Australia plans to add far-right group Sonnenkrieg Division to list of terrorist organisations
The Australian government is planning to add a far rightwing group to the list of proscribed terrorist organisations – the first time it has done so - after repeated warnings from security agencies about the growing threat posed by such extremists.
The home affairs minister, Peter Dutton, signalled that the government was preparing to proscribe the UK-based rightwing extremist group Sonnenkrieg Division as a terrorist organisation.
“They have a presence that we’re particularly worried about in the UK, but their reach goes into the minds of young people and Australians here,” Dutton told Nine’s A Current Affair program on Monday evening.
“If there are other organisations that need to be listed, Asio will consider those matters.”
The opposition’s home affairs spokesperson, Kristina Keneally, welcomed the move, saying that Australia was “the last of the Five Eyes countries to designate a rightwing extremist group as a terrorist organisation”.
“For a year, Labor has been calling for the Morrison government to take seriously the growing terrorist threat from violent rightwing extremism,” Keneally said.
“The Sonnenkrieg Division is a UKbased rightwing extremist group, which adheres to a violent white supremacist ideology. It was proscribed by the UK over a year ago.”
Keneally noted that there were several other rightwing extremist groups, some with direct links to Australian groups, that had already been proscribed by partners in the other Five Eyes countries – which include Canada, the US, UK and New Zealand.
“The question for the Morrison government now is whether those other groups will also be proscribed in Australia,” she said.
Andy Fleming, an independent researcher who has tracked the far right in Australia for several years, said it was unclear whether the proscription of Sonnenkrieg would be effective in Australia as the group had “little presence in Australia, as far as I know”.
“On the other hand, it’s possible that relevant state agencies have identified a connection,” he said.
“But that’s a maybe, and won’t be known, presumably, and if ever, until some of the current cases connected to anti-terror arrests make their way through the courts.”
Joshua Roose, a senior research fellow at Deakin University who is currently undertaking an Australian Research Council-funded project examining the far right here, said moving to ban Sonnenkrieg Division was “more likely linked to an ally banning them than any strong presence on the ground in Australia”.
The domestic intelligence agency Asio said in a submission, published last week, that the threat in Australia from extreme rightwing groups and individuals – including white supremacists and neo-Nazis – had increased.
Asio said it continued to see “more people drawn to and adopting extreme right-wing ideologies” and that the 2019 Christchurch attack – in which an Australian shooter killed 51 Muslim worshipers at a mosque – “continues to be drawn on for inspiration by rightwing extremists, both in Australia and internationally”.
A royal commission in New Zealand found that the Australian shooter was active in far-right groups in his home country but escaped the attention of authorities, despite allegedly being reported to Australian police for sending threatening messages.
Asio renewed its warnings in a submission to a parliamentary inquiry into extremist movements in Australia, which was set up after Labor called for an investigation into the rising far-right threat.
Dutton initiated an inquiry that had a broader focus on “Islamist and far rightwing extremist groups” among others. Asio says rightwing violent extremism now comprises up to 40% of its domestic counter-terrorism priority caseload.
The new head of parliament’s intelligence committee, James Paterson, vowed last month to take seriously the rising threat of far-right violent extremism, saying Australia needed to learn the lessons from the “horrific” Christchurch shooting and other “very troubling” incidents.