Former neo-Nazi group’s rap sheets are unsuitable for politics

February 23, 2026 — 5:00am

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The National Socialist Network formally disbanded in January to avoid designation as a hate group, but amid the fetid debate erupting over immigration and race, the former leadership still has ambitions to form a political party.

However, an investigation by the Herald’s Michael McGowan and Sherryn Groch has revealed many former members with histories of violence remain active in Australia’s far-right ecosystem, continuing to play a prominent role in the anti-immigration March for Australia protests.

The Australian neo-Nazi group inflicted massive self-harm by holding an anti-Jewish rally outside NSW Parliament just weeks before the Bondi Beach terrorist attack, and it quickly folded under new laws passed by the Albanese government to combat antisemitism, hate and extremism.

Members had spent the previous six years testing the limits of free speech by infiltrating anti-immigration protests to push a white supremacist agenda, performing Nazi salutes, inciting violence against Jews and Muslims and attempting to establish a White Australia political party and even stooping to storming a First Nations camp in Melbourne.

Our reporters found that the old NSN rollcall included serious domestic violence offenders, drug dealers, stalkers and an accused paedophile. Many served time in jail: one of the organisation’s most prominent members, Joel Davis, is currently behind bars after last year allegedly telling followers to “rhetorically rape” Wentworth MP Allegra Spender. His previous form included being convicted for drug supply after he was caught selling ecstasy to an undercover police officer at a music festival in 2013.

How neo-Nazis slipped the net and used NSW parliament for their vile ends

In a statement to the Herald, Jack Eltis, who headed the NSW chapter of the NSN, downplayed members’ criminal records, saying he had not personally witnessed any criminal behaviour and that he was “honoured” to be associated with them. He also said any future political party would involve “more extensive background checking”.

But not all are so blind. The wider community has been rightly horrified by the rise of such repugnant movements.

The fight against extremism will not be won by police action and tough words from politicians alone. We need a national reckoning against the appeal of this dangerous ideology, especially to young men, and how people are recruited and radicalised.

A century ago, Adolf Hitler assembled a not dissimilar group of right-wing thugs, playing on the loneliness, grievance and distrust of a lost generation.

‘A scary time’: Nazi terror links revealed as disbanding sparks fears of violence

Eighty-one years after the end of World War II – when some 40,000 Australians died fighting fascism – it is inconceivable that neo-Nazi organisations still have a siren song for some who reject traditional values.

In reality, these misguided men remain small in number, and most other Australians will instantly see through their rhetoric.

They do not stand for freedom of speech or to protest. These are precisely the freedoms they wish to deny the very groups they demonstrate against under coverage of the social cohesion and unity that is part of the Australian way of life.

These dregs are hardly the sort of bedrock membership with which to establish a political party. Noise, discord and violence are theatre, not policy.

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© The Sydney Morning Herald