Sunday 31st August 2025 – March for Australia
Before the date of the rally a number of Naarm (Melbourne) based organisations such as the Free Palestine Coalition, CARF (Campaign Against Racism and Fascism), Victorian Socialists and other various “Anti-fascist” Anarchist adjacent groups online had all made various pronouncements of the need to “yarding at racist dogs” and engage in “Anti-fascist action” by “smashing fascism” through countering their street mobilisations. A lot of the online posts in the lead up from various Left organisations focused on the leading role of the Neo-Nazi organisation NSN (National Socialist Network), with the online account @JewsAgainstFash posting a video from famous Australian “Anti-fascist” Tom Tanuki claiming how it was a “rare thing” to see “organised racists these days.” This is a reportback from the perspective of a few of us who attended this counter rally.
We arrived at around 10.30am at the intersection on Flinders Street to meet the “March for Australia” rally which was to start at around 12pm. There was already a few hundred attendees of the “March for Australia” rally covering the intersection and the steps of the station with “aussie” flags, while a small counter rally of about thirty people held a banner reading “No Room for Fascism: Fascist Scum Better Run.” There wasn’t much chanting, more individuals yelling across the road at rally goers things like “Nazis fuck off” and “you’re marching with paedophiles” – referring to the National Socialist Networks grooming of young men online into their ranks. Soon after arriving a line of cops, seeing the tiny number of counter protestors – the main anti-fascist coalition would not be turning up for a few more hours – thought this would be a good opportunity to move in and push us back down Swanston street in order to create a distance between ourselves and the growing Fash rally.
After about ten to twenty minutes and a lot of scuffling with cops, we were eventually forced all the way back to the intersection with Collins Street. Throughout this period the small contingent had switched to more anti-cop chants including “too many coppers, not enough justice” and “No Justice, no Peace; no Racist Police” as well as pointing out the role of cops in doing the work of protecting the fash rally while only repressing the anti-fascist counter. Some people also used moments of respite from the scuffles with the cops to attempt to reason with them. Asking why they were depriving “anti-fascists” of their right to counter-protest at Flinders Station and why were the police violating our protest rights in order to help protect the fascist march from any direct confrontation, with no response. There was also some other chants and shouting which were quite specific to Melbourne Left-Wing “anti-fascist” subculture, such as making fun of claims that Arvi (something something) a Rebel News media provocateur, beats his wife, alongside repeating other mantras about how all Nazis are paedophiles.
After around an hour at the intersection the number of counter-protestors had grown to a few hundred and the atmosphere had grown more oppositional, both towards the cops and any “March for Australia” attendees who tried to walk through us. A few of us were trying to stir up some energy to move the counter from being a merely static rally contained by a single police line to moving it round either Elizabeth or Russel street to confront the fascist march before it got moving, but with not much luck. During this time a number of fash provocateurs came to film and jeer at the counter-protesters but were quickly run off while being pelted with eggs up towards the intersection of Russel street and were left looking demoralized. At the same time more “aussie” flag holders were attempting to walk through the crowd trying to provoking people. The response originally started off with verbal threats and intimidations following people through until they walked out, but quickly developed into direct confrontations. Any “Australian” flags were quickly snatched and then set on fire in the centre of the counter with those who had brought them in being punched, kicked and physically thrown out of the crowds by force, often left with a bloody lip or nose for their trouble. It was around this point – around 1-2 pm – that the “Anti-fascist/Free Palestine” Sunday march arrived at the intersection. At this point the dynamic changed, there were now hundreds more counter-protesters, but also marshals. This time when there were small confrontations in the crowd with “Aussie” flag holders marshals from the Free Palestine Coalition actively attempted to prevent these confrontations, with some going as far as physically putting themselves in between anti-fascists and to protect and escort anti-fascists.
