Prominent neo-Nazi Thomas Sewell arrested as Albo urges calm
PM WARNS OPPONENTS AGAINST FUELLING RADICALISM
The fallout from events at the weekend once again dominated the news agenda yesterday and this morning many publications are picking up where they left off last night.
The Age led overnight with the latest, summarising with: “Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has warned his political opponents against fuelling radicalism and threats to politicians after the weekend’s anti-immigration rallies, the arrests of neo-Nazis and growing concern around far-right conspiracists.”
The newspaper said federal parliament was once more engulfed in debate over extremism on Tuesday, “on a day Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan was confronted by a prominent neo-Nazi, an incident Albanese labelled ‘horrific’”.
The ABC and others lead with the news that neo-Nazi Thomas Sewell and two other men were yesterday charged over an alleged attack on a First Nations protest camp following Sunday’s anti-immigration rally in Melbourne.
As the AAP reports: “Sewell, 32, was among about 40 men dressed in black who stormed Camp Sovereignty on Sunday evening after attending the rally in Melbourne’s CBD. The 32-year-old was arrested on Tuesday afternoon outside Melbourne Magistrates Court and has been charged with violent disorder, affray, assault by kicking, discharge missile and other offences. Two of his followers were also charged. He has been remanded to appear in the same court on Wednesday.”
Elsewhere, the newswire also highlights the Albanese government yesterday, as expected, set its permanent migration target for this financial year, keeping it unchanged at 185,000.
Guardian Australia uses its coverage to flag how a Labor backbencher on Tuesday questioned Albanese’s suggestion that some “good people” attended the anti-immigration rallies across the country on Sunday.
The site reports Labor MPs confirmed that Mary Doyle, the member for Aston, sought to clarify during a closed-door caucus meeting the language the prime minister had used.
“One Labor source said several other MPs also felt uneasy about Albanese’s language but chose not to speak up,” the report adds. Neither Doyle nor Albanese’s office responded to requests for comment.
The Nine papers recall Albanese was asked during question time yesterday about the hostile reception he received at a summit in the Victorian town of Ballarat last week. Asked by Nationals Senator Anne Webster why he was “chased out of Ballarat by a convoy of tractors”, the prime minister questioned whether the opposition was making it harder to protect politicians, the papers say.
“At a time when security is an issue, making those sorts of comments, I ask them to reflect … seriously, given what’s occurred with the Victorian premier today … the AFP have enough of a job without it being added to,” the PM said.
In follow-up comments to the Nine papers, Albanese said: “Political leaders should not encourage dangerous acts or intimidation in order to advance their perceived political interests.”
CHINA PUTS ON A SHOW FOR NOT DEAD TRUMP
China is today holding its largest-ever military parade to mark the 80th anniversary of the formal surrender of the Japanese at the end of World War II.
As Wanning Sun reports in her Crikey piece (on Bob Carr’s attendance and Australia’s relationship with China), the parade’s full title is “Parade to commemorate Victory in the Chinese People’s War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War”.
That piece points out that “with [Russia’s Vladimir] Putin, [North Korea’s] Kim [Jong-un] and Iran’s Masoud Pezeshkian attending, Western commentators have regarded this year’s parade as evidence of China’s intention to showcase solidarity with these countries, as well as a show of defiance against the West”.
Indeed, the top story on the BBC at the time of writing declares: “The Chinese parade comes at a significant moment for Xi as he seeks to assert Beijing’s economic and diplomatic might on the international stage. As Donald Trump’s tariffs destabilised the global trade order, Xi endeavoured to cast China as a stable trading partner. The parade in Beijing represents a chance for Xi to showcase his country’s growing ability to rival the US in any conflict.”
CNN leads with its piece on the parade, which states: “Xi’s message with his multi-day exercise of soft and hard power, is clear: China is a force that wants to reset global rules — and it’s not afraid to challenge those of the West.”
Meanwhile, the ABC reports this morning: “Today, the leaders of China, North Korea and Russia — Xi Jinping, Kim Jong Un, and Vladimir Putin — will send a powerful message to the world as they stand side by side watching a grand military parade in Tiananmen Square. The occasion marks 80 years since the defeat of Japan in World War II. But it will also project a powerful unified bloc of authoritarian regimes. And China will be keen to send another message — that it is the centre of this bloc.”
And so it goes on and on, with every news site having a similar piece saying the same thing.
With the gang in Beijing apparently keen to show Trump he’s not the main character he thinks he is, the 79-year-old has appeared at a press conference in the White House (yes, he’s alive) to announce he’s moving the US Space Command headquarters from Colorado to Alabama.
Maggie Haberman for The New York Times reports Trump was asked about social media speculation over the weekend that he had died and how he found out about it (yes, this is where we’re at in the madness of 2025’s news cycle).
“First he indicated that he didn’t see it, then detailed what was said. Trump then reverted back to saying he didn’t know about the rumors, and attacked the news media,” Haberman writes.
Here is the exchange in question.
In grown-up news, a federal judge on Tuesday ruled that Trump and his Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth violated federal law by using the military to help carry out law enforcement activities in Los Angeles, CNN reports.
The decision stems from a lawsuit California’s Governor Gavin Newsom filed in June. Writing on social media, and continuing to ape Trump’s style of writing, Newsom said on Tuesday: “DONALD TRUMP LOSES AGAIN. The courts agree — his militarisation of our streets and use of the military against US citizens is ILLEGAL.”
The Guardian highlights White House spokesperson Anna Kelly dismissed the ruling and said a “rogue judge” was trying to “usurp” Trump’s authority to respond to unrest and violence in American cities.
