Australian members of Terrorgram white supremacist network face 25 years’ jail

Australians who join, recruit or fund a white supremacist network that has told its members how to attack politicians and minority groups, will face up to 25 years in prison after the Albanese government listed Terrorgram as a terrorist organisation.

The online network, which seeks to incite a race war, will become the fourth white supremacist group to be listed as a terrorist organisation and the first given that designation by the Albanese government.

Online network Terrorgram has been listed as a terrorist organisation.Credit: Matt Davidson

The group largely functions on the Russian-founded social media site Telegram and aims to inspire lone-wolf actors to attack people such as politicians and abortion activists, and shared documents on how to make bombs.

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said the listing would give national security agencies the power to restrict Terrorgram’s operations and stop it from promoting violent nationalism and racist extremism.

“Online radicalisation is a growing threat, but the government has tools at its disposal and we will use every one of them to keep Australians safe,” Burke said.

“This group fosters and promotes an ideology that would seek to make some Australians feel unwelcome in their home. It is this extremist hatred which is not welcome and has no place in Australia.”

Telegram has previously shut down Terrorgram channels, but the decentralised group continues to pop up and at its peak had 50 channels with hundreds of members, with other communication channels operating underground.

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Lone-wolf attackers have referred to Terrorgram in their manifestos, including one written by a 19-year-old who shot dead two men and himself outside a Slovakian LGBTQ bar in October 2022.

Two Californian men, alleged leaders of the group, were charged by the US Justice Department in September 2024 for soliciting the killing of a federal official, doxing federal officials and making interstate threats. Then-US assistant attorney-general Kristen Clarke said at the time that “the defendant’s goal … was to ignite a race war, accelerate the collapse of what they viewed as an irreparably corrupt government and bring about a white ethno state”.

The US State Department branded Terrorgram a terrorist group in January.

Australia’s counter-terror intelligence chief Mike Burgess warned in December last year that children as young as 12 were being radicalised and that teens had been urged to support a white-power race war.

In February, the government imposed counter-terrorism financing sanctions on the white supremacist network, as part of its efforts to combat antisemitism.

“Terrorgram is an international network. People all over the world and in Australia use it. We have to take action to prevent this network from continuing to be utilised,” Foreign Minister Penny Wong told ABC News Breakfast at the time.

Australia has previously listed three white supremacist organisations as terrorist groups: the National Socialist Order in February 2022, Sonnenkrieg Division in August 2021, and The Base in December 2021.

Then-home affairs minister Karen Andrews described The Base as “a violent, racist and neo-Nazi organisation”.

Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter.