Participants at a government-sponsored conference here on immigration and population trends were given a first-hand view of this country’s neo-Nazis in action.
Right-wing extremists disrupted sessions at the Bureau of Immigration and Population Outlook Conference, hurling anti-Jewish and anti-Asian invectives at various speakers.
One of the sessions at the conference, held in Adelaide, was a debate on anti- racism legislation between a Jewish leader and an Arabic community activist.
When Isi Leibler, president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, delivered his paper on intolerance in Australia, the national leader of an extremist group disrupted the session, threatening Leibler with a prison sentence.
Michael Brander, head of the neo-Nazi National Action, shouted, “We will continue to fight for the white European nature of Australia, we will fight for our country, we will never stop and, Isi Leibler, if you try to stop us, you will be in prison yourself.”
During the debate, Leibler said “anti-vilification” laws, now in place in half of the Australian states, should be extended to cover all Australians.
“It will act as a guide to police and prosecutors to act more vigorously to pursue and punish perpetrators of racist acts that are nowadays too frequently dismissed as inconsequential,” he said.
The day before, a session on Australian social cohesion was interrupted by Jack King, who last year led an anti-Semitic rally on behalf of Australians for Free Speech.
King said at the session that no “Jew or Asian” had ever made a “useful contribution to Australia.”
The final session of the conference, a taped television debate on the merits of Australia’s immigration policy, was delayed because of four rightists, who protested “the worldwide Zionist conspiracy” and control of Australia’s government, banks and media. The four were ejected from the conference.
After their removal, those protesters and 19 others held a rally against “the multicultural Labor Zionist government” based in Canberra.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
