Law professor Rosalind Dixon writes in the Sydney Morning Herald:
Police could have – and should have – done more to challenge the protest outside NSW’s Parliament House this month. This could have involved seeking an order that the protests were prohibited, and hence not protected from charges being brought under the Summary Offences Act. Or it could have involved more robust use of their powers to move on protesters once the threat of intimidation became clear.
But the current law gave them the power to balance rights to protest with legitimate public safety and public interest concerns.
Our party registration laws, in contrast, do little to restrict the formation of extremist parties with a hate-based political platform. Instead, they are largely procedural laws that require parties to adopt a constitution, sign up sufficient members and avoid using offensive or misleading words and symbols.
It is therefore urgent that we revisit these laws and give Commonwealth and state electoral commissions express power to ban parties that espouse racial hate and vilification as founding policies and values.
Rosalind Dixon is Anthony Mason Professor and Scientia Professor of Law at UNSW Sydney. She is also co-director of UNSW’s new Resilient Democracy Lab.
ChatGPT says: Every democracy eventually hits a moment where an openly anti-democratic faction tries to use democratic rules to hollow the system out. The instinct is to clamp down, but the danger is obvious: the cure can rot the host faster than the disease.
A few clean points.
I. Democracies always face the “paradox of tolerance”
You can’t sustain a system of equal citizenship if you allow organized groups whose stated aim is to eliminate equal citizenship. Every country that’s lived through fascism or sectarian meltdown knows this. Australia isn’t unique. Germany has the strongest version of this logic baked into its constitutional order.
II. The danger is not the tiny number of neo-Nazis
It’s the pathway they’re trying to exploit. They’re not trying to win 51 percent. They’re trying to gain institutional status as a registered party so they can
recruit,
launder their brand,
access public funds,
claim repression when pushed back,
and attach themselves to larger populist grievances.
If they get a foothold inside the civic infrastructure, they get leverage far bigger than their numbers.
III. Banning parties is the nuclear tool
It can work, but it cuts two ways. Once the state has a clean legal standard for banning a party on the basis of “hate,” “undemocratic values,” or “incitement,” the definition can drift. The same powers that deal with a fringe neo-Nazi group can also be used to remove less fringe groups when the political climate shifts. This has happened in places like
• Turkey
• Thailand
• Rwanda
• post-coup Egypt
• pre-Merkel Germany (extremism bans weaponized against leftist groups)
These aren’t theoretical concerns.
IV. Australia’s problem is administrative design, not courage
The current party-registration regime is procedural, not substantive. You sign up 1500 members, pick a name that isn’t misleading, adopt a constitution, and you’re in. The law treats “party” as a technical category rather than an entity with moral stakes. That’s the blind spot.
To fix it without sliding into autocracy, you need:
A high evidentiary bar. The state must show clear, direct advocacy of racial expulsion, violence, or elimination of equal citizenship.
Independent assessment by a body insulated from partisan control.
Judicial review with real teeth.
Regular sunset or review periods for bans.
A way for the group to legally challenge the verdict and demonstrate compliance.
This is closer to Germany’s model. It’s the least bad blueprint we have.
V. You don’t stop extremism by just banning the logo
You can outlaw a party and still lose the terrain of culture. If the grievances that fuel extremist recruitment remain untouched, you just drive the movement underground and give it martyr energy.
A real strategy blends:
• targeted criminal prosecution when members cross legal lines
• heavy pressure on foreign funding
• online environment interventions
• deradicalisation programs that have actual teeth
• a statewide response to youth recruitment funnels
• community-level inoculation (education, counter-messaging, peer support)
VI. The tough truth
Dixon’s piece is right that you can’t let a party openly calling for racial expulsion enjoy the full neutrality of the democratic system. But she underplays the danger of giving the state a free hand to decide who counts as “extremist.” Every faction thinks its enemies are the extremists. Once the standard is moralized rather than tightly defined, it becomes a political weapon.
The future of democracy isn’t “more bans.” It’s smarter line-drawing.
Define the red lines: advocacy of violence, forced expulsion, elimination of equal citizenship.
Require high evidence.
Require independent review.
Build off-ramps and oversight.
Otherwise you “save democracy” by quietly hollowing it out.
What happened
About 60 members of the neo-Nazi group National Socialist Network (NSN) gathered outside the New South Wales Police Force-approved rally outside the New South Wales Parliament on Macquarie Street, Sydney. They held a banner reading “Abolish the Jewish Lobby” and chanted slogans including Hitler-Youth-style chants.
In the aftermath, two female MPs who publicly condemned the rally—Allegra Spender and Kellie Sloane—reported death threats and rape threats.
Jewish community groups and other political actors are outraged, calling the event a serious breach of public norms and raising questions about police authorisation and response.
The state Premier, Chris Minns, said the state would review the approval process and consider giving the police more power to shut down such hate-rallies.
Why the reaction seems intense
The imagery is stark: black-clad men, Nazi slogans, targeting a minority group (Jewish Australians). These are historically loaded symbols.
It challenges the assumption Australia is largely free of overt neo-Nazi public displays of this kind. The contrast triggers alarm.
There’s a sense of hypocrisy: protest restrictions are stricter for other groups, yet this rally was allowed. Jewish groups say there’s a double standard in policing.
The Guardian
The threats to elected officials amplify fear. It’s one thing to stage a provocative rally. It’s another to intimidate democratic representatives.
