Threats against politicians soar as second neo-Nazi charged

Two neo-Nazis have been charged for threatening federal MPs and another man arrested for targeting Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, as the Australian Federal Police warns that threats against politicians have soared to almost 1000 a year.

In Victoria, former young Liberal and neo-Nazi Stefan Eracleous was charged on Friday with harassing independent senator Lidia Thorpe, allegedly stomping on an Indigenous flag at her office. The charge came a day after Joel Davis, a leader within the neo-Nazi National Socialist Network was arrested in NSW for allegedly calling on supporters to “rhetorically rape” independent MP Allegra Spender.

AFP acting assistant commissioner Matthew Gale on Friday said there had been 951 referrals of threats to federal parliamentarians in the last financial year, rising 63 per cent over the past four years, and it had turned into a “significant issue”.

Davis, 30, was charged with the threat to Spender after she condemned a neo-Nazi march on NSW parliament earlier this month.

Davis was refused bail by Sydney Local Court on Friday, deemed an unacceptable risk of further offending. The court heard Spender was concerned “for the safety of herself and her family”.

Separately, a 29-year-old man from northern NSW is alleged to have made online threats targeting Albanese, and will face court in January.

The AFP said officers seized a gel blaster rifle and ammunition during a raid on a Tamworth home last week, and the man has been charged with harassment as well as the unauthorised possession of a firearm and other weapons offences.

“We will allege the man used an online website portal to make threatening and harassing comments towards the high office holder,” Gale said.

“There are current and emerging individuals and groups who are eroding our country’s social fabric by advocating hatred, fear and humiliation, and the AFP, once again, is putting them on notice.”

Communications minister Anika Wells declined to comment on cases before the court but said the online world had been a “wild west” for too long. “This has been an unregulated space where too many Australians have found themselves the subject of online harm,” Wells said.

Eracleous was unmasked as a neo-Nazi by this masthead in 2022, after appearing in a video burning the Aboriginal flag that targeted Thorpe with racist slurs.

The AFP now allege Eracleous, 32, defaced a flag at Thorpe’s Melbourne office, which also reported receiving abusive emails and a phone call including “hateful and menacing rhetoric”.

Police said they raided a house in Mernda in Melbourne’s northeast on Friday and seized electronic devices and offensive material.

Thorpe’s office declined to comment, citing the court proceedings. Eracleous was bailed to appear before Melbourne Magistrate’s Court next week, but he could face up to five years in prison for the charge of using a carriage service to menace, harass or cause offence.

Last year, Eracleous was kicked out of The National Socialist Network by its leader, Thomas Sewell.

He did not answer phone calls or emails from this masthead on Friday.

The neo-Nazi group is on an aggressive recruitment drive and has been behind a series of recent stunts targeting politicians that include ambushing Albanese and other MPs during the last federal election campaign.

NSN leadership claimed on Friday that they have now signed up the 1500 members required for the group to register a federal neo-Nazi political party and plan to contest upcoming state elections in NSW and Victoria too. This masthead recently revealed how a close friend of misogynist influencer Andrew Tate is helping the NSN flood social media with Tate-style propaganda to draw in young men.

Gale said there was “probably a multitude of factors” contributing to the rise in threats against MPs, adding that referrals about threats were up “63 per cent over the last four years”.

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