Nationwide anti-immigration rallies that sparked some violent clashes between protesters and police have been condemned by the government as racist and a neo-Nazi con job.
Tens of thousands of nationalists, dozens of dogs and at least one horse draped in Australian flags and paraphernalia joined the March For Australia rallies on Sunday in major cities including Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Canberra.
Speakers and attendees were at pains to state they were not against immigrants and wanted the federal government to pause or slow the pace of immigration.
However, some of the rhetoric crossed into racism and xenophobia, with one speaker in Sydney spouting a theory about “a clear global agenda to shame, beat down and replace people with Anglo-Celtic and European heritage”.
Federal Multicultural Affairs Minister Anne Aly said people had legitimate concerns around the strains immigration was placing on housing and infrastructure.
But the protests were clearly targeted at migrants from “countries that have brown people”, not white Western countries.
“It’s very clear from the conduct, that was observed at these marches, that these marches were a con by the far right neo-Nazis to prey on some legitimate concerns around housing and around cost of living in order to propagate their anti-immigration, racist agenda,” she told ABC radio on Monday.
“One of the very clear calls to action that was listed there was anti-Indian immigration, against people coming from India,” she added.
“Now that, to me, is clearly racist when you target a specific ethnicity, that is clearly racism.”
Prior to the protests, organisers frequently repeated a claim that 1500 migrants were entering Australia each day, based on Australian Bureau of Statistics overseas arrivals and departures data.
But the bureau has said the figures are not a reliable measure of migration or population change, but rather represent self-declared traveller intentions.
Former Immigration Department deputy secretary Abul Rizvi said successive governments had failed to communicate their immigration plans to the public, leaving a void to be filled by conspiracy theories and “bizarre ideas”.
The Labor government is yet to release its planning levels for its 2025/26 migration program, which Mr Rizvi labelled an “unprecedented delay”.
Opposition immigration spokesman Paul Scarr said it was important that fringe elements don’t get a foothold in the immigration debate.
“Last Monday in the Senate, I gave a very strong speech in relation to the targeting of our Indian community, and I was dismayed at some of the material, and members of our Indian community were really distressed,” he told ABC radio.
But “huge increases” in net overseas migration during the first two years of the Albanese government had “distorted” the debate, Senator Scarr said.
Prominent neo-Nazis gave speeches in Melbourne and Sydney, where NSW Police estimated some 15,000 people attended.
While the crowd was generally well-behaved in Sydney, except for two men who were charged after an officer was assaulted during a brawl at a pub on the march route, it was a different story in Melbourne, where violence erupted between competing rallies.
Officers were forced to use pepper spray to break up clashes between anti-immigration marchers and anti-fascist and pro-Palestine protesters.
Footage circulating on social media showed a group of neo-Nazis clashing with Jewish right-wing commentator Avi Yemini.
Far-right firebrand senator Pauline Hanson spoke to hundreds at a rally outside Parliament House in Canberra, calling for reduced migration and more Australian pride, as well as decrying Welcome to Country ceremonies and a “woke agenda” in schools.
More than 100 Canberran counter-protesters chanted “f**k off Nazis, f**k off”, “go home white trash” and “immigrants are welcome here” as people congregated at Commonwealth Park before marching to Parliament House.
Elijah Buol, chair of the Ethnic Communities Council of Queensland, said it was deeply concerning that people of migrant descent consider themselves “the sole custodians of Australian identity while at the same time rejecting the efforts to recognise First Nations (people)”.