The Prime Minister said Australian Security Intelligence Organisation director-general Mike Burgess had been warning of the rise of far-right groups in Australia. Photo: ABC
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says "there is no place for this hateful ideology here in Australia" following the arrest of 16 National Socialist Network members in Adelaide on Australia Day.
South Australia police arrested 16 people, including a 16-year-old boy from Victoria, and charged them with various offences including failing to cease loitering and assaulting police.
A 25-year-old man from Western Australia was charged with using a Nazi symbol and possessing an article of disguise.
"They were horrific scenes yesterday, to have people openly identifying as neo-Nazis and fascists, white supremacists marching through the street," Albanese said.
The Prime Minister said Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) director-general Mike Burgess had been warning of the rise of far-right groups in Australia.
"It's a phenomenon, unfortunately, we have seen in other parts of the industrialised world as well," he said.
"There is no place for this hateful ideology here in Australia or, indeed, anywhere else."
New centre for education
On the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the prime minister announced a AU$4.4 million (NZ$4.87m) investment to establish a national centre for Holocaust education.
"It's important that we have full knowledge of what occurred, where hate leads," Mr Albanese said.
"... And it's important that any anti-Semitism be opposed in all of its forms and it's important here in Australia, the day after Australia Day, that we cherish what, overwhelmingly, Australians have done, which is to come together.
"Whether we can trace, in First Nations people, back some 60,000 years, or whether the newest migrants who yesterday took their oath of allegiance to Australia and became Australian citizens,
"It's a wonderful thing we have built in this country, we are overwhelmingly a harmonious country that live in peace and security and we should not take that for granted.
"We need to nurture it, each and every day."
SA Premier also denounces neo-Nazi group
SA Premier Peter Malinauskas also spoke out against those arrested and said the National War Memorial in Adelaide's CBD commemorated South Australians who served in wars and conflicts.
"It is utterly disgraceful that these so-called neo-Nazis have come from interstate to protest in front of this sacred memorial that commemorates the exact thing so many South Australians fought against and paid the ultimate sacrifice," he said.
"Racism and intolerance have no place in Australia.
"I utterly condemn the actions of those who seek to spread their hateful ideology in our community.
"I applaud the swift actions of SAPOL in arresting those alleged to have committed criminal acts."
Those arrested are expected to appear in the Adelaide Magistrates Court on Tuesday.
- ABC