As the Free Palestine Coalition march began moving its crowd up the hill towards the intersection at Russel street a number of us in the crowd, building off the momentum after a confrontation with a flag holder, attempted to push people to move further up the hill in the hopes we could get it to turn right down Russel street and move the counter round towards the Flinders intersection to confront the “March for Australia” rally. This however was immediately put a stop to by marshals who were actively screaming at people and forming lines to stop and slow down. Some of us tried to explain to people that they did not need to listen to marshals but were met with replies of “there are disabled people and children here” – when it was further explained that we all came here of our own free will to confront fascists and that was the signalled purpose of the counter-protest, there was a nervous disavowal of the idea we could or should do anything else. By the time the march steadily made its way up the hill – with most of the momentum now drained – a police line had already formed to block off the road and it was clear that the Free Palestine Coalition rally was intent on marching in the opposite direction.
After returning to the rest of the counter protest still at the intersection on Collins street a small group of people, including members of the Filipino and Malaysian organisations Anakbayan and Anakbangsa, were holding a banner reading “End Settler Terror: End Genocide Land Back Now” and playing drums and using speaker phones trying to bring in more people from the intersection to head the other way down Elizabeth street. It was around this time that we noticed that the fascist rally had began to march up Elizabeth street, going straight past the “Anti-fascist” counter as most people stood chatting. Seeing this a few hundred people, including contingents from SALT and CARF, split with the crowd at the intersection and raced down the street to try and confront them. Chants, shouting, fruit, eggs and other projectiles were thrown back and forth while a police line was quickly formed and later a mounted line of cops – which was facing the counter-protestors. The energy was electric, people shouting, drums playing and projectiles were flying back and forth while the front line pushed against the police to try and reach the fascists on the other side – although a number of times other protestors tried to stop people from throwing things by grabbing peoples hands, which was often rebuffed and ignored. There was an arrest or two and eventually OC Spray was on a number of anti-fascist protestors before the mounted line was brought in to threaten and push us back. CARF made announcements to leave and meet the “March for Australia” at Parliament – although this didn’t make too much sense as it was being confronted right at that moment – but the majority of counter protestors stayed. Scuffling with the police line, launching projectiles and trying to keep eachother safe from cops, police horses and cleaning OC spray out of people’s eyes.
After some of the energy had died down and the cops had more of a handle on things, much of the “March for Australia” had already passed us. The mounted cop line then pushed through the side of the counter-protestor line and made its way up towards parliament where a few of us followed them. We eventually reached a small contingent of counter-protestors led by CARF and a police line on Russel Street. The “March for Australia” was now much larger than any of the fragmented contingents of the anti-fascist counter-protestors running around the CBD – with the “Anti-fascist/Free Palestine” march nowhere to be seen – and could be seen passing us behind the police line towards parliament where more speeches were going to be made. It was at this point of low energy when a few of us thought it may be good to go and grab the Vicpol Pig Effigy we had stashed earlier. After a lot of running around, avoiding cops and “aussie” flag waving fash contingents which were roaming round the city on foot and in cars, trucks, we reached just behind parliament where a small contingent of counter protestors were facing off with a PORT (Public Order Response Team, effectively Riot cops) while the mass of the fash rally were at Parliament. It was here where Thomas Sewell, head of the Neo-Nazi NSN made the speech in which he declared “Heil Australia” to huge cheers from the crowd. We were also informed that some of our comrades had tried to convince CARF to break the outnumbered police line back on Russel Street, which was allegedly met with ridicule.
At the moment we were going to rush past a bunch of cops and bring in the Pig Effigy (since nicknamed Peffigy), the small contingent had begun to move back down towards Swanston Street in order to attempt to cut off the “March for Australia” which was now descending from Parliament back down towards Flinders. We decided to stash peffigy again for use another day and moved to connect up with the anti-fash contingent that was left. Making our way through the CBD the streets were completely covered with “Australian” flags. People driving around in trucks waving them and small contingents of anti-fascist counter-protestors getting confronted and outnumbered by march larger groups of fash and being forced to turn around and walk away. It was demoralising to say the least. By the time we had navigated the streets of cops and fash we met up with the last contingent of anti-fascist counter protestors which made up around two-hundred people. At this point we were completely outnumbered, both by the fash rally and by the cops.
