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Manifesto reveals alt-right's plans to go mainstream after 'infiltration' of NSW Young Nationals
How will our government pretend this isn't their problem? In 2025 or whenever they get back in we're going to look back on the Abbott government the way Americans look back on Bush.
The ABC has uncovered a covert plot by Australia's alt-right movement to join major political parties and influence their policy agendas from within.
Background Briefing has witnessed members of the NSW Young Nationals in Sydney attending a secret men's-only fight club set up by some of the country's most prominent alt-right nationalists.
The program has also gained access to a private Facebook group in which these same people discuss their manifesto, which includes plans to shake up mainstream politics.
The group is called The New Guard and its followers are self-described fascists.
At least three NSW Young Nationals — including Clifford Jennings, who sits on the executive of the party's youth wing — are, or recently have been, members.
On Facebook and elsewhere online, more NSW Young Nationals are sharing alt-right talking points, racist in-jokes containing coded references to Hitler, and theories of a global Jewish conspiracy.
[...]
The first sign of an alt-right push within the NSW Young Nationals came during a dramatic state conference in May.
Ethan Gordon, who was a communications officer at the time, became suspicious after noticing a large influx of new members with city, not rural, addresses.
"We were blindsided," he said.
"This was an infiltration by another group with a very particular ideological motivation, or seemed to have a very particular ideological motivation."
Among the new members was Mr Jennings, who put forward a series of controversial motions.
The first motion called on the NSW Young Nationals to "endorse immigration from culturally compatible peoples and nations" while supporting "strict immigration controls for those who are not".
Mr Jennings also introduced motions backing the offer of refugee status to white South African farmers, and the expansion of coal and nuclear power.
Mr Gordon, 23, said it looked like a classic branch stacking exercise designed to push the party's youth wing to the right.
Those suspicions were heightened when a video of Mr Jennings was later uncovered online.
In the video, Mr Jennings says: "I created alt-right Australia."
At the state conference, Mr Jennings was elected to the executive of the NSW Young Nationals as the Metro Regional Coordinator.
He has since sought to distance himself from the video, claiming he is no longer involved in the movement.
But Background Briefing can reveal Mr Jennings' comments go far beyond a single video and that he was just one of many alt-right members to join the NSW Young Nationals prior to the state conference.
This is the first time the breadth of these members' alt-right connections have been disclosed publicly.
More: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-10-...-of-mainstream-politics-in-australia/10368972
How will our government pretend this isn't their problem? In 2025 or whenever they get back in we're going to look back on the Abbott government the way Americans look back on Bush.