestic violence victims. Additionally, a co-founder of Reclaim was probed after law enforcement officers questioned him at Sydney’s Central Station in 2015 for carrying an unsecured firearm while travelling to a Melbourne Reclaim rally with other protestors (McKenzie and Bachelard, The Age, 13/8/2016). During this time, an editorial in the conservative Murdoch-owned national broadsheet, The Australian, commented on how Reclaim Australia “raise[d] its profile by reclaiming the immigration debate” (Lyons, The Australian, 8/8/2015). This report also acknowledged that rally participants included members of various far-right and extreme right organisations, listing “Party for Freedom, Squadron 88, United Patriots Front, the Rise Up Australia Party, Q Society, Golden Dawn, One Nation Party, the Australia First Party, the Australian Defence League, Nationalist Alternative, Patriots Defence League of Australia, and Restore Australia” (Lyons, The Australian, 8/8/2015).

Articles covering Reclaim addressed topics such as the group’s planned rally to “oppose the construction of a mosque in Melton” (AAP, 19/11/2015) and the imprisonment of Reclaim organiser Phillip Galea for attending rallies armed with a taser (Galloway and Hosking, Herald Sun, 20/11/2015). Additional coverage related to Reclaim included raids on Galea’s residence, which uncovered several incriminating items: an explosives “cookbook” inspired by The Anarchist Cookbook, a jar of mercury potentially usable for bomb making, and surveillance materials of targeted left-wing establishments for violence. This evidence contributed to Galea becoming the first individual in Australia convicted of a right-wing terrorism-related offence (Dmytryshchak and Millar, Brimbank and North West Star Weekly, 20/11/2020). In another 2015 incident linked to Reclaim, a neo-Nazi activist threatened to rape and kill Stephen Jolly, a Socialist Party councillor who organised counter-protests to Reclaim and the UPF’s public demonstrations.

Throughout late 2015, another common theme in the articles was what Sykes and Matza (1957) described as “condemning of the condemners”. This involved a noticeable moral equivalence and direct criticism of anti-racist protesters in reports from conservative outlets. For example, statements such as “both the pro and anti groups, there’s some amongst them that are quite prepared to resort to violence to quell the views of others” (AAP, 19/11/2015), and “layered over these internal battles is a larger external struggle between the far-Right and the far-Left, with members on both sides threatening to reveal the home addresses and personal details of each other” (Lyons, The Australian, 8/8/2015) were present in these articles. Further contributing to this situation, an article discussing an anti-Islam rally in Melton in August 2018, which was attended by both Reclaim members and the UPF, as well as local counter-protesters, argued that ignoring these groups would be more effective in shutting them down. The article stated: “If anti-racism protesters really wanted to shut Reclaim Australia and the United Patriot Front down, they’d just ignore them. But the anti-racists can’t help themselves and turn up, giving Reclaim Australia and the UPF oxygen and attention” (O’Brien, The Advertiser, 24/11/2015). The depiction of anti-racist protesters in the articles evolved over time, however, reflecting a shift in public perception and awareness of the increasingly various affiliations of far-right actors with acts of public activism and violence.

Later articles in our dataset also notably highlight the significant influence of the Iron March “Skull Mask” network (Upchurch 2021) on the ideological direction of the Australian extreme right. Groups emerging from this background, such as Antipodean Resistance, the Lads Society, and the NSN, have increasingly come under the scrutiny of counter-terrorism agencies and become prominent in news media coverage. This period saw a noticeable change in tactics among the extreme right specifically, marked by a shift towards the accelerationist ideology promoted by the neo-fascist and neo-Nazi web forum. Iron March. This involved a transition from actions aimed at intimidating or suppressing non-dominant cultural groups to more subcultural white nationalist political organising, combined with physical efforts focused on hastening systemic collapse by strategically targeting critical infrastructure (Turnbull, The Canberra Times, 9 March 2022; McKenzie, Tozer and McNeill, The Age, 21 August 2021; Sulda, The Advertiser, 27/8/2021).

