A planned anti-immigration rally is falling apart, with key “freedom” groups pulling out over alleged links to the neo-Nazi National Socialist Network (NSN). Fresh from its midnight march through the Melbourne CBD, the NSN has fired back, accusing “foreign actors” of trying to hijack the event to dilute its white-supremacist agenda.
The “March for Australia” — which began as a now-deleted TikTok from an anonymous user that racked up more than a million views — was pitched as a nationalist answer to the recent pro-Palestine rally that drew more than 100,000 people to the Sydney Harbour Bridge. It quickly became a rallying point for anti-immigration activists.
However, the scramble to claim credit for its online success has exposed deep fractures in the pandemic-era coalition of anti-lockdown and nationalist groups. And with organisers of the planned march still hiding their identity, supporters are demanding answers.
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The NSN, led by neo-Nazi Thomas Sewell — currently charged with intimidating a police officer and multiple personal safety intervention order breaches following police raids targeting the NSN in November — is the only group to have publicly claimed responsibility for organising the March for Australia. However, the march’s Facebook page swiftly rejected this.
Anti-vaccine activist and freedom movement leader Monica Smit urged followers to boycott the rally, saying, “When the leader of the Nazis claims it as his event, there’s no coming back.”
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“I’m also concerned about immigration,” Smit told Crikey. “However, once I became aware of who was involved in organising it, I removed my posts [that initially supported the rally] and chose not to be associated with it in any way.”
Similar warnings came from Brisbane organiser Tristan Van Rye, ex-MLC Bernie Finn and commentator Joel Jamal — all of whom distanced themselves from what they have labelled a march led or hijacked by white supremacists.
“People still don’t know who’s organising this rally because there’s no transparency,” Jamal told his followers, adding the original poster was contacted by “people basically in bed with the National Socialist Network”.
Such claims stem partly from prominent rally supporter “Bec Freedom”, who revealed in an X Spaces discussion that she helped the anonymous TikToker behind the viral video secure organisers.
“He wanted to palm it off, and I have experience in activism,” she said. In the same discussion, she opposed rebranding the rally as a “unity march”, insisting its true aim was to “protect white heritage”.
Another early backer, an online user known as “Based Blondiee”, told Crikey the organisers “wanted to remain anonymous” but that the NSN would be welcome so long as its members weren’t violent. A review of the social media accounts of both “Bec Freedom” and “Based Blondiee” shows liked and shared posts from neo-Nazi content creators.
The split underscores the fragility of the “freedom movement” and its alliances of convenience. Once united by opposition to lockdowns, the coalition is now riddled with competing conspiracy theories and power struggles. The sudden online popularity of the March for Australia has stirred suspicion among leaders desperate to revive the right’s pandemic-era momentum.
Comments on posts promoting the March for Australia swing between allegations of Jewish infiltration, frustration at white-supremacists hijacking the protest, and rebukes aimed at anyone accused of sowing division.
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Far-right leaders from diverse backgrounds who found a home in the freedom movement are now copping abuse as the post-pandemic right returns to a platform of anti-immigration and ethnonationalism.
Several key figures in today’s NSN once held prominent roles in Australia’s anti-immigration street movement of the 2010s. However, their overt embrace of neo-Nazism in recent years has made them a liability.
At a recent anti-Islam rally in Melbourne’s Fitzroy Gardens, evangelical Zionists collaborated with pro-Israel groups to forcibly remove members of the NSN who had come to show support. Fears of a similar scene at the March for Australia have prompted NSN leader Sewell to warn of “foreign actors” attempting to hijack the event.
Whether or not the NSN conceived the march, their recruitment ambitions are clear. “Probably half of our recruitment in the last two years has come from the freedom movement,” Sewell posted — a sign the group sees mass rallies as fertile ground for new members.
Perhaps more telling is the indifference among many “patriots” to the alleged NSN ties. Online, some insist they will attend regardless. A few right-wing leaders are wary of the optics of marching alongside neo-Nazis and prefer to appeal to a broader nationalist base, while others appear comfortable embracing the extremists.
Some freedom movement leaders say they will stage a rival rally in September, promising it will be run by “credible people”. But with the March for Australia gathering steam, their withdrawal leaves space for groups like the NSN to take the reins. Whether they lead it or not, the NSN’s presence ensures the March for Australia will be a litmus test for how far the post-pandemic right is willing to go in embracing open white supremacy.
