Welcome to another edition of the Shit List, where we focus on calling out those politicians, public figures, media, organisations, and groups whose actions smack of hypocrisy, dirty dealing, double standards, and/or general disregard for others in the community. And this time, we can add “craven bootlicking” to the catalogue of sins.
Which brings us to Australia Day, 2025.
For many, January 26 – the date the First Fleet of British colonials landed in Sydney to establish a jail, designated our “national” holiday since 1990 – is a date that does not inspire national pride. There are growing calls, both in the streets and on social media, for the date to moved to one that maybe doesn’t celebrate the kick-off of a systematic attempt to wipe out the Indigenous population. Political statements. Free speech. You know, exactly the kind of thing people like wannabe Trump Mini-Me Peter Dutton and the conspiracy-addled One Nation claim to champion.
Invasion Day protests this year were held in capital cities, and some regional centres. Around 25,000 people were estimated to be in the Melbourne CBD alone, while the seaside town of Torquay attracted 2,000. These people marched, held mourning and survival ceremonies, called for the date of Australia Day to be changed, and for Voice, Treaty, and Truth-Telling. The Australian media focused closely on them, either to report objectively, applaud, or trot out right-wing talking points about “divisiveness”.
Same old, same old, right? But this year was a little different.
This year, the Neo-Nazis, who frankly deserve a permanent spot in the Shit List Hall of Shame, decided that Australia Day would be the perfect time to march out in their tragic little uniforms and proclaim their appalling racism. They were spotted in several cities around Australia, either in their own group or attaching themselves to other “pro-Australia Day” (read: racist in all but name) protests.
Let’s take a look at just two of those, and how they were treated by the police.
One enterprising group of these fine upstanding young men, affiliated with the now-infamous National Socialist Network, took it upon themselves to travel interstate to Adelaide. They seemed surprised to find that they weren’t wanted. In fact, police knew they were coming, and were waiting for them. They were told to move on, and when they refused, the arrests started. They barely had time to start up their stupidly martial rendition of “Waltzing Matilda”, let alone really get into the racist hatred, before they were invited to have a little lie down on the ground.
Source: 9news.com.au
Sixteen men were arrested, pending charges mostly related to loitering. Personally, I’m surprised that they were charged at all, given the police have a long history of, shall we say, lenient treatment towards the far right.
At least the South Australian police actually did something, though. In Melbourne, police stood by and watched a group occupy the lawn opposite the Tennis Centre for the purposes of spreading some truly disgusting racist hatred and lies. Some of them claimed to be holding a “pro-Australia Day rally”, but the truth is that the organiser and the main speakers were neo-Nazis.
Matt Trihey doesn’t call himself a Nazi, oh no. He just wears a self-designed uniform adorned with a runic symbol associated with neo-Nazism, spouts neo-Nazi rhetoric, and hangs out with other neo-Nazis who are less concerned with preserving some imaginary shred of human dignity. The mission statement of his organisation, the National Worker’s Alliance, is chock-full of white supremacist talking points.
Trihey’s been a fixture on Melbourne streets for a couple of years now, leading an ever-shrinking cohort of QAnon conspiracy theorists and antivaxers on a stroll around the CBD every Saturday. Trundling their little PA wagon behind them, this group disrupts people who are just trying to enjoy a day in the city by shouting hateful rubbish, and by swarming and harassing anyone who dares to object to what they’re saying.
Recently, a group of counter-protesters decided to really challenge Trihey and his minions. They were met with threats, invective, and actual assault – but it appears the counter-protest was effective, because Saturdays have been blessedly free of his nonsense for a few weeks.
Perhaps Trihey felt that other people exercising their free speech was unfairly silencing him. That might explain why he decided to make an all-out effort to really spew some hatred on Australia Day. With about 50 others, including his fellow not-neo-Nazis-really-honestly and the conspiracy nuts that used to trail after him on his Saturday strolls, he decided that the Australian Open would be a great target.
I won’t repeat what he said, just summarise. It was textbook stuff, really. Immigrants cause crime! Immigrants make us uneducated! Incidentally, did you know vaccines are evil and there’s an Illuminati Freemason Satanist cabal that rules the world.
source: twitch/tv/warboat
I’m being flippant, but in all seriousness, this was viciously racist. Complete erasure of the oldest continuous inhabitants of this land, coupled with “go home if ya can’t be a proper Aussie” rants. “Proper”, of course, meaning “white, European, and preferably a cis, heterosexual male”. The revisionist history was reminiscent of the worst lies coming out of the “No” campaign against the Indigenous Voice to Parliament. To hear Trihey tell it, a bunch of very nice white Englishmen nobly dedicated their lives to “civilising” this country, and everyone else should be bloody grateful.