Patterns of political violence

Word frequency queries conducted with Python revealed the most common descriptors used in the titles of the articles were: neo Nazi or Nazi 121, extremist 53, terror 53, far-right 46, white supremacist 34, protester 33, hate 24, attacker 24, patriot 21, racist 20, white 19, activist 17, supremacist 15, national 13, Blair 8, violent 8, and right-wing 19. A table below displays the prevalence of different words across the titles:

Alongside the increasing visibility of extreme accelerationist and violent political activities over time, there was a noticeable rise in the use of terms like “Nazi” and “extremist” to describe far-right subjects in the titles of newspaper reports. Conversely, there was a shift away from labels such as “racist”, “nationalist”, and “patriot”. This pattern, we argue, suggests a growing public and journalistic awareness of the violent antisemitic and anti-Islam intentions held by various far- and extreme right actors, even when their propaganda was sometimes not overtly violent.

White supremacist violence also gained global prominence from 2019, following mass civil attacks inspired by the Christchurch shooter, Brenton Tarrant. Tarrant himself claimed inspiration from neo-Nazi Anders Breivik, who murdered 77 people in Norway in July 2011, and followed a mosque attack by Robert Bowers in Pittsburgh on 27 October 2018, that resulted in 11 deaths. The Christchurch shooting inspired other racist murderers, such as Patrick Crusius, who carried out a mass shooting at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, on 3 August 2019, targeting Latino and Hispanic people and resulting in 22 deaths. Another was Philip Manshaus, who attacked a mosque in Norway on 10 August 2019, a week after Crusius’ attack, praising him and referring to himself as “chosen” by “Saint [Brenton] Tarrant” (Burke 2019). The noticeable uptick in the mention of Nazism and extreme violence in Australian newspaper reporting may also relate to the evolving nature of far-right activism in Australia, including the public emergence of openly neo-Nazi groups like the NSN, which formed from a merger of two earlier neo-Nazi and neo-fascist groups, Lads Society and Antipodean Resistance.

Our dataset indicates that the far and extreme right in Australia have shifted their focus among racialised targets over time for ideological and pragmatic reasons. In the 1990s and 2000s, racist attacks predominantly targeted individuals of Asian and Arab descent. In the 2000s and 2010s, violence and anti-Islam propaganda aimed at Muslim individuals increased, especially post-9/11 with the onset of the US-led “war on terror” (Poynting and Mason 2007). Subsequently, openly antisemitic conspiracy theories and those involving an alleged “evil left-wing elite”, as seen in Pizzagate and QAnon, gained prominence in international extreme right circles (Rothschild 2021). At the same time, neo-Nazi and white supremacist violence escalated globally, marked by numerous high-profile mass public violence incidents. This period saw a more overt embrace of antisemitism by extreme right-wing actors than in earlier recent historical periods. Additionally, specific targets of racialised hostility emerged based on national politics and the discourse of politicians. For instance, in the past decade, after extensive agitating by state and federal politicians representing the Liberal Party against so-called “African gangs”, migrants of African appearance have become a frequent target for far-right actors in Australia, particularly in Melbourne, a hub for neo-Nazi organising (Majavu 2020).

These patterns of prejudice should also be understood to reflect the impact of several structural factors that contribute to the global rise of white supremacist hate. As mentioned, this includes the intentional incitement of animosity and a politics of division among disenfranchised populations, propagated by political and media elites (Mondon and Winter 2020). New developments do not, however, imply a reduction in the prevalence or intensity of violent prejudice against formerly targeted groups. Instead, the volume of groups targeted has broadened, which has been accompanied by an overall increase in far-right media output. The more explicit adoption of accelerationist and eugenicist neo-Nazi narratives by new far and extreme right actors also suggests a growing readiness to use extreme physical violence to achieve their political and ideological aims (Lazaridis, Campani, and Benveniste 2016). This escalation in the revolutionary, accelerationist, and violent nature of the global extreme right is reflected in many examples from our dataset, despite the fact that our dataset did not account for a broader range of individuals with violent intentions, who have not yet intersected with the Australian legal system.

Also relevant to this investigation is that none of the legally contested activities documented in the newspaper reports were trivial in nature. Incidents involving plotting or preparation for terrorist attacks became more frequent, and there was a noticeable increase in actors openly expressing neo-Nazi ideological beliefs. For instance, offences at the beginning of our dataset included the 2010 revocation of a firearm licence for an elevator technician with domestic violence convictions and white supremacist blogging activities (Hildebrand, Daily Telegraph, 20/1/2011), racist stickers in central Perth in 2013 (Anon, Hills Gazette, 16/8/2013), and antisemitic phone calls to a Melbourne City Rabbi and the Sydney Jewish Museum in 2014 (Cresswell, AAP, 12/2/2014).

