Ebony Bennett wrote this for the Canberra Times:

A “March for Australia” rally sounds benign, but people who plan to attend the “March for Australia” rallies around the country on Sunday will almost certainly be marching alongside white supremacists and neo-Nazis.

The march is advertised as being about ending mass immigration. Of course, there is no “correct” level of immigration to Australia – this will always be a democratic question that’s up for debate. But it’s equally clear that’s not what these protests are really about.

The media and anti-fascism activists have revealed that some of the organisers of the marches have posted white nationalist ideas like “remigration”, including pro-Nazi and pro-Hitler memes, and threatened violence. March for Australia has denied links to some prominent neo-Nazis.

While Australians firmly rejected the Coalition’s harsh anti-immigration rhetoric and policies under Peter Dutton’s leadership, scapegoating immigrants is a sadly effective tactic in politics and in the media.

More than one politician has voiced support for the March for Australia, including independent MP Bob Katter, who threatened to punch a journalist for mentioning his Lebanese heritage when questioning him about his support for the anti-immigration rallies.

These marches can be seen as part of a pattern of neo-Nazis and fascists becoming more and more emboldened in Australia and overseas, using anti-immigrant sentiment to bring heinous and extremist ideas like the mass deportation of non-white people into the mainstream.

The hateful, white supremacist language, the calls for violence, and talk of mass deportation Australians make it clear the March for Australia has a much more sinister agenda at its heart, and we only need look to the United States to see where this path leads.

It’s just eight years ago that neo-Nazis marched through Charlottesville in the United States with torches chanting “Jews will not replace us”, and where one white supremacist killed a counter-protestor by driving his car into a crowd of people.

President Donald Trump, then in his first term, responded by saying there were “very fine people on both sides“.

Now, Trump is using his second term to deploy masked secret police to disappear people from their homes, workplaces, schools and courthouses to deport people en masse without due process. There’s no doubt the far right is trying to take Australia down a similar path.

It was just a few years ago, ABC Background briefing uncovered a covert plot by Australia’s far-right movement to join major political parties to influence them from within, including a branch-stacking effort that saw dozens of alleged neo-Nazis and white supremacists join the Young Nationals in NSW.

Neo-Nazis felt comfortable enough to publicly boo the welcome to country at this year’s ANZAC Day dawn service.

They have marched through the streets of regional towns in Victoria and NSW, and down the CBD of Melbourne in masks at midnight, assaulting a counter-protestor.

After the Melbourne march, the neo-Nazi group NSN boasted a surge in membership, meaning it was on track to overtake the Liberal Party membership within 18 months.

And of course, we cannot forget it is just six years since an Australian white supremacist massacred 51 people and injured 80 others during Friday prayers at mosques in Christchurch.

Australia never bothered with much public introspection into how it produced this terrorist.

You can read the rest here.