“Australia doesn’t see the crimes in its own country, and we have genocide occurring here” said Krauatungalung elder Uncle Robbie Thorpe, in response to a question on a clip in the wake of the devasting attack on Camp Sovereignty on Sunday, 31 August 2025.

And he added that it would be reasonable for the prime minister to address the incident, as it was “basically, an act of terrorism”.

“Australia is a secret country: a secret history,” Uncle Robbie continued. “This has become a safe haven for racism and fascism. Our people are basically colonised refugees in their own lands. Most gaoled people on Earth. Not just men, women and children too. This is the subtle forms of genocide that are continuing here.”

Having been involved in its original 2006 establishment, Thorpe relit the sacred fire at Camp Sovereignty on 26 January 2024. It is a sacred site on Boonwurrung Country in Melbourne city. It is a First People’s burial site. And since its re-establishment as active last year, it has served as a symbol of a growing reckoning with the colonial injustices of the past and the present.

One of the subtle forms of genocide Uncle Robbie talks about occurred when members of the National Socialist Network stormed the sacred site and violently attacked those gathered last Sunday afternoon, 31 August 2025, after these black-clad neo-Nazis had spent the entire day rallying and brawling in the Naarm-Melbourne streets, as part of continent-wide anti immigration protests.

Victoria police has since charged six neo-Nazis with various assault and public order offences, which do not address the political or racial nature of these crimes. Why that’s the case remains a mystery, as does why, after NSN members pumped up on having violently rallied through the city, were then permitted to move across town en masse to storm and attack the First People’s site.

Desecration of a sacred site

“While most attendees from the racist, neo-Nazi infused march departed the CBD during the afternoon, at about 5.05 pm a group of up to 200 black-clad individuals carrying pipes, poles and branches stormed Camp Sovereignty,” explains a 1 September joint press release from Camp Sovereignty and the Black People's Union.

“Completely unprovoked, they ran up the hill and targeted women, grabbing them, throwing them to the ground and striking them in the head,” the release continues, and goes on to outline that a 30-year-old school teacher had explained that she’d been attacked by what looked like a 15-year-old boy, who ripped at her hair, threw her to the ground and punched her in the face, while smiling.

The footage that was doing........

© Pearls and Irritations