In 2014, other incidents included a brawl outside Lakemba Mosque and the former Australian Defence League leader’s attempt to conceal evidence from a drive-by shooting at his home in Greystanes, Sydney (Robinson, The Australian, 24/12/2015). The following year, 2015, saw various cases such as online abuse (Busch, The Queensland Times, 31/12/2015), firearm seizures (Silmalis, Daily Telegraph, 2/4/2017), a drug-driving incident (Anon, The Area News: Griffith, 3/12/2015), a planned attack on the anniversary of the Cronulla riots (Risso, AAP, 5/2/2016), and racial and religious vilification offences committed by UPF leaders (Croxon, Bendigo Advertiser, 20/12/2019).

Reported incidents in 2016 included the murder of a man by Aryan Nations leaders (Le May, AAP, 9/4/2020), violent assaults at an anti-racism rally in Coburg (Dowling, Herald Sun, 28/8/2020), and a church arson in Taree, New South Wales (Silmalis, The Sunday Telegraph, 7/11/2020). In the following years, there were further violent clashes between police, anti-racist, and far-right demonstrators at Milo Yiannopoulos’ “comedy” show in Kensington, Melbourne (Le, AAP, 15/1/2018); an assault on a journalist at a Queensland Fraser Anning Conservative National Party press conference (Duffin, Daily Telegraph, 3/12/2019); and the physical assault of a teenager who cracked an egg on Fraser Anning at an event in Moorabbin, Victoria (Fox Koob and Telai, The Age, 1/4/2019). Additionally, there was the prevention of a planned mosque attack (Rigney, Newcastle Herald, 7/9/2019), the torture of a man suspected of stealing a neo-Nazi t-shirt (Utting, Courier Mail, 15/9/2019), and charges against a man for printing 3D weapons, including caltrop spike devices for puncturing car tyres during high-speed pursuits (Walker, Daily Telegraph, 14/12/2021).

The period from 2020 to 2022 witnessed the highest incidence of activities labelled as “terrorism”, including clear intentions by activists to carry out “ethnic cleansing” through mass murder. In 2020, a former Australian soldier with significant neo-Nazi connections was barred from travelling to Ukraine to join the Azov Battalion, amid fears that he might return and commit violent acts using skills from armed insurgency training (McKenzie and Tozer, WA Today, 23/8/2021). Two men in New South Wales were charged with crimes related to plans to destroy critical infrastructure, while a third, younger man was convicted of a lesser offence for appearing in propaganda materials with a mock weapon (Turnbull, The Canberra Times, 9/3/2022).

Phillip Galea, as mentioned earlier, was convicted for right-wing terrorism offences in 2019. Continued media coverage into 2020 and 2021 highlighted his possession of mercury and other weapons, his authorship of “The Patriot’s Cookbook”, and plans to attack “left-wing sites” including the Melbourne Anarchist Club, Swanston Street Resistance Centre, and the Victorian Trades Hall (Akerman, The Australian, 21/11/2020). In 2021, there were multiple reports involving NSN leaders, including an alleged armed robbery of hikers in a Victorian National Park. Additionally, in 2021 and 2022, Adelaide-based NSN members faced charges, including for alleged crimes related to possessing information for terrorist acts and explosives-related offences (Schriver, The Advertiser, 18 February 2022; Fewster, The Advertiser, 24 August 2021; Dornin, AAP, 7/10/2021).

While later incidents often aligned with plans for or the actualisation of increasingly violent acts, it’s important to recognise earlier violent assaults and the historically continuous nature of such events in Australia. The intersectional prejudice exploited by far-right actors throughout the events analysed can be viewed as “signal crimes”, significantly impacting news reporting (Innes 2012) and influencing the broader societal context they reflect. This impact reshapes the types and forms of socially discriminatory activism found within extremist subcultures and tolerated in wider political forums, which is a key aspect of the mainstreaming effect we examined in these articles.