None of the Socialist, Palestine or “Antifascist” contingents were left at this point. The banners and flags of the groups and people who were left had all been destroyed or taken by cops. A few more fights broke out as people physically confronted “aussie” flag holders trickled into the counter protest from behind, along with chanting and shouting. After around twenty minutes the line of PORT cops began physically forcing the counter-rally down Swanston Street towards Flinders in order to make way for the “March for Australia.” Over the course of around half an hour or so it is fair to say that those of us left were physically routed out of the CBD. Those of us left held each bit of ground on the street for as long as could in front of shields and batons and attempted to keep eachother safe with medics attending to people who had been caught with OC spray and other anti-protest weaponry. PORT used OC Spray, Rubber Bullets, Pepper Balls and a Flashbang at one point to push the remnants of any notable anti-fascist contingent all the way to the Flinders Street intersection where we were completely surrounded by hundreds of cops on all sides and behind them hundreds more fash attendees of the “March for Australia”.
At that point one of us noted “we are so concerned about the fascists over there – pointing towards the “March for Australia” rally – when we should be looking at the real fascist threat, this is the fascist threat” pointing towards the hundreds of militarised cops, horses and PORT surrounding the entire intersection. As PORT began to press on us again those of us who remained who were left stunned and confused at the level of police repression we were facing began joining in on the “The cops and the Klan go hand in hand” and other anti-police chants – the best abolitionists are made through direct experience after all. Eventually after around another ten more minutes we were pushed back across the bridge leaving only around thirty of us, while hundreds, if not still thousands, of “March for Australia” attendees could roam the city freely uncontested, with some of them even being allow to walk through the PORT line that had just violently pushed us out of the CBD.
After a few minutes of standing around and making remarks about how much riot cops love repressing unarmed protestors, killing migrants and Blakfellas, someone heard that they were going to use their “designated zone” powers – which had been in place over the course of the day – to unmask and search everyone. It was at this point that those of us remaining decided to leave, with some people heading to Camp Sovereignty and others leaving the CBD entirely, feeling tired and defeated. It was around an hour later that the NSN would then attack the Aboriginal Camp Sovereignty site, ripping down Aboriginal flags and hospitalising a number of people.
Saturday 13th September – Australia Unites
Previous to this rally, a meeting had occurred between a number of Melbourne based organisations including the Free Palestine Coalition, CARF, the BPU (Black Peoples Union) and others in order to decide on a “United Front” policy of supporting an Aboriginal led counter in response to the racist attack on Camp Sovereignty two weeks previously. The idea was that the counter-march would be Mob led, while constituting elements of a militant anti-fascist coalition to confront fascists on the street and keep other attendees safe. The “Australia Unites Against Government Corruption” rally was to be much smaller in size than the NSN led “March for Australia” and was organised by another coalition of Far-Right, anti-immigration and fascist groups with some crossover but not led chiefly by the NSN. This is a reportback from the perspective of a few of us who also attended this counter rally.
A contingent of us made our way into the rally outside Flinders Station so as to avoid searches by cops in the anti-protest “Designated Zone.” The mood was solemn in some places closer to Flinders station where you could better hear the speeches being made by Mob elders. Towards the back of the rally at Swanston Street where much of the white “Socialist/Antifascist” contingents were, people were chatting, taking pictures and not really paying much attention to what was being said on stage. Much of the speeches talked of the role of ongoing racist and colonial violence visited upon Aboriginal peoples in Australia and that the recent attack on Camp Sovereignty was yet another continuation of the long history of settler violence against Aboriginal folk, with some references to the ongoing impact of police violence on Blak communities. These speeches connected the ongoing structure of “Australian” settler colonialism to the rise in racist and fascist street mobilizations such as the “March for Australia” two weeks previously. Many of the speeches were also largely Liberal. Some talked about how the “love” of the attendees trumps the “hate” of the “Unite for Australia” rally goers and that we need to avoid engaging in any physical conflicts with them and should instead educate people away from their racism. There was also a retelling of the attack on Camp Sovereignty that seemed more of an emotional response as opposed to a testimony about what actually happened. In this story, the fascists were beaten back and were run off from Camp Sovereignty with their tails between their legs (multiple reports from the day say this did not happen and the footage does not look like that at all). This was pretty demobilizing and confusing, especially as there had been previous discussions about a militant anti-fascist contingent.
