Greg Barton

Opinion | To tackle far-right extremism, Australia needs to clamp down on the ecosystem of hate

In Australia, like the US, violent extremism makes enormous demands on law enforcement resources. But hateful extremism is not, for the most part, illegal

Authorities need to constrain the space available for this hate to poison public spaces and discourse before it manifests as violence, says Greg Barton

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Australian far-right extremist Blair Cottrell talks to supporters at a nationalist rally in Melbourne in January 2019. Photo: EPA

Greg Barton

Published: 5:00am, 9 Feb 2021Updated: 5:32am, 9 Feb 2021

The worst ever terrorist attack by an Australian didn’t take place in Australia, but it was very much made in Australia.

The Australian man who shot dead 51 people and injured 40 in Christchurch in 2019 had arrived in New Zealand two years earlier, fully radicalised and consumed with hate.

He had been expressing racist hatred from his youth, and from the age of 14 was active on extremist chat forums like the notorious 4Chan.

In his 20s he travelled extensively overseas, developing his white supremacist views. He connected with like-minded individuals, such as Austrian Identitarian leader, Martin Sellner.

Flowers are seen on the graves of victims of the Christchurch terror attack victims at the city’s Memorial Park Cemetery last August. Photo: AFP

And while he carried out his mass shooting attack alone, he saw himself as a belonging to a global community of white supremacists. He was a vocal supporter of the notorious Australian extremist Blair Cottrell. He was very much a part of Australia’s far-right ecosystem of hate.

Last month, a group of far-right extremists made headlines with a public and childishly provocative camping trip to the Grampians.