The increasingly organised nature of extreme right activity in Australia, when seen through the lens of accurate and responsible journalism, might justify the use of specific and historically charged terms like “Nazi” and “neo-Nazi”. It’s important to note that the use of these terms isn’t about endorsing such labels, but rather about striving for precision and context in reporting. Reporters and editors would be intentionally moving away from more ambiguous or potentially misleading terms like “nationalist” and “patriot”. These terms lack the historical specificity of “Nazi” and “neo-Nazi” and may inadvertently minimise the severity or specific ideological foundations of these groups. While descriptors like “nationalistic” and “patriotic” were at times used to characterise Reclaim demonstrations, aiding in their normalisation and obfuscation, the use of more extreme labels, particularly when lacking in-depth analysis in the articles, however, can also inadvertently normalise neo-Nazi activity by giving these groups sensationalised exposure.

Considering this trend in reporting, dramatic headlines featuring terms such as “fascist” or “Nazi” can be interpreted through the lens of news media culture theories, such as Yvonne Jewkes’ theory of crime news values. The spectacle of Nazi ideology, exemplified by NSN demonstrators burning crosses, engaging in combat training, and posing with propaganda materials, was deemed of public interest and highly newsworthy, particularly for an audience increasingly aware of the global rise in white supremacist mass violence. This was notably relevant in the regional context, following the attacks in Christchurch in 2019.

Conservative ideology and political diversion significantly influenced the characteristics of reports on far-right activities. Early reports exhibited a reductionist approach in depicting the far-right and neo-fascist nature of the activists involved (Jewkes 2004). For instance, Reclaim’s inherently far-right elements were minimally represented, as seen in statements like “armed extremists and neo-Nazis are latching on to Reclaim Australia” (Lyons, The Australian, 8/8/2015). Arguably evincing Sykes and Matza’s (1957) concept of a “denial of responsibility”, other reports sought to distance Reclaim’s tactics not by emphasising its exclusivist ultra-nationalism, but by underlining its lack of “Australianness”. In Booker’s article “Rank and file Nazi charged” for the Latrobe Valley Express, this is exemplified by the statement: “For people who are trying to reclaim Australia, they are bringing in methods of discourse that are quite foreign to this country – assassinations and bashings” (9/8/2015).

Later reports about NSN members and those plotting acts of public violence were relatedly then marked by outrage and frequent use of the term “Nazi”, occasionally at the expense of a deeper exploration of the broader structural context and ideological-political background from which neo-fascist and explicitly “national socialist” politics emerge. An example of this can be seen in Fewster’s article “Fanatic’s neo-Nazi chat ban warning” in The Advertiser (12/1/2022), which focuses more on the sensational aspects rather than the underlying societal issues.

Wordage over time

The graph below displays the number of words published across the entire news article dataset over time:

The median word count for the articles in our study was 387, ranging from 30 to 4,373 words. The highest volume of words appeared in articles published during the peak period from 2015 to 2016, and then again in late 2021. The focus of many articles in 2015–2016 has been previously discussed, while the second peak in word count is attributed to distinct long-form articles published in that period. These articles covered an extensive investigation into active neo-Nazi groups in Australia, conducted by journalists affiliated with the Channel Nine news network. This investigation involved collaboration with anti-fascist researchers from the White Rose Society and Slackbastard, and consultation with Victorian and Federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies at the time of reporting.

A notable aspect of this investigation was the infiltration of the NSN, led by Thomas Sewell, by a private investigator. This investigator covertly recorded interactions with network members and their activities in locations such as pubs, suburban parks, and the network’s headquarters in a rented property in Rowville, Victoria. Additionally, the investigator leaked details from encrypted chat rooms used by the NSN and its partner organisation, the European Australian Movement (EAM), which served as a “clean skin” front group. The investigator also maintained records of their activities, including the identities of those attending their events.

The reporting on this case, due to its comprehensive detail, depth, and the journalists’ active engagement in anti-racism, stands out from other trends observed in the articles we examined and can be considered an outlier in our study. The extent of engagement with the subjects’ actions and ideology, demonstrating the journalists’ in-depth cognitive engagement and accurate portrayal of events and their politically violent contexts, presents a challenge in comparing it with Sykes and Matza’s theory. Nevertheless, this reporting reflects a growing awareness of the prevalence of antisemitic and explicitly neo-Nazi activism in Australia, which is connected to international trends in political violence.

Applying Sykes and Matza’s theory more directly, not to assess the journalists’ agency but rather to explain the rationalisations of the far-right subjects, the persistent focus on the explicitly national socialist ideology of the NSN and its precursor organisations could be said to align with Sykes and Matza’s (1957) concept of “appeal to higher loyalties”. This approach underscores the far-right subjects’ adherence to a set of core ideological beliefs and ambitions, emphasising their commitment to a broader ideological cause.