After around an hour we began marching down Swanston street with a contingent of Mob at the front, stopping at each intersection to perform traditional dance and song. The atmosphere was light and the cop presence pretty hands off although still heavy as usual for the police state of Melbourne. It was around this time that the pig peffigy made its re-appearance hidden in some black garbage bags. Once we slowly made our way to the state library a decision was made to split the rally, with some heading back down to Flinders Street while the other more oppositional section would head to Parliament in order to confront the “Unite for Australia” fash rally. There was quite a bit of confusion here to say the least, both in terms of which way we were actually going and how the march should be organised. At multiple points on the way to parliament the protest marshals (or at least people acting like marshals) consistently policed people back into order. Constantly telling people to stop, slow down and to get behind Mob who were to be centred at the front. If the idea was to have a militant and confrontational anti-fascism, tactically speaking managing a protest like this is the best way to stop that from happening.
While on the way a few of us decided to unveil the VicPol pig peffigy and stuck a stick up its arse to parade him down the street, much to many peoples amusement. The march however remained very contained, mainly consisting of mainstream slogans and chants such as “Always was, always will be, Aboriginal land” and various anti-Nazi chants. There was a minor anti-cop chant (cops had been corralling the march and blocking off streets the entire way to the parliament) but this was quickly replaced by those on the speakers to more traditional slogans.
As we started to get closer to parliament however the energy began to change; the momentum was building and people were starting to run forward with the Mob contingent and others at the front of the march moving quickly ahead towards the police blockades outside Parliament house. Some cops were trying to prevent people from rushing forward and realised they were completely surrounded and gave up while others further away tried to form a line to block anyone from passing through while people scuffled with them to try and break past. At the same time as this marshal-types and those on the speaker phone (CARF/SALT) were shouting at people once again to stop and slow down which some people began doing. A few of us ran ahead to join up with Mob and chanting “too many coppers, not enough justice!” with some younger kids holding an Aboriginal flag cheering. By the time the rest of the march contingents others managed caught up the cops had managed to organise themselves enough to form line with a few hundred across the whole of Nicholson Street, backed by PORT and mounted cops, now preventing anyone from moving any closer to Parliament house. This left us a few hundred metres and a few barricades away from the “Australia Unites” rally on the steps of Parliament.
People immediately began joining in on anti-cop chants with a number of Aboriginal folk at the front taking up a megaphone and making speeches, this time with a more radical and confrontational tone. One of the speakers gave a powerful speech, noting how cops had picked on him all his life, that they had oppressed and continued to oppress Aboriginal people across “Australia” and that they themselves would do well to remember that they are the children of convicts, settlers and immigrants on this continent and that they are doing the work of protecting fascists organising anti-immigration marches. It was at this moment with the growth of confrontational energy to the cops that we lit the peffigy on fire and paraded him around for the cops to see. There was a noticeable divergence of energy towards the peffigy. With people carrying a banner for GMAR (Grandmothers Against Removals) grinning and fistbumping some of us who were holding up the pig and people wearing the Aboriginal flag filming and cheering, while a few of the white counter-protestors looked nervous. After five or ten minutes of waving VicPig around one of us threw him on the ground, stamped on him and gave him a kick. The Peffigy was then banded about like a soccer ball for a bit. A couple of Mob guys, one wearing the Aboriginal flag as a cape, got really into it and started kicking it pretty hard; others then joined in which made for a minor hazard as his flaming body was bounced back and forth. Eventually a white woman from SALT/CARF came and yelled at people and dumped water on him and he sizzled out.
