Authorities had been closely monitoring Victoria’s reinvigorated far-Right groups for more than four years.
Experts say the extreme Right has been on a co-ordinated “hate blitz”, dropping anti-Semitic flyers in the suburbs, spreading racist messages on various social media platforms and plastering swastikas on public buildings.
Australian Security Intelligence Organisation director-general Duncan Lewis warned last year the far-Right had become better organised and its numbers, while coming off a low base, were on the rise.
The far-Right re-emerged in 2015 as a political movement with the Reclaim Australia anti-immigration rally and then soon splintered into the more aggressively anti-Islamic United Patriots Front — led by Victorian bodybuilder and tradesman Blair Cottrell.
That group exploded online with thousands of followers joining its Facebook page.
Its rallies are constantly marred by violent clashes with political opponents.
Cottrell said it was the rapid online spread that brought his former group to the attention of the nation’s spy agency.
“I met with ASIO in 2015 and anyone close to me has also been interviewed by ASIO,” he said.
“I think we sort of came out of nowhere for them and there was a lot of traction, particularly on Facebook.”
In recent months, the UPF has disbanded and Cottrell has joined a new group called Lads Society, which bills itself as a community of “European-descended Australians” and holds regular fight clubs out of its Cheltenham headquarters.
Its leader, Thomas Sewell, said he had spoken to ASIO agents after the Christchurch attack, which saw 50 people killed while worshipping at two mosques.
He said the officers were looking for insight into how to stop further violence. He said political violence was not in the interest of the group.
“Our mission is to create a community organisation of European-descended Australians who identify as such, in order to preserve and grow our culture and legacy on this land,” he said.
But the Executive Council of Australian Jewry says while Lads Society presents a benign public face, it is thought to be a conduit to the neo-Nazi Antipodean Resistance group.
“The Lads Society is closely connected to Antipodean Resistance, sharing many members and a world view,’’ its 2018 report on anti-Semitism in Australia said.
“In many ways, the Lads Society is simply a front organisation for Antipodean Resistance, acting as a conduit to funnel members to AR.”
Members of neo-Nazi group, the Antipodean Resistance, gesture with the Nazi salute at a secret camp.
Cottrell denies the group has any members in Antipodean Resistance.
Anti-Defamation Commission chair Dvir Abramovich said far-Right extremists had weaponised social media to magnify the spread of their dangerous messages.
“It may be an uncomfortable truth for some but, as the Christchurch tragedy and our own tracking in Australia demonstrates, white supremacists and far-Right extremists pose a threat that should not be dismissed,” he said.
“Their murderous ideology can lead to actual violence, and these movements are weaponising various social media platforms, as well as their own virtual ecosystems, to maximise and magnify the spread of their dangerous messages, to recruit new members and to inspire and radicalise like-minded individuals,” he said.