Media framing uses words like “skin-head”, “neo-Nazi”, “white-supremacist”, which heighten emotional response and make calm debate harder.
What the “hysteria” critique gets right
Some of the response is emotional rather than analytical. When the word “Nazi” appears in a headline, instincts kick in: rally strong condemnation, propose urgent laws.
Policymakers now talking about expanding police powers and banning symbols—these are big actions fast, and some will argue due process might be sidelined.
Because the event’s visuals are dramatic, they overshadow nuanced discussions (e.g., about root causes, prevention, online radicalisation).
The use of blanket terms (neo-Nazi, fascist) may blur differences between fringe provocateurs and more conventional political protestors, which can muddy the legal/political response.
What the nuance requires
It’s important to distinguish between a small group staging a provocative event and a mass movement. The attendance (~60) suggests small scale for now.
Identify if the rally violated existing law. Some symbols and chants may be illegal; others may not yet be adequately defined in law.
A broader strategy beyond policing is needed. Experts say you can’t legislate fascism out of existence—radicalisation, recruitment, ideology dynamics all matter.
The Guardian
Consider the wider context: anti-immigration politics, social alienation, digital radicalisation are bigger fertile grounds for these groups than just one rally.
Why this matters politically
The right-versus-left culture war: This rally gives the left cause for strong state action; the right may respond by pushing back on free speech concerns.
Immigration and multiculturalism: The event feeds into anxieties about national identity, race and belonging in Australia.
Law and order: With calls to expand police powers and ban symbols, this becomes a test of civil liberties, protest rights, and state capacity.
Far-right visibility: Even a small event that gets big media traction raises the profile of extremist groups and may embolden them.
Here’s how this terrain-resilience frame is going to be weaponized in the next decade across politics, culture, and policy. It’s already underway, but it’s about to get much clearer.
I. Health care
This framing lets the right split the system into two camps.
Fragility medicine
Hospitals, public health agencies, pharma, insurance companies.
They profit when people stay weak, medicated, and dependent.
Resilience medicine
Fitness, nutrition, metabolic health, preventive care, physical competence.
Cheaper. Decentralized. Harder for bureaucracies to control.
Terrain rhetoric gives conservatives a way to talk about health care as a sovereignty issue:
Make yourself harder to kill so you owe less to a system you don’t trust.
It’s an end run around the standard universal-care debate.
II. Education
Terrain talk will shape the culture-war fight over schools.
The message becomes:
Stop teaching fragility. Start teaching capability.
You’ll see pushes for:
• Physical competence as a core curriculum
• Mental toughness training
• Less therapeutic framing
• More responsibility, discipline, and real-world risk exposure
• “Strong kids, not safe spaces” politics
This resonates because it contrasts with the current academic trend of shielding students from stress.
III. Public health
This is where the biggest political shift will hit.
The new right will argue:
The next pandemic won’t be won with lockdowns and mandates.
It will be won by metabolically healthy adults.
Expect pushes for:
• National fitness programs
• Tax incentives for metabolic health
• Less funding for pathogen hunting
• Strict limits on virology labs
• A narrative that bad health is a national-security vulnerability
Terrain theory becomes a national-strength doctrine.
IV. National identity
Here’s the deeper layer: the right will use terrain framing to define what a “real American” looks like in the 2030s.
Self-disciplined.
Hardy.
Strong.
Resilient.
Not dependent.
Not panicked.
Not medicated into numbness.
It’s a vision of citizenship built on capability, not credentialing.
It’s the opposite of the therapeutic state.
V. Masculinity and gender politics
You’re already seeing this online, but it will get more explicit.
Terrain framing gives the right a socially acceptable way to revive an older masculine ideal without sounding like cavemen.
It centers:
• Strength
• Calm under threat
• Leadership under stress
• Physical readiness
• Capability over emotion
The subtext:
The future belongs to the robust, not the domesticated.
VI. Climate and environment
Terrain talk will enter the climate fight in two forms.
Anti-apocalypse
A resilient population doesn’t fear the future.
This undercuts catastrophic climate narratives.
Adaptation over control
The message becomes:
You can’t control the world.
You can only control your readiness for it.
This reframes climate politics from “stop emissions” to “strengthen the nation.”
VII. Tech and AI
Terrain framing will influence tech skepticism.
It will say:
If you outsource cognition, memory, decision-making and risk assessment to machines, you weaken your own adaptive abilities.
People will start talking about “cognitive terrain.”
This is already happening in the focus on:
• Screens
• Dopamine
• Attention collapse
• Neural atrophy
• Over-automation
The right will push a “stay sharp, stay human” ethos.
VIII. Immigration
Terrain framing gives the right a more subtle line on immigration.
Not:
We dislike immigrants.
But:
A nation with fragile public health and high chronic disease can’t absorb large inflows without breaking its health system.
The subtext becomes:
Strength first, generosity second.
IX. The deeper evolutionary appeal
Terrain theory taps into something ancient:
A tribe survives through fitness, cohesion and discipline, not by outsourcing safety to a managerial priesthood.
That’s why the right feels instinctively drawn to it.
It isn’t modern.
It’s primal.
X. The political trajectory
Expect a full shift from:
• Freedom vs control
to
• Robustness vs fragility
It’s cleaner.
It’s biologically grounded.
It’s morally satisfying.
And it gives the right a unifying identity that isn’t nostalgic.