After this the energy died down quite a bit. There were a few chants from the SALT loudspeaker such as “you’ll always lose in Melbourne!” aimed at the “Unite the Australia” rally and there was also talk amongst others to try and hold the line on this road for as long as possible. After another ten minutes or the same people on the SALT megaphone declared that the counter protest had achieved what it had come to do. That we had countered the fascists and now they knew that if they were to march again in Melbourne they know what waits for them and that we should now make our way back to the state library. This confused a number of us to say the least. Up to this point there had been no direct engagements or physical confrontations with the “Unite for Australia” rally at all – their rally was quite literally still going on at that very moment a few hundred metres away – and the counter protest had been physically prevented from getting any closer to it by the cops. Over the next twenty minutes contingents slowly peeled off back towards the state library until there was only around fifty to counter protestors left, now outnumbered by the cops. Deciding that the numbers were not on our side the rest of us decided to leave.
As we walked down a side street there was some shouting and physical confrontations (a bit of shoving) between Antifa looking types and “aussie” flag holders but nothing that really kicked off, especially when mounted pigs turned up behind us and followed us back down towards the state library. At this point a few of us decided to leave as the energy had died. A few more carried on back down to the state library where the march later made its way up to Flinders Street Station where an Aboriginal man was targeted with OC Spray from cops.
Melbourne “Anti-fascism” and the “progressive plantation”
August 31st saw the “anti-fascist” counter protest caught completely off guard both by the number of fascists that attended the “March for Australia” and the level of police repression to contain any opposition to it. People have had a hard time admitting this, some going as far as inventing stories that did not happen. But for all the talk of “yarding at racist dogs” (whatever that means) and “smashing the fash” we were beaten, in pretty humiliating fashion and the attack on Camp Sovereignty was the cherry on top of the fash victory. The victim narrative that was then promoted across the “Left” around the attack Camp Sovereignty also not only helped to give the fascists exactly what they want (the image that that there is no real anti-fascist threat to them, that we are all helpless victims especially Aboriginal people) is also untrue, if not going so far as lying about what happened.
A large portion of physical attacks on the day were performed by anti-fascists on fascists and some of these were launched from Camp Sovereignty itself. In an attempt to brush off this defeat (which everyone knew was a defeat, whether they admitted it or not) the rally on the 13th seemed more about erasing this fact rather than actually dealing with it.
For the settler “anti-fascist” organisations, it seemed like there was a need to erase the fact that almost none of them had been at Camp Sovereignty to defend it and that much of their politics is rather about posturing “wins” to their members rather than actually achieving any stated political, anti-fascist objectives.
For Mob, it seemed like an attempt to reassert existence in the face of ongoing colonial violence. Yet the ongoing contradictions within Mob politics – particularly regarding collaborating with state fascists (cops) in seeking protection from extra-state fascists (the NSN) after the Camp Sovereignty attack – did not deal with the essential proposition that the attack on Camp Sovereignty posed, that of the need for the establishment of community self-defence and that any settler “anti-fascism” on this continent must start from this premise. It is the case that many of us were disappointed to hear the likes of Uncle Robbie, who routinely condemns this genocidal colony as rotten to its core, talking about the need to avoid physical confrontations with fascists so as not to “provoke” them. As mentioned, many of the speeches on the 13th emphasised “education” over confrontation, negating the reality that fascism on this continent is premised upon the material defence of whiteness as property and not a lack of knowledge about anti-racism.1
These contradictions come from a legitimate place. It comes from the real fear of the continued violence against Aboriginal communities and the ongoing state sanctioned murder of Blak people by cops and white vigilantes. However, confusing our politics by appealing to the state as victims and working with police will never see an end to fascist colonial violence.
Yet these contradictions also emerge as a response to a material reality of this colony. Namely from the fact that the organised “Left” and “anti-fascists” in this colony, frankly, do not actually give a shit about Aboriginal people, or migrants of colour either for the most part. The idea that Mob can rely on settlers (whether self-described “anti-fascist” or not) has been consistently proven to be a falsehood.
