Miranda Live: Change the laws to go after neo-Nazis — Vic Alhadeff
SYDNEY has been hit with a spate of vile anti-semitic and homophobic posters, but there’s almost nothing the authorities can do to prosecute the neo-Nazis responsible due to a quirk in the law.
SYDNEY has been hit with a spate of vile anti-semitic and homophobic posters, but there’s almost nothing the authorities can do to prosecute the neo-Nazis responsible due to a quirk in the law.
Posters, some with images depicting the Holocaust and calling for people to murder Jews and gay people, have appeared in Sydney, Melbourne and regional Victoria and NSW, and law enforcement believe neo-Nazi group Antipodean Resistance is responsible.
But as Section 20D of NSW’s anti-discrimination law stands, there’s little police could do, NSW Jewish Board of Deputies CEO Vic Alhadeff told Miranda Live.
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“This is not about insulting people or defaming them — this is about inciting violence, it’s unacceptable that you can stand up in Martin Place and say “we should kill that group of Australians”,” he told Miranda Devine on her online radio show.
The incitement of violence is prohibited under Section 20D, but only if it can be proven that an offender committed a crime because they were told to do it.
Mr Alhadeff said the law needed to be changed to ensure “inciting violence” was actually recognised as a crime.
“There’s not a single charge or conviction under this act,” he said.
“Either we are living in Disneyland and everything is fine or something is wrong with the laws.”
A submission has now been lodged with the NSW government to change the Act.
Neo-Nazi group Antipodean Resistance has only cropped up in the past two years but has already attracted considerable attention and apparently set up training camps in Victoria and Queensland for new members.
Last year the white power group covered Macquarie Graduate School of Management in Nazi posters and painted a mural of a Nazi flag on a brick wall.
Domestic spy agency ASIO have also been monitoring the group since last year.
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