We suggest that the nature of the reporting over time more broadly indicates an increase in the prevalence of hate-motivated behaviours often referred to as “message crimes” (Iganski 2001). Such behaviours, potentially also classified as “hate crimes”, are generally perceived as sending a message to the targeted community, both in a local and a broader societal sense. Perry and Scrivens (2017) note that these actions serve as a warning to members of the targeted community not to transgress “invisible lines”. For example, historic activism by NSN members under the banners of Reclaim and the UPF served as a warning to Muslims in Australia against building mosques or openly practicing their religion.

Later activism by NSN members, as revealed in the 2021 reports, introduced an additional element to these message crimes, the “in terrorem” effect. Weinstein (1992, 17) characterises this as “intimidation of the group by the victimization of one or a few members of that group”. This effect is critical to the strategic objectives of such organisations, aiming to instil fear and unease within the broader community, thereby creating a psychological impact that reaches far beyond the immediate victims. Analysing the “in terrorem” effect can aid the development of more effective counter-strategies by civil society organisations, by understanding and addressing the broader psychological and societal impacts of message crimes. Efforts to challenge the far right can then be more targeted and nuanced, not just addressing the acts themselves but also their intended ripple effects on communities and societal norms. Similar to the intended impact of “terrorism”, this messaging effect serves to expose latent bigotry within the host society and undermine the democratic ideals problematically characterising liberal democratic societies (Perry and Scrivens 2017, 18).

The reporting on the NSN investigation included the publication of excerpts from the investigation footage along with a 4,000-word exposé in The Age, a Melbourne broadsheet. Additionally, related material and excerpts were featured in both long-form and shorter formats in the Sydney Morning Herald (a sister newspaper to The Age, formerly owned by Fairfax Media and now a minority partner with Nine Entertainment) and other outlets. The article in The Age also featured photographs of several men involved in the network, along with their names and employment details. The members included a security manager at Crown Casino in Melbourne, who was recorded saying he could “boss around … f***ing n***ers” due to his authority over non-white employees. The network also comprised small business owners, a piano teacher, and individuals with criminal records. A subsequent report by the Herald Sun (Dowsley and Buttler, 25/10/2021) disclosed that one NSN member had worked as an IT consultant for the Victorian Department of Premier and Cabinet).

Concluding comments

Several other aspects crucial to understanding the broader impact of news media on far-right activism in Australia were unfortunately outside the scope of our study, yet they represent important areas for future research. Notably, television journalists have often interviewed far-right actors either before or after their violent acts or public demonstrations. These interviews have drawn public criticism for sometimes providing an uncritical platform, enabling far-right individuals to present a sanitised version of their ideologies, thereby facilitating propaganda-driven recruitment for various far-right political causes.

Prominent examples include the 2016 interview of UPF leader Blair Cottrell on Hack Live, a current affairs programme affiliated with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s youth-oriented Triple J radio station (Sparrow 2021). Additionally, UPF members were featured in interviews on A Current Affair (ACA) in 2017 and 2019, where they incited vigilante violence against mislabelled “African gangs” in Melbourne. Channel Seven also ran a story portraying Blair Cottrell and Kane Miller, then leader of the True Blue Crew, as “crime-fighting vigilantes” (Hennessy 2018). Furthermore, Cottrell appeared on Sky News Australia in an interview with former Northern Territory Chief Minister, Adam Giles, where he made unchallenged statements to recruit for the Lads Society, the direct predecessor of the NSN.

In this analysis, while acknowledging the complexities of addressing far-right behaviour, we do not advocate for a stricter criminalisation or categorisation of the behaviours in question. Instead, we recognise that a purely legalistic approach to tackling further right-wing and other forms of hateful conduct may not be comprehensive or risk-free (Jarvis 2022). Our study suggests that examining the interactions of far-right actors with the Australian legal system is a valuable means of assessing their broader societal impact, including anti-social activities and political activism leaning towards a far-right agenda. This approach also helps to understand the information included and excluded in these cases, and how specific political agendas are contested or reinforced in their portrayal by judges and journalists (Sparrow 2021).

