“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 the rounds of social media following the attack showed a large group of men assembling at the bottom of a grass embankment and then charging up it, as people at the site appeared in disbelief that it was actually happening. Then these neo-Nazis, the majority of whom are actually grown men, started laying into the peaceful people at the First People’s sacred site.

There are shots of NSN leader Thomas Sewell, 32, fixing to bash a person in the face and another of him strutting around in glee, while his blonde ponytailed 20-something mate was actually captured wearing a mouthguard obviously because he wanted to protect himself during the planned brawl.

Social media was also awash with deplorable scenes of the majority white Australian anti-immigration protesters brawling with onlookers and counter-protesters on the Melbourne streets, as they called for an end to immigration and took issue with non-white migrants in general. But the attack on Camp Sovereignty was different, as it involved purposeful desecration and carried the weight of invasion.

“This attack shows what Australia has always been: a fascist, white supremacist colony built on genocide,” said Black People's Union spokesperson Kieran Stewart-Assheton. “They came with poles to attack predominantly women at a peace camp, but our sovereignty cannot be broken. We remained armed with truth, culture and community, and that is far stronger than hate.”

Roaming the city streets armed

Appearing on the ABC’s 2 September Afternoon Briefing and being asked about the arrest of Sewell that had just taken place that Tuesday afternoon, Senator Lidia Thorpe said, “He’s one of many, and it is a problem in this country. It has been a problem for some time. The authorities have known about this problem.

“The fact [is] that this group of neo-Nazis, racists, stormed Camp Sovereignty. The way they did, the way they were able to walk through the city armed and dangerous and create absolute havoc and commit the crimes that they did at Camp Sovereignty is outrageous, to say the least,” continued the Gunnai, Gunditjmara and Djab Wurrung independent senator.

The Tuesday airing of Afternoon Briefing opened with scenes that involved Thomas Sewell and his blonde mate with the ponytail, coming across a press conference where Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan was going to address the issue of the neo-Nazi rampage on the weekend, by chance. And Sewell yelled down the premier, calling her a “coward”.

But the chance involvement in the encounter was, perhaps, not the most stunning thing about this incident, as, at that moment, mainstream and social media were awash with footage and photos of Sewell and his sidekick clearly allegedly beating up people at Camp Sovereignty. Yet, two days later, they were freely cruising the streets dealing with past court matters, not having been arrested.

“Where were VicPol?” Thorpe asked in respect of the Camp Sovereignty attack. “Where were the federal police, who I know personally have a lot of information on these groups, because I’ve been briefed by the AFP, as someone who the neo-Nazis regularly attack. So, I have a lot of questions.”

The so-called March for Australia was announced anonymously online early last month, following an enormous outpouring of civil society support in a march on Sydney Harbour Bridge in opposition to Israel’s genocide on the Palestinians of Gaza. Attributed to the Freedom movement that formed during the COVID pandemic, the protests were no longer about vaccines but rather immigrants.

On whether “the police had dropped the ball”, Thorpe said, “Absolutely, they have. If it were 40 to 50 to 100 Black men walking through the streets armed with iron bars, I am sure the police would have been all over that. Why were they allowed to walk so far, armed and dangerous, through our streets to commit the crimes that they did. This is a hate crime… and it needs to be seen for that.”

Sewell was denied bail on Friday 5 September, after being arrested after shouting down the premier on camera. The neo-Nazi has been charged with 25 offences, including violent disorder, affray, discharging a missile and various assault charges, which in no way reflect the racist hate nature of the crimes, and nor do they reflect the political motivations.

“Camp Sovereignty is a sacred space. It is our place of worship. If it were a mosque or a synagogue, it would be taken more seriously and people would be up for hate crimes,” Senator Thorpe added. “Now, I’m calling on the federal police to step in here and investigate hate crimes related to Camp Sovereignty.”

The National Socialist Network is a highly politicised group. Their crime was undoubtedly motivated by white supremacist beliefs, including some sort of a reclaiming of a white Australia, which is a fallacy in this settler colonial country. But this does not change the fact that advancing their political cause was the reason for the violence, which does fall within the Australian definition of terrorism.

Hate crimes are those motivated out of prejudice towards a group, which can involve the victim belonging to group due to race, religion, sexuality, gender or a number of other protected attributes. In the context of a nation built on British invasion that readily entailed white settlers attacking First People’s camps, with the implicit backing of the state, there’s no denying this was a hate crime.

So, it would appear the frontier tradition of impunity continues to be at play in the case of charging the neo-Nazis, and the Australian criminal justice system seems incapable of recognising these crimes for the hate and terror they entailed simply because it involves white Australians acting against First People’s in the manner of the founding of the country in its present form.

A crime against First Peoples

At the Blak Caucus rally in front of Anthony Albanese’s office on Gadigal land in the inner Sydney suburb of Marrickville on 3 September, there was a sombre mood because of the gravity of the Camp Sovereignty attack. The protesters were there to call on Labor to intervene in the law-and-order drive to which the NT Country Liberal ministry is subjecting the First People’s of the region.

During the rally, various speakers addressed the Camp Sovereignty attack and it has been felt across First People’s communities continent-wide. There is now a National Day of Action planned for 13 September. The rallies are “against the continued rise of racism, fascism and white supremacy”, which was put on stark display at Camp Sovereignty and the anti-immigration rallies.

Uncle Robbie explained on Thursday that he’d been in discussions with law enforcement and it appeared that any ongoing threat to the camp was no longer an issue, so any mass convergence from across the continent was not needed. He added that in terms of those charged, six NSN members have been arrested: one’s in gaol, one’s on bail and four have been given intervention orders.

On his 3CR radio show Black Block last Monday, Uncle Robbie had Palestinian Syrian activist Nathalie Farah on to speak about her experience of the attack. She recalled that during the day there had been two incidents of neo-Nazis wandering around the site, and after the actual attack, they’d seen footage of the police escorting Nazis away from the camp to the tram stop but not arresting them.

“They were allowed to go and parade their racist, hateful, fascist ideology in the streets. We saw this because we were on the frontline during the so-called March for Australia. They threw glass at us. They threw rocks. They threw frozen water bottles. They were there geared up for a fight, and we were there with flyers,” Farah said of the NSN, who’ve been parading publicly since March 2023.

“Of course, it’s a very expected thing for the police, as well, they were facing us with the pepper spray,” she said, adding that state law enforcement had basically protected the “horrific show of nationalism” from the onset of counter-protesters.

Those present, who moved to protect Camp Sovereignty and its sacred fire, were subjected to violence, as the neo-Nazis were attempting to desecrate the fire. The NSN members purposefully stomped and spat on an Aboriginal flag. So, this was a targeted attack on a First People’s sacred site, in among the bashing up of women and the kicking of people with steel capped boots.

“It escalated quite quickly,” Farah continued. “A bunch of people came and supported those who were injured and then we kept pushing and pushing, until we were able to push them away from camp. It was very terrifying. But I am very proud of everyone… We did everything to not let them into camp. They didn’t touch the fire. They didn’t touch any of the infrastructure that was there.”

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.