The newspaper also flags Congress returns to session on Tuesday, with renewed attention expected on the investigation into the disgraced financier Jeff Epstein and his death.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE…
Daniel Byrnes ran Sunday’s Sydney Marathon in just over four and a half hours. He also ran it wearing 53 pairs of underpants.
Guardian Australia reports the 37-year-old broke the previous world record (52 pairs) in completing the race at the weekend.
“They recorded me putting on every pair of underwear,” he said after the marathon.
“At the end, the poor guy from the Guinness World Records was still there, having to pull down my sweaty undies to verify it … he doesn’t get paid enough, that’s for sure.”
Byrnes said on Monday afternoon his hips were “no good” and “really bruised” as a result of his feat. “I’m open to ideas for next year, but I definitely won’t be going for underwear again,” he added.
Say What?
The goofy ahh government is still capping, but is anyone surprised? When a rizzless, auraless, unc prime minister is running the show, a chopped government is what follows.
Fatima Payman
The senator delivered another “brain-rot” speech during a debate on the government’s age verification plans for social media on Tuesday. “The 30-year-old is accusing the government of lying and accusing Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in particular of having no charisma, being out of touch and of running a shambolic administration,” The Daily Mail says.
CRIKEY RECAP
Attack on Camp Sovereignty: How ordinary fears are giving cover to extraordinary hate
It had all the hallmarks of a massacre apart from the body count. An Aboriginal camp at dusk on the edge of town, most of its custodians elsewhere, only a few left to defend it. Out of the chilled evening gloom, a menace of figures, dressed in black, emerged to commit a planned attack steeped in hate. To claim something that was not theirs by destroying it; an act of terrorism. A scene played out hundreds of times since invasion.
Neo-Nazis, some wrapped in puffer jackets so as not to catch a cold while terrorising others, stormed Camp Sovereignty in King’s Domain; a sacred space of protest and mourning. They stomped on a fire, tore down a flag, swung poles and pipes, and targeted women. Four people were injured, two hospitalised with head wounds. Who knows what would have happened if there were no witnesses, no-one to film their deeds, had it been out in the middle of the bush somewhere.
Housing is a ‘human right’, says new Labor MP Sarah Witty. Turns out she owns four of them
If two’s company and three’s a crowd, then new Melbourne MP Sarah Witty’s rental portfolio is looking a bit cramped.
Declarations to the parliamentary Register of Interests (all laid out helpfully in Crikey’s updated Landlords List) confirmed this week that Witty — the Labor Left MP for Melbourne who defeated Greens leader Adam Bandt in May’s surprise election upset — is the owner of not one, not two, but three rental properties. She has places in Point Cook, Brighton East and Richmond, on top of her unmortgaged home in Richmond. That’s four all up, in a market in which it is exceedingly difficult to acquire one. Aspirational, one might say.
Witty’s landlord status was always going to attract headlines, especially given the fact she toppled Bandt (“Green-slayer”, as the Oz recently dubbed her). But this, combined with her maiden speech — lamenting the fact so many are “locked out” of the market — has many galled, questioning just how socialist the “Socialist Left” can be. Was there really nowhere else for the former charity exec to park her money? Does she really need two rental properties, let alone three? Even the Herald Sun and 3AW got on board, though they admittedly take greater issue with Witty’s “hypocrisy” than with the portfolio itself.
Why are we so committed to genocide denialism?
You have to wonder just how egregious Israel’s actions in Gaza would have to be before Anthony Albanese and Penny Wong, as well as their counterparts in many (though not all) Western countries, denounce them as genocide.
The assessment of the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) that “Israel’s policies and actions in Gaza meet the legal definition of genocide in Article II of the United Nations Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948)” and “Israel’s policies and actions in Gaza constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity as defined in international humanitarian law and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court” is only the most recent, and authoritative, description of what is occurring in Gaza.
READ ALL ABOUT IT
New quake shakes devastated Afghan region as death toll exceeds 1,400 (Reuters) ($)
Hundreds killed in Sudan landslide, UN says (BBC)
Open AI’s ChatGPT to implement parental controls after teen’s suicide (ABC)
Trump readies crushing autumn power plays as Democrats search for direction (CNN)
Up to 80,000 people in Australia may be affected by ‘sledgehammer’ powers to deport non-citizens to Nauru, lawyers warn (Guardian Australia)
Journalist seeks big penalty after illegal ABC sacking (AAP)
THE COMMENTARIAT
A disgrace: Why FOI move will increase corruption — Hedley Thomas (The Australian): No doubt, little has changed these past two decades. Except the politicians and their lackeys have become better at hiding the stuff.
They cannot be trusted to uphold the spirit of freedom of information. It is their kryptonite. It can make them accountable.
That is why both sides of politics have terrible form in steadily weakening the framework to make it harder for journalists and the public to know what is going on behind layers of spin and propaganda.
It will take something extraordinary to make it work in the way that it can. And should.
How Katter lost his way. To work — Jenna Price (The Sydney Morning Herald): Katter snr, 80, was at the press conference to talk about his support of the anti-migration rallies on the weekend. He was not, however, at his job in federal parliament. He is often not at his job in federal parliament. To do your job well, you need to turn up. And that’s particularly true if you are a member of parliament. There are no work-from-home options. And in Katter’s case, he doesn’t turn up. Not now. Not ever (OK, slight exaggeration). The fabulous They Vote For You website, supported by Open Australia, details how every politician in Australia votes on every single piece of legislation if there is a division called. It also serves as a roll call. (It’s not perfect, and sometimes it’s not up-to-date, but then, yeah, me neither.)
They Vote For You tells me that Katter has been absent 37% of the time overall. Last year, he was absent from divisions more than 70% of the time. I’ll tell you what else you need to do. You need to do all the relevant paperwork. Katter hasn’t filed his register of interests declaration yet, even though it’s been well over 28 days since being sworn in.