Our research, however, did not extensively explore how local newspaper coverage of Australia-based far-right activism correlates with the structural characteristics of Australian broadcast and online media industries. The Australian media landscape is notably more concentrated than in many other countries (Papandrea and Tiffen 2016). Following the relaxation of cross-ownership legislation in 2017, which included the removal of the “two-out-of-three” rule and the acquisition of Fairfax Media by the Packer Family’s Nine Entertainment Group (owner of Channel Nine), media ownership concentration in Australia became more pronounced. As of this article’s writing, the majority of national and capital city daily newspapers are owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation or Packer’s Nine, except for the West Australian (owned by Kerry Stokes’ Seven Media) and the Canberra Times (Australian Community Media). Similarly, the ownership of dominant television and radio stations is concentrated in the hands of a few families and corporations (ACMA 2022).

Our theoretical and empirical investigation highlighted that in the current media environment, conservative editorialising in print news could potentially downplay the severity or broader political implications of far-right discriminatory activities. Cognitive-discursive strategies may have played a role in neutralising social resistance to these activities, though this effect was not consistently observed across our dataset. Interestingly, anti-racist protest activities, which had previously been demonised in reports that “condemned the condemners”, were later carried out by a coalition of activists and Channel Nine media workers.

Our aim in this investigation is not to suggest that Australian journalists are sympathetic to far-right actors, imply a symbiotic relationship, or draw a moral equivalence. Rather, we aim to highlight how newsmaking values entrenched within the Australian media landscape might obscure or lead to misguided perceptions of local far- and extreme right political activities. This structural issue is well-documented; the Australian Human Rights Commission refers to the 1991 National Inquiry into Racist Violence (NIRV) findings, which stated that “the perpetuation and promotion of negative racial stereotypes, a tendency towards conflictual and sensationalist reporting on race issues, and an insensitivity towards and often ignorance of minority cultures can all contribute to creating a social climate which is tolerant of racist violence” (AHRC 2023). The NIRV pointed out anti-Asian and anti-Indigenous biases in Australia, a sentiment echoed in a 2020 report from All Together Now, an anti-racism non-profit. This report underlined systemic racism in Australian media, particularly against Chinese communities during the COVID-19 pandemic, Indigenous people, Muslim communities, and other racialised groups. It also noted how an increase in covert racism was linked to a lack of cultural diversity in the country’s media sector (Renaldi, Bahmani, and Yang 2020).

Media reports in the time period examined (2010–2022) reveal increasing recognition of the racist, genocidal, and accelerationist goals of certain actors, previously linked to groups whose anti-Muslim rhetoric was downplayed in conservative and biased reporting. This change in media attitude reflected growing public awareness of the links between far-right activities and an increase in extreme domestic and international incidents, including significant acts of political violence inspired by an Australian mass shooter (Loadenthal 2022). Based on these findings, we emphasise the importance of monitoring how Australian news media not only portrays but also significantly influences public perception of far-right activism (see also Poynting and Mason 2007, McSwiney 2021, Busbridge, Moffitt, and Thorburn 2020, Sengul 2021). Moreover, we affirm the importance of seeking to develop a better understanding how such multi-faceted forms of communication shape the political contexts in which far-right, exclusivist, and supremacist activism operate.