Not to be outdone, his neo-Nazi mate Blair Cottrell stepped up to the mic to give everyone the benefit of his opinion.
Where Trihey is reluctant to admit his loyalties, Cottrell declares them whenever he gets a chance. A founding member of far-right racist groups The Lads Society and the United Patriots Front, he’s distinguished himself over the years by advocating for the inclusion of Mein Kampf in the school curriculum, convictions for arson and stalking, and demanding the execution of immigrants who refuse to be “re-migrated” (i.e., kicked out for not being white enough for his standards).
source: twitch.tv/warboat
Basically, his Australia Day screed boiled down to the ludicrous claim that the descendants of white colonials were the “real” Australians, so all those immigrants and Indigenous people better just shut up. Oh, and they better share “our” values, too, but that won’t make them Australian, no matter how long they’ve been here. Because, you know, their skin colour is “wrong”.
In the eyes of neo-Nazis, Australia Day exists to be co-opted. The government talks about how inclusive and welcoming Australia is, and holds its citizenship ceremonies on a day commemorating the invasion of another’s land. That’s not enough for Trihey and Cottrell and their Hitler-loving buddies in the National Socialist Network. They see Australia Day as an opportunity to dress up their Nazi rhetoric in our country’s flag, and disguise their racist hatred as “patriotism”. Welcome to the Shit List, fellas. Get comfortable.
And Victoria Police just let them do it. Trihey and his followers didn’t even bothering seeking a permit for this “protest”, but police just stood by while these disgusting people spewed hatred that is in direct violation of the states Racial and Religious Discrimination Act. No arrests. Not even a caution. Police let them have their say, and when it was all over, actually shook Trihey’s hand.
source: twitch.tv/warboat
Just imagine for a moment if Trihey’s group was protesting racist treatment of Indigenous folk, or standing up for trans rights. Think they’d have got the same kind of accommodation from the Police?
Of course they wouldn’t. In fact, we know they haven’t. Remember how Victoria Police gave neo-Nazis an escort to help them harass queer and ally counter-protesters at Kelli-Jay Keen’s Rally of Transphobic Hate in 2023?
Trihey, Cottrell, and the rest of that sorry band of white supremacist thugs, are going to dine out on that handshake for weeks. For them, it’s as good as a full-throated endorsement, and you can just bet they’ll use it to embolden others. So for that handshake, Victoria Police, welcome to the Shit List.
Finally, we have this week’s entry into the Shit List Hall of Shame, and surprise, surprise, it’s Deputy Opposition Leader Sussan Ley. Again.
Ley already has form for making egregiously inflammatory statements about immigrants. This time, while giving a speech at an Albury church, she decided to make her target those people – Indigenous or otherwise – who took to the streets to march against Australia Day being celebrated on January 26. And what she said was … well, here it is, in all its utterly stupid, bootlicking, colonialist-apologist “glory”.
source: sbs.com.au
Yes, she really went there. She compared Australia – an inhabited continent – to the dead world of Mars. She described the establishment of a penal colony as a “daring experiment”. She waxed lyrical about the thrilling adventures that awaited these British men who, with guns and laws and vicious policies of separation, systematically attempted to wipe out Indigenous people, and said that it wasn’t an invasion or violent or nasty at all, honest and for true.
And she made a point of speaking in glowing terms about Elon “Space Karen” Musk’s stated ambition to send a spacecraft to land on Mars, as though it was something that had already happened and not just one racist billionnaire transphobe’s pipe dream. Guess she got the memo from Peter “Mini-Me” Dutton about kissing the Trumpian (and Trump-adjacent) ring.
Your seat is still warm from the last time you occupied it, Ley. You deserve your place in the Hall of Shame.
And that’s where we are this Australia Day. Plagued by neo-Nazis who are being allowed by police to call for everything from forced deportation to execution, and lectured to by a senior politician who apparently doesn’t understand the difference between utopian daydreams of conquering a dead world and the destruction of people’s lives.
January 26 is already, rightly, a Day of Mourning. And now racist thugs have hitched their wagon to the fiction that white imperialism is an unmitigated good, and there should be more of it, please. So, you know what? There’s one more entry for the Shit List this week. Australia Day, January 26 itself.
As always, if you have any nominations for the Shit List, please leave a comment.