Australian Anti-fascism for the most part, both in theory and practice, displays white saviourism, not only towards migrants and Aboriginal people (we are the anti-racist defenders of people of colour; we continue to reside on stolen land and do no real organising around borders and raids but we get to declare migrants are welcome here!) but also towards Australia itself. This has been consistently demonstrated in terms of the selective and paternalistic way in which Mob are engaged with as unequal political agents and partners in the fight against fascism, but also through how anti-fascism is framed by these organisations. Prior to the March for Australia on the 31st the coalition of “anti-racist” and “anti-fascist” organisations published a poster that stated “Pro-Palestine/Anti-fascist: March for an Aboriginal and Multicultural Australia.” As traditional owner of Wani-Wandian Country in the Yuin Nation Keiran Stewart-Assheton pointed out (resulting in them reposting the image) a “multicultural Australia” stands in direct contrast to a struggle concerned with the return of stolen land and sovereignty for Aboriginal nations on this continent. It becomes clear that for much of the “anti-racist” Left in Melbourne, anti-fascism means creating a fairer “Australia”, not destroying it.
Much of the “anti-fascism” on display can be said to premise itself on what Black Anarchist Lorenzo Kom’boa Ervin refers to as the “progressive plantation.” Or alternatively, as how one comrade has described, that much of “anti-fascism” in “Australia” constitutes an “alternative white pride movement.” As Lorenzo explains:
“I use the term to demystify and delegitimatize the white Left, which is really only concerned with its own issues. It’s not concerned with killings by the police, of blacks and other peoples of color. They haven’t been leading any movement about that and they haven’t really been joining any movement around that. We talk about mass imprisonment. The huge numbers of black people and other peoples of color that are going into the prison system. There has yet to be a mass movement against the targeted imprisonment of Black people and other peoples of color. We talk about all kinds of other attacks upon the communities … These people don’t fight that either. They are strictly concerned with the macho attacks on each other. Attacking a Nazi, punching him in the face. Sucker punch [laughter]. This is all they care about. It’s infantile.”
There was no similar mass demonstrations called by these “anti-racist” and “anti-fascist” organisations over the public execution of Abdifatah Ahmed in Footscray by Vicpol, nor did many of them bother to show up at the Mob organised Melbourne demonstration against Black Deaths in Custody after the public execution of an Aboriginal man in an Alice Spring Coles by an off duty cop. Even when there were attempts to physically confront, punch and launch projectiles at fascists (a necessary act, but not enough) marshals and random members of the crowd actively tried to prevent this low-level Anti-fascist combat from happening. Such a politics as this which dominates the “Australian” and specifically Melbourne “Anti-fascist” scene is the result of viewing fascism and white supremacy as some fringe of Australian society. If prominent “anti-fascists” such as Tom Tanuki can publicly state that in the colony of Australia – where Aboriginal people are the most incarcerated on earth; a colony that is seeing a year on year rise in Blak deaths in custody; a colony whose concentration camp border system is the example to fascist movements the world over – that it is a “rare thing to see organised racists these days” (quite literally the definition of institutional racism, racism that is organised) and for them not be shunned as the ignorant white chauvinists that they are, then it’s no wonder we are in the position we are in.
On October 19th there will be another “March for Australia” rally. We do not know what to expect, whether if the Anti-fascist “united front” will learn from the abject mistakes of these previous rallies or repeat them. But those of us who say we are committed to the cause of anti-racism and anti-colonialism, we must recognise our fight is against the biggest fascists of all: the state, the borders, the prisons and the cops. That we must work to build an anti-fascism that is unified upon the premise of Blak power, Aboriginal sovereignty and a militant community self-defence. Death to fascism. Death to Zionism. Death to “Australia”.
- See Goenpul Aboriginal academic Aileen Moreton-Robinsons “The White Possessive.”