Table

Date	Associated Organisation/s	Summary	Characterisation	State
4 February 2010	Combat 18	Two men charged after firing guns at mosque in Perth	Anti-Muslim	WA
4 November 2010	Australia First Party	Far-Right leader takes action against Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages to acquire death records	Civil action	NSW
31 December 2010	White Pride Coalition of Australia	Firearms licence restored despite antisemitic views and mental illness	General crime	ACT
20 September 2011	Australia First Party	Far-Right leader takes action against Department of Human Services to acquire medical records	Civil action	NSW
8 November 2011	Australia First Party	Far-Right leader takes action against Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages to acquire marriage certificate	Civil action	NSW
27 June 2012	Crazy White Boys	Two men jailed for brutal assault on international student	Anti-Asian	VIC
15 February 2013	Combat 18, Blood & Honour	Five men charged over racist stickers	Pro-Nazi	WA
12 February 2014	Nationalist Alternative	Man found guilty of making antisemitic calls to Rabbi	Antisemitic	VIC
3 April 2014	Australian Defence League	Man charged for interfering with investigation into supposed shots fired at his home, also charged with stalking Muslim women	General crime	NSW
4 April 2014	Blood & Honour, Combat 18, Right Wing Resistance	Man charged with making threatening calls to Sydney Jewish Museum	Antisemitic	NSW
29 July 2014	Australia First Party	Police investigate racist posters pasted onto left wing bookstore	Anti-Foreigner	NSW
22 December 2014	Australian Defence League	Two men charged over brawl outside mosque	Anti-Muslim	NSW
13 April 2015	Patriots Defence League of Australia	Group investigated by Office of Fair Trading	Anti-Muslim	NSW
29 May 2015	Australian Defence League	Woman sentenced to community service after abusing Muslim activist online	Anti-Muslim	QLD
20 July 2015	Patriots Defence League of Australia, Reclaim Australia	Firearms licence revoked after bringing guns to far-Right rally	General crime	NSW
21 July 2015	Australia First Party	Candidate charged with driving under influence of cannabis	General crime	NSW
29 July 2015	United Patriots Front	Man charged over threatening calls to councillor	Anti-Leftist	VIC
10 September 2015	Combat 18, Australia First Party, Christian Separatist Church	Man arrested after planning mass casualty event	Terrorist act	NSW
4 October 2015	Australia First Party, United Patriots Front	Three men charged after stunt in protest of proposed mosque	Anti-Muslim	VIC
12 December 2015	Party For Freedom, United Patriots Front	Local council seeks injunction to prevent commemoration of Cronulla race riot	Anti-Muslim	NSW
22 April 2016	Aryan Nations	Group members convicted of murder of housemate	General crime	WA
28 May 2016	True Blue Crew	A number of charges following fights at counter-protest to anti-racism rally	Anti-Leftist	VIC
15 June 2016	Australia First Party	Federal Police investigate after AFP candidate accuses rival candidate of offering bribe to not campaign	Election-related	NT
30 June 2016	Australian Defence League	Man films himself abusing Labor/Greens supporters, refugee advocates, in contravention of court order	Anti-Leftist, Anti-Muslim	NSW
26 August 2016	Australia First Party	Candidate is convicted of intimidation and remaining on enclosed lands	General crime	NSW
18 September 2016	Blood & Honour, Combat 18, Right Wing Resistance	Man charged with arson of church	Anti-Christian	NSW
1 October 2016	Iron March	Man raided after attempting to buy radioactive material	Terrorist act	NT
3 March 2017	Sovereign Citizens movement	Man charged after police find sovereign citizen material, instructions for printing 3D guns	Anti-Government, Terrorist act	NSW
28 July 2017	Australia First Party	Defamation lawsuit by nightclub owner against Fairfax Media partially upheld, far-Right activist called as character witness	Civil action	NSW
30 August 2017	United Patriots Front	Man charged after police find drugs, cash, stolen goods	General crime	ACT
4 September 2017	Battalion 88, Combat 18	Man arrested after leaving severed pigs head outside of mosque	Anti-Muslim	QLD
8 November 2017	Patriot Blue, United Patriots Front	Three men abuse Labor Party Senator and MP in bar	Anti-Leftist	VIC
4 December 2017	Patriot Blue, Soldiers Of Odin, True Blue Crew	A number of men charged following assaults at Milo Yiannopolous event	Anti-Leftist	VIC
19 May 2018	Party For Freedom, United Patriots Front	A number of men interrupt a church service	Anti-Leftist	NSW
18 June 2018	The Unshackled	Man vandalises memorial to murdered woman	Misogynist	VIC
24 June 2018	Antipodean Resistance, True Blue Crew, United Patriots Front	Street performer abused by far-Right activists	Anti-LGBTQIA+	VIC
25 November 2018	Nomads MC, Patriots Defence League	Self-identified neo-Nazi sets fire to prison bed and attacks guard	General crime	ACT
30 November 2018	Australian Protectionist Party	Man is denied restoration of firearms licence	General crime	NSW
20 December 2018	Australia First Party	Far-Right party faces objection to use of Eureka Flag logo on ballot papers	Election-related	Australia
16 March 2019	Fraser Anning’s Conservative National Party, United Patriots Front	Supporters of Fraser Anning assault teenager who interrupted meeting	Anti-Leftist	VIC
22 March 2019	Australia First Party	Far-Right activist charged after making threating phone calls to journalist	Anti-Media	NSW
31 March 2019	Daily Stormer	Far-Right financier charged after sending edited version of Christchurch livestream to friends	Anti-Muslim	QLD
12 April 2019	United Patriots Front	Man charged after interrupting Islamic service at Federation Square	Anti-Muslim	VIC
26 April 2019	True Blue Crew	Man assaults journalist at Fraser Anning event	Anti-Media	NSW
12 May 2019	United Patriots Front	Man charged after interrupting LGBT church service	Anti-LGBTQIA+	VIC
28 August 2019	Daily Stormer	Far-Right financier charged with producing caltrop device	Anti-Police	NSW
28 August 2019	Australia First Party, Fraser Anning’s Conservative National Party	Defamation lawsuit between two far-Right activists dismissed due to no court action being taken.	Civil action	WA
5 September 2019	Right Wing Resistance	Man charged after threatening to kill Muslims and Jacinda Ardern	Anti-Muslim	NSW
14 September 2019	Battalion 88, Combat 18	Two men charged after torturing a man over t-shirt	General crime	QLD
20 January 2020	Antipodean Resistance	Ex-soldier has passport cancelled	Foreign fighting	VIC
6 March 2020	Australia First Party	Far-Right leader takes action against Sydney Local Health District to acquire mental health records	Civil action	NSW
16 March 2020		Two men arrested. Information about this case subject of suppression order.	Terrorist act	NSW
21 March 2020		Man arrested over replica firearm	General crime	NSW
1 April 2020	Combat 18, The Base, Order 15	Man arrested after attempting to procure ammonium nitrate	Terrorist act	WA
9 July 2020	Proud Boys, National Socialist Network	Far-Right figure arrested trying to cross closed border into NSW.	General crime	VIC
26 July 2020	Peacekeepers	Anti-lockdown leader holds public meeting in contravention of health orders	General crime	VIC
30 July 2020	United Kingdoms of Australia	Man charged after threatening Fixated Persons Unit detectives	Anti-Police	NSW
5 August 2020	Peacekeepers	Anti-lockdown leader fined for not wearing mask	General crime	VIC
20 November 2020	Reclaim Australia, True Blue Crew, United Patriots Front, Patriots Defence League Australia	Man sentenced to 12 years prison for planning to blow up left-wing centres	Anti-Leftist	VIC
9 December 2020	European Brotherhood	Teenager arrested in relation to making terroristic threats and distributing bomb-making instructions	Terrorist act	NSW
9 February 2021	Proud Boys, National Socialist Network	Far-Right figure charged with drug possession and failing to give police access to electronic devices.	Anti-Leftist	VIC
19 February 2021	Aryan Nations	Two men charged over jail break plot	General crime	WA
1 March 2021	European Australian Movement, National Socialist Network	Man charged over assault of security guard at television station	Anti-Black	VIC
7 April 2021	National Socialist Network, South Australian Men’s Health Club	Man charged with possessing a document or record that could be used to commit a terrorism act, and possessing extremist material.	Terrorist act	SA
8 May 2021	European Australian Movement, National Socialist Network	Man charged with armed robbery after allegedly attacking campers	Anti-Leftist	VIC
26 May 2021	National Socialist Network, South Australian Men’s Health Club	Man charged with possession of explosives, bomb-making instructions	Terrorist act	SA
23 August 2021	National Socialist Network	Man charged over possession of Christchurch massacre video	Anti-Muslim	SA
9 September 2021	Sovereign Citizens movement	Woman charged in relation to procuring large number of fake police IDs	Anti-Police	SA
25 September 2021	Proud Boys	Man charged over inciting protest in contravention of CHO directions	Anti-Government	VIC
11 January 2022	National Socialist Network, South Australian Men’s Health Club, European Australian Movement	Man charged with terrorism and drugs charges	Terrorist act	SA
18 January 2022	True Blue Crew	Man charged with weapons charges, accused of covertly filming police	Terrorist act	SA
18 January 2022	Australia First Party	Far-Right leader takes Law Enforcement Conduct Commission to court	Civil action	NSW

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Imogen Richards

Imogen Richards is a lecturer in criminology at Deakin University. She researches in the areas of new and alternative forms of media, the political economy of (counter-)terrorism, and the performance of security in response to social crisis.

Cam Smith

Cam Smith is a researcher at the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation. His areas of research are the far right, conspiracy culture and disinformation.

Greg Barton

Greg Barton is Chair of Global Islamic Politics at Deakin University. He is a leading scholar in research into hate and hateful extremism and the interactions between hateful extremism and violent extremism, both in Australia and in Southeast Asia.